Warming up the kitchen

[Daox]

This weekend I took some time to check out my kitchen. It has 10 foot ceiling, and I was curious about how warm the air at the top was. So, I setup a simple test rig. I just used two of those outside temperature monitors. I put one temperature probe roughly 1.5 feet from the ceiling on top of the cabinets (red arrow). I put another temp monitor on the counter.





I monitored it for a while and it generally stayed around these temperatures. The red arrow shows the counter temperature, and the lower monitor is the ceiling temp. Yep, that says 69.3 and the counter temp is 65.5. Almost a 4 degree difference!





So, how do we get the warm air down? Well, I found a nice remote control squirrel cage fan at the local store. I put it above the cabinet and had it blow over the edge.





Now, I didn't expect earth shattering results, and I definitly didn't get any. After about two hours of blowing the ceiling temperature went down about 1 degree, and the counter temp went up .5 degree. I tried reaiming the fan downward a bit and that didn't help. So, plan one has failed. But, there is still a buncha heat up there, and I'm gonna get it one way or another!

My next idea is placing the fan in another part of the room so it blows almost directly up. I think that'll mix more warm/cool air together instead of having the fan blowing more horizontally. If that doens't work I'll be looking at ceiling fans. Any other suggestions are welcome!