Heat Transfer System

Who can recommend it?

We have our woodburner in the kitchen which is a very small area. Although we have the door to the living/dining area and the hall open I often stand in the kitchen, cooking dinner in a T-shirt while the other areas of the house could do wih a bit more warmth.

Does such a heat transfer system create a noticeable draft?

Can some ducts be shut while others are open?

I am also looking into this, but then I wondered about including one with outside ventilation to reduce the condensation too. Not the HRV things as they filter from the roofspace, but a properly ventilated one with outside air and a heat exchanger unit. If anyone has experience or knows of the pros and cons of both systems the feedback would be really useful

We have the standard heat transfer system, basically a thermostat in the lounge where the fire is which turns the fan on when the lounge reaches a certain temp. Heat travels through insulated ducting to each room which has a vent in the ceiling that can be closed if room not in use. It doesn't heat the room to 30deg but it takes the chill off and the temp in the house is usually about 17-20deg. The noise isn't too bad, just a slight background humm. No draft really, you have to put your hand right up to the vent to feel the air coming out. I wouldn't be without one with a log burner

We have a very long house, with the wood burner in the lounge at one end.
After seeing the very expensive systems out there, we put in a simple and economic heat transfer system which does the job. Most of the gear was bought off TM, with the odd bought bit here and there to finish the job.
In the lounge, there is a ceiling intake (square vent about 300mm) above or near the fireplace. This leads via a 2m length of 250mm insulated ducting to an inline 250mm fan in the ceiling. From that runs a length of 200mm ducting down the length of the house, splitting off here and there to 150mm feeders. These feeders connect to 150mm ceiling outlets in the bedrooms. The outlets have a rotary centre, which allows us to open or close each outlet as much as we'd like.
The idea is that the hot air above the fire is sent to the far end of the house, which pushes the cooler air back down the hallway to the lounge. If we don't want a room heated, then we just close the room door. With the door closed, is only very little warm airflow into the room.
The fan is run from a thermostat (little dial) switch at chest level in the lounge, near the hallway. It only runs the fan when the temp in the lounge gets to above (say) 19 deg.
All up I think it cost me $500. Lots of crawling in the ceiling (buy kneepads and a headlight), and lots of rolls of cloth tape at the RedShed.

Our house is about 15 sq's and we bought the "best" system with our metro fire a couple of years back at fielddays as a package deal.

the downside was that not enough pipework was supplied and we had to buy extra in. We didn't bother installing the thermostat, rather have the on/off switch in our office/b3 that we can choose to turn on or off.

Our living area is one long room combined with dining and kitchen. It is also the room/s to get the last of the sun and so retains the heat, whereas the rear rooms don't.

We are very happy with the heat transfer system apart from the first comments above. When at full efficiency, the entire house doesn't have a cold spot, apart from the floor in the laundry. Our bedrooms are warm and cosy, alongside having wool insulation in the roof and walls.

Does the average heat transfer system (without the fancy bits) help reduce condensation?

wyses seems to be totally on the right track from what my brother has done in his house. He raves about the effieciency of the system he has had installed and it is a thermostat 1500 mm above the floor that is default set to 22degrees. Once the fire in the lounge goes past that, it sends hot air down to various rooms. The fan that does this is small and minute useage in terms of power.

skyline glen - a comment for you. The guys who installed this for my brother "suspended" the fan in the roof and there is no noise at all. If you connect it to anything (rafter whatever) you will get a hum from the vibration.

Just know this is second hand information from him and I have no clue what I am talking about but whatever you do, do not go with the systems that claim to take the heat out of the roof cavity. You need the fire and you need the fan and you need the ducting to get it where you want it to go.

I will be down at his place end of next week and can find out what the system is (he's watching the Wales / All Black game and didn't want to go and look for the info!) If it is urgent I can ring him back.

No idea what the "normal" installation cost would be as he has friends of friends and it cost $450. Sorry wyses his contacts allow huge discounts - just wish they were up here in South Auckland! I so want one of these myself.

