Fireplaces, Heating Stoves, Flues and Chimneys - Ideas to heat main floor

I have installed a new wood stove in my basement. I am looking for ideas how to get the heat to the main floor. I realize heat rises etc, but I'm wondering if I can tap into lines and make a shut off or something. I dont think I can simply cut a vent thru the floor to let heat rise, something to do with the fire risk rising thru the floor in the event of a fire. Any feed back will be appreciated. Natural gas is getting $$$. :gmorning:

Sounds like something similiar to what my wife and I are thinking of doing. Our wood burning stove is on the first floor and I want to make it quicker/easier to heat the second floor.
The plan I've been starting to think about is to build a soffit along the wall/ceiling corner so that it runs from almost directly above the stove, along the ceiling/wall corner to wherever I want heat vents/registers in the floor of the upstairs. I would run round duct work through the soffit, starting with an intake vent in the area above the stove, and ending in registers that would be installed in the floor of the above. To circulate/force air upstairs, I would install a fan/blower in the duct. Home depot sells a fan made to fit in either a 6" or 8" round duct, I'm not sure how much air it would move but it certainly would help heat up the upstairs a lot quicker.

Thanks, First Home;

I am thinking the same kinda thing. My basement ceiling is not finished yet so I will probably take 2 x 2's and make a type of cribing along my one wall above the stove then add ducting then drywall and paint. On the floor I will cut out vents in a couple of rooms. They say Nat Gas is up 95% in Northern BC and I hope this helps.

Thanks, IHD :)

I am thinking the same thing you are. I might go get one of those ventless propane stoves and put it in my fireplace or a gas log. They do crank some heat becasue my Mother has one over here gambrel garage and it heats the whole room easily. I have a ranch and they say it can heat 1000 sq feet.? I might get a pellet stove for the living also?

I don't know?

I heated my 2600 sq. ft rambler (1300 main floor, 1300 basement) for 10 years with a woodstove in the corner of the basement. I cut a 12-inch square hole from the basement ceiling above the stove to the main floor corner of the living room. I lined the hole with a galvanized sheet metal liner and then installed a nice grill both at the top and bottom. Initially I was thinking that the heat would rise, but not much heat rose upward. The rising heat was not nearly enough volume. So then I took an old five bladed electric fan out of an obsolete kitchen range hood and intalled that fan in the vent, controlled by a switch in the wall behind the stove. With that fan running I really got a lot of hot air up to the main floor.

The floor plan on the main floor had a hallway running from the living room to the bedrooms, and then the master bedroom had a bathroom with two doors, one on the bedroom side and the other into the kitchen area just above the stairway to the basement. So by keeping the main floor doors properly open/shut I could route the warm air from the stove down the hall, through the master BR and then it returned down the basement stairs. That system worked great and allowed me to evenly heat the entire house with the wood stove. This was in Utah and it required about 7 cord of wood per year to heat the house. The native heating system was all electric. When the house was first built the electric company had a special good rate for "all electric" homes, but they phased that out and it was too extensive to heat the house with electricity. That is why I went to heating with wood.

I am heating my 1500 sq. foot house with a wood stove. THe heat does rise and keeps my house relatively warm, however, I would like increase the efficiency. htgc1, your system seems very intruiging.

sorry to answer a question with another question, but with a wood stove in the basement, where does the flue go out of the house?

Thanks for all your replies,

Our weather here has been roughly 15 c above average so far this winter, I think the coldestweek day we had was -24 C. Anyway the wood stove works great I have a Blaze King princess and load it at 10:00 and there is still lots of coals at 7:00 am. I think we will make a floor vent & fan to heat main floor. We havent needed the gas furnace yet since installation and up here the only wood we have is pine/spruce. By the way I had to install a new chimney thru the basement wall 25'. later.