We study the flow and thermal stratification of a closed domain subjected to different combinations of line and distributed surface heating and cooling. Our observations are drawn from a set of direct numerical simulations in which the ratio of the strength of the distributed sources to the localised sources \HfRb is varied and shown to play a decisive role in determining the system’s statistically steady state. Domains of sufficient horizontal extent that are (\HfRb=0) produce a stable two-layer stratification. The planar plumes generated by each line source are connected by a large scale circulation over the full depth of the domain and induce secondary circulations within each layer. As the distributed component of the heating, and therefore \HfRb, increases, the buoyancy difference between the layers decreases, before being destroyed when \HfRb>1. For increasing \HfRb∈[0,1], we observe an increasing tilt of the interface between the layers and the eventual disappearance of the secondary circulation cells. The mean buoyancy transport between the two layers of the stable stratification is dominated by the plumes for all $