I’m trying to circulate air in my house. We have a split level home (lower, middle, upper, in a zig zag sort or arrangement. I hate it, but that’s beside the point) and the lowest level is always too cold and highest level too warm. I want to move air from the lower level to at least the middle level.

I need a fan, preferably small or thin profile that blows 90° from intake. Ideally a box fan that has a horizontal intake but exhausts up or sideways. What I’ve done in previous years is have a rotated fan that pointed up, intake from below, and was raised off the ground.

The closest I’ve found is a carpet dryer drum style. It has round intakes on the side and a rectangular vent on the front. That would totally work (point the intake at the cold room and the exhaust up towards the middle room) but it’s way over powered for my situation. Also, it’s a bit wider than ideal, though slimmer than what I used last year.

  • lime!@feddit.nu
    13·
    2 days ago

    you’re looking for a radial fan, as opposed to the normal axial kind.

    be warned though, they need to spin faster to move the same amount of air and so tend to be a lot louder.

    • Tja@programming.dev
      11·
      1 day ago

      The first sentence from OP “I’m trying to circulate air in my house”. Your proposal: a laptop fan.

      I love comedy.

  • Cort@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 days ago

    If you have a central furnace you can close the outlet vents on one floor of the home. Downstairs in the summer and upstairs in the winter. Most air conditioners actually tell you to close the downstairs vents to keep the upstairs cooler, since warm air rises

  • palordrolap@fedia.io
    2·
    2 days ago

    I’d be sitting down and prototyping conduits with strong cardboard and sticky tape. And my desk fan in the middle.

    The fan itself doesn’t have to make the angle if it has the right kind of redirection around it.

  • Krudler@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    Get Styrofoam blocks and plug vents seasonally. In summer plug the downstairs ones so AC feeds upstairs and drifts down, opposite in winter to make air heat the lower levels and slowly rise.

    • ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      If you have a variable speed fan this is fine. If you don’t then this can burn up the blower motor, so be careful with balance and flow when you do.

  • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    1·
    2 days ago

    Another term to search for is “centrifugal fan” - these are the type used where air flow restrictions are significant, as they can compress the air some unlike a traditional box fan. For noise, a larger fan at lower speeds is generally less intrusive.

    Where’s the return on your air handler? If there’s more than one (one upstairs, one down), you may be able to cheat the system by blocking one seasonally.

    Also most likely the air handler speed is set too high - installers are kind of lazy (they don’t want callbacks) so they typically set the air handler to max speed. Since most instalsl are also well oversized, this means the system will short cycle and move less air during that short cycle. Lowering the air handler speed may help lengthen the cycle, moving more air in total.

    You could also try just turning the air handler on (fan mode orn"Always On" on thermostat).

    This probably won’t solve your problem entirely, just maybe help.