How Many of You Do This?

How many of you turn the fan on your furnace to "ON" rather than "AUTO" to keep a more even temperature in your house?
I've done this the last couple of days and woke up to a warm house. It keeps the air circulated so there are no cold spots. Seems like the heat turns on less too!

Yep. I put in a tile floor with electric in floor heat under it. The corner of the tiled area is within 2' of my t-stat so it doesn't get an accurate reading. I should just move the stat, but until then I leave the fan on.

I no longer have hot air heat but at one time I had a hot air furnace with a fan that ran at a low speed and ran at a higher speed when the furnace was on. Worked quite nicely and as you note, it seemed to keep the house more uniformly warmed.

Cheaper to put in a ceiling fan mine run 24/7 and work great to get rid of cold spots.
Walt

I have a forced air wood burner that has the fan run constantly when the firebox is hot.

The only downside is that if you aren't vigil about adjusting the damper from one wood load to the next, it will get the house up over 85 degrees when it is 0 F outside. It feels silly to have open windows in the winter.

I've done that for the last 15 years or so. I have a variable speed motor so it circulated all year long but not at full tilt. It seems to help a lot in the winter when the downstairs is 80 degrees due to the wood stove. I think it keeps the house a lot cleaner because of the constant filtering.

We are fortunate that we don't need any heat due to good insulation and a mild climate but we do use the fan on the central air to circulate air in addition to ceiling fans. Many winter mornings the temperature inside the house will be in the mid low to 50's but back up to the mid 60's after the sun comes up a few hours, very seldom does it stay below 60 inside all day.

I always keep my central heat/air fan on auto but we have a box fan or ceiling fan on 24/7.

Got to where I can not sleep without a fan running. So much so that if I visit somewhere (kids house) I make sure we bring a box fan with us.

I don't run it on "on". Mainly because I don't want to listen to it.

Also I don't want to wear it out, the hassle and expense of replacing it. The cost of the electricity used would be offset by the added heat in the winter, but would be detrimental in a cooling application.

Now if I lived in a multi story house, or had the variable speed fan option, I would consider running it continuously.

Yes I do that quite often too.

Same here. Ceiling fan runs 24/7 and circulates air from the center of the house.

Well, not because I wanted to.
I had a real old furnace in this house when I bought it. A Monkey Wards, probably from the 70s. The limiter switch in the combustion chamber went out and a replacement had to come from England for about $100. The furnace had a switch to make the blower run full time so I ran it that way from October till May for 2 winters. Then 14 months ago I replaced the furnace with a HE unit and now just leave it alone.

My in ON as we speak, why have it start & stop?
Set on Medium speed & it's warmer, I'm happy &
she's happier so that's all that counts.....

It keeps windows warmer too, less condensation. Some newer furnaces will keep the fan on low speed between cycles. Or you can adjust the thermostat's heat anticipator, or on some adjust the fan thermostat for when it comes on and off.

As you found out, good circulation helps eliminate cold spots. Same with humans, good circulation and you stay warm.

If we had a furnace... but you're correct about maintaining circulation.

That, we do with an air system which draws about 100 watts of power, tiny fans. Works extremely well in our 20,000 cu ft house. Constantly provides fresh air, everywhere. After it gets warmed up in an HRV (heat recovery ventilator).

Don't know as you're going to save fuel, that would depend on what your house was doing before, but as you discovered, you're more comfortable. Which for some people means they can reduce the thermostat setting slightly, which will save fuel.

Auto.

The furnace blows cold air into the room for 3 minutes at the beginning and end of every cycle as it is. I couldn't stand it blowing cold air all the time.

Hey John,

The next time you come to Nashville, plan to stay at my house. You won't need to bring a fan with you.

My wife and I do exactly what you describe with box fans. We have them in every bedroom. We run them all night long in whatever bedroom we are using. We take a fan with us when we travel. I even turn a fan on in the living room if I decide to take a nap in my recliner.

The humming sound of the fan really helps us sleep better.

Tom in TN

I don't have a furnace I have a boiler and programmed Tstats. Little guy inside turns heat down to 58 at 9:30 PM and up to 65 at 5:00 AM so I come down stairs to a warm kitchen.

I have a ceiling fan for that.

The cold air at turn-on is leak-through of the 1" (down here) of
insulation that surrounds the ducts......not much insulation
considering your walls with 2x4 studs have 3 1/2" and your attic
6" or more.

Ducts may not look like it, but the surface area exposed to the
cold in the attic for 1' of 13" duct is 3.4' so just a 10' duct run is
34 square feet of area exposed to the cold. That's 5' of wall
equivalent with an 8' ceiling for just a 10 ' run of duct. Gonna
bet a 6 room house has more like 20' per room for 120' total
duct run, obviously some ducts larger, some smaller, exposed
with only 1" of insulation.

Leaving the blower on, not only keeps the room temp averaged
out, it also keeps the ducts warmed up to the average temp of
the rooms so no cold starts.

Additionally leaving the blower on keeps the temperature
passing the thermostat at more of an even level meaning that
you don't have these big changes in room temp before it kicks
on.

The amount of electricity to run the blower is nil. Down here for
a quick example, a 2 ton (24,000 BTU AC/80,000 BTU furnace)
unit runs a 1/3 hp blower. Throw in some efficiency numbers
and that's about 1/3 of a kilowatt hour per hour plus losses for
about 1/2 kWHr/hr.

Currently paying 13 cents per kWHr at my house. So 7c x 24 hrs
x 30 days = $5 per month. But wait. Subtract out the time the
blower runs anyway and it's maybe half that.

So, as I see it the "efficiency" setting you see on things like air
conditioners where the fan is off is an absolute joke. What do
you do to stir the air up.....turn on the ceiling fan......what did
you gain?

That's the way I see it and I'll pay the price.

Mark

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/cold-snap-leads-to-new-power-consumption-record-in-saskatchewan-1.2892009
We have already set record levels for power consumption in Sask. so I won't be leaving my furnace fan running non-stop. If its not blowing warm air then it won't be running. 68 degrees indoors, -25 outside.

Mine has a programmable speed fan that I can set to run real slow and circulate air between heating and cooling cycles, and I use that. I also use MERV 11 or 13 air filters, so it really keeps pollen, dust, etc. down in house.