Our open floor plan makes the problem worse. When we run the air conditioning the second floor cools off. But as soon as the AC stops, the cold air all settles back down in the basement.
neoTerra will also have an open stairwell. We thought it would be reallly nice if we could circulate that cool basement air up to the main floor, so I did a little science project to test the theory.
For this test, I selected a 340 CFM Panasonic WhisperLine fan. These are among the quietest and most energy efficient on the market.
It worked better than expected, though the cleaning lady was a little baffled by the shiny metal tubing running up the hallway!
The 340 CFM fan actually moves too much air for a single room so I'm planning to buy two smaller units for neoTerra. We will locate them at opposite ends of the house to make the air travel as far as possible to get back down the central stairwell.
Here's a link to the Panasonic web site:
http://www.panasonic.com/business/building-products/ventilation-systems/products/whisper-line.asp