Heat-powered fan for Wood stove

[Lesley]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if you could take a look at this fan and tell me your opinion regarding the likelihood that it actually does what it says.

I have a Jotul Allagash natural gas-burning stove and I was thinking about getting this type of fan for it. I know the Jotul has it's own electrically-powered fan, but I thought if this one that doesn't need electricity actually worked, it would be great to use that instead. We recently had a 4-day power outage. . .although I had some heat because of the gas stove, it would have been nice if I could have moved the air around a bit. An added bonus is that it costs more than $100 less than the Jotul blower unit, PLUS I don't have to pay anyone to install this!

I appreciate your help.

Best,

Lesley

[TomCase]

I've seen these fans and Yes, they do work, but they really don't move much air at all, I'd guess they move 1/20th the air volume of a "normal" fan. A $15 box fan pointing at your stove would do a much better job of circulating air. But again, they don't need any electricity.

If your goal is to move a little air when there is no electricity, then this fan will do that. If your goal is to circulate the air in a room, this will not help much.

Maybe call some stores in your area that sell wood stoves, they may have some you could see in action. Good luck.

[tnom]

$150 will buy a lot of electricity.

If you are concerned with power outages $150 will buy a lot of batteries

[Lesley]

I figured as much. When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Anyway, I guess I'll just cough up the $300+ to have the blower unit installed. I don't want to use a regular "box" fan because it wouldn't complement the decor. That's why it was the blower unit or the heat-powered fan---those were my 2 choices.

Thanks for your help,

Lesley

[Steve Barker LT]

Are you wanting to "complement the decor" or heat the friggin house?! jeeeeeeze, burning wood and worrying about what it looks like.

[Harry K]

Worried about decor and thinking about using one of _those_!!?? I would not like to see the 'decor' that would fit into.

Harry K

[bamboo]

[Goedjn]

You do realize that the air-mover doesn't have to be anywhere near the stove to work, right? The best place to put a fan for moving stove heat around is in the transom of a door to another room.

And why is the window over a door named the same thing as the ass-end of a boat?

[Chris Lewis]

According to Lesley :

As others have said, the heat-powered one isn't going to be terribly useful, especially when you really need it to push hard (during a power outage).

Our wood stove has a built in electric fan, of the 1/12 HP variety. Given the layout of the house, it can heat the whole place _if_ the fan is operational.

When the power dies, we run the fan off a 400W inverter and a battery from a recently deceased vehicle. That size inverter is available for under $50 these days.

The combo is capable of running the fan full blast for several days, and can be used to provide power for other things. Like a CF lightbulb and the radio. TV and dish receiver too if we're feeling really bored ;-)

[Goedjn]

Of course, if you really want to use wood-heat to heat the whole house without power, you need to give your fire marshal fits, and cut vent holes in the ceiling above the stove and in other strategic places, thus creating convection currents around the house.

If you do that, it's a good idea to have closable grates put in so that the vents are only open when you DO need to heat the house that way.

[jackson]

What does work and on low power consumption is those little high CFM 12V computer fans....

[Chris Lewis]

According to jackson :

"high CFM" in terms of computer fans is, like, 15-25 CFM. Which isn't going to do anything useful compared to a proper blower of at least

100CFM and preferably more.

I have some 8" "muffin" fans that'd work pushing 200CFM. But, that's a lot of amps at 12V. [They're actually 120VAC]. And they're quite loud (off large scale computer-room gear where it doesn't matter much).

For the most part, heating anything larger than a single smallish room, a decently sized 120VAC blower running off an inverter would be the most cost-effective solution.

[We can easily heat our entire house - two story, 2200 square feet, "open concept", with a single woodstove and an inverter powering the woodstove's blower. I think the blower is around 200CFM. We still have the problem of too much heat in the upper floor tho - need another fan to control that. In a closed concept floorplan, it'd be much more difficult.]