One further thought is that if you aren't burning hot wood then you may not get the results you want. Pine wouldn't do it in terms of heat generation whereas Native timber such as Matai, Manuka burn much hotter. Just added for thinking about as you make your decision, and how effective your fireplace is.

Wyseyes is exactly the same as ours, our hallway is long with the bedrooms off either side and lounge at one end. Works great, the guys at work call me the eskimo becauce I dont feel the cold but some nights I get too hot and I dont wear lot to bed so I kick the blankets off, thats how warm it can get.

Didi, our fan is suspended off the trusses so the noise is minimul, I think the noise is the air comming out of the vents rather than fan noise. It needs to be suspended from something and the rafter/truss is the only thing below the roof.

We also installed one, before this I struggled to get the living area warm, and the bedrooms were freezing. Now the living room is cosy and the bedrooms are comfortable. It creates a vacuum that draws the air through the house even if the doors are shut. Ours is a NZ brand and sold in major hardware and electrical supply stores. Very easy to install. Good value for money considering the alternative heating methods. It has a thermostat which we just turn on and off as required. And the vents in the bedroom dial open and shut manually so if a room isn't in use you can shut off the airflow to that room.

Because we had a excess of pines that needed to be cut down we have only burnt pine for the last five years with no trouble - sure denser woods have a better conversion but the pine was mostly free (time, labour, petrol and chain bar lube aside) you just have to fill up the fire box more often.[]

I can hear the fan but it is quieter than the dish washer[] and not an annoying sound.

We turn it off when we go to bed as we find the air gets too dry in the bedrooms.

There has been some reduction in condensation, but not a huge amount. Luckily we have a dryish house.

Xartep;321886 wrote: We also installed one, before this I struggled to get the living area warm, and the bedrooms were freezing. Now the living room is cosy and the bedrooms are comfortable. It creates a vacuum that draws the air through the house even if the doors are shut. Ours is a NZ brand and sold in major hardware and electrical supply stores.

I saw a system like this the other day in Mitre 10. It was in a large box with photographs and lots on info. written on the outside. All-up price $798 which I thought was great value.

Maybe it's the same one you have Xartep?

While I'm sure that heat transfer systems are an efficient and economical means of moving heat throughout a house, for those that don't have them and find the fire isn't heating the areas required, have you tried opening a window?

We too have a long house with the log burner in the dining/kitchen area with the hall and bedroom off that and the lounge to the side. I leave a window open in the end bedroom and the hall door open and the heat is dragged up the hall sufficiently to take the chill off the bedroom while still leaving the dining room comfortable. Same goes for the lounge, window open (if I can - Kevin hates moths so tries to shut every window in the house. He shuts them, I run along behind and open them[^])

Cheers,
Ronnie

Erstwhile again wow gold opt to be. " Said, into the cave, saw jackwood Polygonum posumbu onions, Flowers, magnificent, spic the atlantic, from the depths wow gold of diarrhoea in move crevices flowers Below.

We have a system as Wyseyes described, a fan in the roof, a vent above the fire and vents in the bedrooms. Vents can be manually closed, "dialed off" and the thermostat is in the hall, away from the heat source. Originally it was installed by the fire but..... when the oom got hot, the fan cut out leaving the other rooms without the heat source. Duh! (easy change, just installed it on the other side of the wall)

I don't think this arrangement would make any diff to the condensation. It does not filter the air, simply transfers it to where needed. In one of our rooms I run a dehumidifier, it is the closest to the ground and, so far, no underfloor insulation. (I'm working on it ) It is amazing the diff with dry air [:0]

optrex;321832 wrote: Does the average heat transfer system (without the fancy bits) help reduce condensation?

Cannot comment, we have double glazing and haven't noticed any here unless the drier is running for a period of time.

also forgot to mention that you can expect a slight noise from the fan operation, but as posted earlier, its quieter than the dishwasher.

Must talk to my brother about hearing aids! [] He insists he doesn't hear anything from the system - mind we may have to bring in a third party young person to verify that as my hearing is not the best either! Who knew? An advantage to getting older!