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.
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.
Are they worth it vs just redirecting the input/output?
Redirecting the input from the designed direction will slow down the airflow and often increase the noise level as it struggles to draw the air in.
Ugh louder. That’s not gonna go well with the spouse.
unfortunately as others have said, any redirection of the air flow will cause extra noise.
Centrifugal fans exhaust 90 degrees from intake and are very common. Could also search for blower fan. Not sure if sizes meet your needs though.
Centrifugal! That’s a good word for this. Thanks.
try looking up “squirrel cage fan”
it sounds like I’m joking but it is really what they are called.
Or blower fan
I have a home air filter that pulls in through the front and blows out the top. Portable dehumidifiers can do the same on fan mode, blow air upwards.
Any fan from a laptop computer does this. They aren’t too noisy nowadays.
The first sentence from OP “I’m trying to circulate air in my house”. Your proposal: a laptop fan.
I love comedy.
I have a similar issue at my house, I put up a thermal curtain at the bottom of the stairs with an extendable curtain rail that wedges between the walls and that mostly solves it.
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
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.
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.
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.
Dude’s not going to be burning anything out, his furnace fan motor can’t even adequately ventilate his house as it is right
That’s not how it works… But you be you.
