A Question of Thermodynamics

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George Stolz

George Stolz

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Windsor, CO NEC: 2023
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Hospital Master Electrician
What would you recommend for a fan, or something, to get this space...

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...using two of these?

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I'm at a loss. I can't imagine a ceiling fan doing diddly. I have never installed a flue blower, but had one growing up. I can't imagine the heat from a couple of these little fireplaces heating a drafty warehouse all winter.

Edit: They have a couple of ceiling-hung gas heaters (visible in pictures), but apparently he'd rather burn wood than gas. They were running one of the fans on the heaters while I was there, didn't seem to do much.

Thoughts?
 
I think fans could help a lot.

I would think two or three large ones with speed controls to keep them moving slow. You don't want to feel a breeze you just want to keep the air from stratifying.
 
About 8 industrial paddle fans could be more depending on size.
Ritehitefans.com just found them google looks like the have a pdf to size qty. by.
Back in the 70's and 80's we had all this green stuff, solar, task lighting, fans, etc., the fans work they draw air up
so you get less of a cool breeze and bring the heat down.
 
You want to move the heat from the higher areas this can be done with two or three 52 inch fans. You do not want to have the fans blowing down but switch them so they blow upwards this will keep the area more comfortable.
 
I second the motion regarding a few fans. 36" or 48" fans might do the trick. Whatever convection heat those stoves are throwing out is immediately going up to the ceiling area. It won't take much CFM to bring it down to the floor. With the model below, you can have up to 4 fans controlled by the same speed switch.

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roger said:
Look into a Bigass fan

Roger
Click to expand...

Those are some of the biggest (er big ass) fans I have ever seen. I saw one at a convention center once a few years ago. It had to be at least 20' in diameter.:cool: The type of fan you can throw a loaf of bread up into and you would have thin sliced pieces raining down on you...
 
LJSMITH1 said:
Those are some of the biggest (er big ass) fans I have ever seen. I saw one at a convention center once a few years ago. It had to be at least 20' in diameter.:cool: The type of fan you can throw a loaf of bread up into and you would have thin sliced pieces raining down on you...
Click to expand...

I have a 24 foot "powerfoil" BAF in our breaker shop, the blades are airfoils and it runs off a VFD, we can only turn it up to 7 or bad things happen (Chairs go flying, doors slam, carts fly arcross the room, etc). The thing us like having a controllable hurricane. Keeps the shop cool on hot summer NC days and warm in the winter.

Call this a big ass recommendation for a big ass fan.
 
ducting

ducting

I toured a shop It had a winter/summer duct.. It consisted of a metal/spiral 30/36in Tinhorn that they stole from the road crew, mounted up longways along the apex of the ceiling, then had a downspout to the floor of the shop. At the end of the downspout the had a typical 36in box fan. In the summer they open the windows and blow upwards. In the winter they spin the box fan the other way around and draw the hot air from the top down to the shop floor. they said it worked well, better than any ceiling fan.
 
LJSMITH1 said:
Those are some of the biggest (er big ass) fans I have ever seen...
Click to expand...
For some reason I can't access that website...

So out of curiosity I went to the Howden Buffalo website... since one of their [major?] facilities is about ten miles from my house. I have seen some pretty big fans going out their doors over the years. I gleaned the following image from a brochure.


blades.jpg
 
Looks like many open roof penetrations, and a butt load of exhaust fans and those ambient sky lights.

The exhaust fans will blow out the warm air, and suck in cold air to replace it.

No matter what you do, the heat (warm air) will leave as fast as you make it.

Are infared heaters an option?
 
Dnkldorf said:
Looks like many open roof penetrations, and a butt load of exhaust fans and those ambient sky lights.

The exhaust fans will blow out the warm air, and suck in cold air to replace it.

No matter what you do, the heat (warm air) will leave as fast as you make it.

Are infared heaters an option?
Click to expand...

This is why circulating fans are best for this application..but they won't replace the heat. They will just spread it around.

Quartz IR heaters are nice...but the meter will spin like a top when they are on. They already don't seem too keen on using gas, and I can't imagine they want a much bigger electric bill.
 
George, our shop is somewhat smaller but we had a similar problem a while back. What we did was simply use jack chain and hang two basic box fans up top facing down. They simply push the hot air down to the floor. We found out we needed these when the heat up top at 15ft was about 20 degrees warmer than on the floor.

On a side note I commented a while back on a new shop we are building. I know the temps here are nothing like up North but it can get a tad cool to here. I think I am going to look at the infrared tube heaters for the shop. Good luck on your project.
 
You mentioned a flue blower, something along those lines can be very beneficial in keeping the heat going into the building rather than up the chimney.
 
A few beat me to Big Ass Fans... I would suggest though that you take a few shots of the ceiling temp with an IR thermometer to see if moving air from there down would even help...

But I think you'll only end up with a breeze... A wood burning stove is thermal radiant... It might be a better idea to suggest a different source of heat - or a wood fired boiler since they seem set on burning their waste it seems... Then hydronic under gypcrete.
 
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