Improved heat dispersion

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FatJay

ArboristSite Member
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Location
Collegeville, PA
This may have been visited before, but I've looked everywhere and can't find a thing.

As a car and computer guy, when something's hot, you put a radiator on it to cool it down. Well I'm losing a ton of heat out my chimney so I thought, what if I put fins on it to radiate heat better? Even on top of hte stove is a giant flat surface. I could get some angle iron and bolt it together, apply some thermal paste, and stick it on top, transferring heat directly from the metal to the fins, then put a little fan on it and there would be much better heat dispersal. Hasn't anyone done anything like this before?
 
You can buy them. Little pricey and I can't say I've heard how they work but they look like a decent idea.

ecofan-heat-powered-wood-stove-fan.jpg
 
I have one already, it's sort of what I'm trying to build the idea off of. However as far as that piece goes, they're ornamental. They move about 1-3cfm. You can't blow out a candle with it. I have to get to 400 degrees before it is moving at any decent speed.
 
Jay if your stove top isn't reaching 400F with ease, then I think you might have a bigger problem.

Heatsinks are good for removing the heat and regulating the temperature... but don't you want that firebox cookin'? Running her hot keeps the flue clean and should optimize efficiency.

Is this freestanding into an open chimney? If so, make a block-off plate. I did this for my insert, and it keeps the hot air in the house.
 
I can reach 400F with ease, but usually it'll be cooking around 300-350F because I'm away for extended periods such as overnight or while i"m at work.

My stove is free standing, but doens't have a flue, instead I have a dial on the front that goes from 0-9 to control airflow. At night I set it at 3-4 to keep a good smoldering fire that hovers between 300-350. When I get home I throw a couple logs on and open it to 5.5, any higher and I'll be in the red in no time. I've never seen a stove with this sort of air control, but I haven't seen many either. I'm having my fiance who's at home take a picture and send to me to give a better idea.
 
I always keep it in the yellow on the thermostat, but if it's roaring my fire will burn out by 2am.

Here's my stove, albeit a bit messy at the moment. Fiance moved in friday so there's been a lot going on.

View attachment 262142
 
Here's my air control. At best I can fit 4 decent sized pieces in, it's not very large. They last maybe a couple hours at full blast, which I'm fine with, but if it burns out at night, the draft comes back down the chimney and into the house, and it gets cold fast.

View attachment 262143
 
Better Stove, Better Burns, Down

Dear Jay:

This is advice from LB--the Dear Abby of wood stove romance dilemmas.

Since this is your "fiance" ( not just a live-in, or new found "friend" --your right hand is in the air ? ) you need to get your heating in order. If the stove you say "goes out" at 0200, then it's time for a better heater. There's plenty of good experience on heating here on AS or you can try hearthnet.
'
If it's love you're after, get a good, fluffy down comforter. Let the GD stove snuff out, cuddle under the delicious warmth of 98.6 F from the two bodies :heart:, and enjoy bliss.

Besides the above, you need to learn how to keep a wood stove going all night without creating creosote. This is also posted many times here from the experienced wood burning romantics. Burn 101: fill stove with seasoned thicker splits for the long burn, get the load coaling, THEN damp the air down for the night. Cuddling varies with personnel. :msp_confused:

Thank you....thank you very much.
 
Del's right, if you cool down the flue it will just build creosote. Now could you extract some excess heat off without a problem....?...maybe. But if you do inspect the flue deposits before during and after any experiment you may have in mind, that way you will know if you are creating a monster or not.
 
To your question, unfortunately there is always gonna be some heat loss up the chimney. Gotta keep those stack temps up to get the smoke up and out before it condenses on the inside of your chimney, making the dreaded creosote. That's why no one makes a wood heating appliance that is more than about 80% efficient. Now if ya wanna increase heat transfer from the firebox, well, that's a different story, I'd say there's a thousand different ways to accomplish that. Attaching fins to the firebox may work. Looks like you are circulating the air with the fans already. If you are looking for more heat I assume this stove is not doing the job? Might be too small, might be time to upgrade to a bigger one? Do it now, before the fiance takes over the checkbook...:D

Edit: Northern sells a "heat exchanger" for the flue pipe called the Majic heat. I had one, they work good if you're burning hot and fast, but that's the problem, then you're burning too fast for overnite burn. Try to slow the burn down and the Majic heat turns into a majic self cleaning flue pipe! (read chimney fire) ask me how I know...
 
Last edited:
See, that's the magic part about those, automatic chimney cleaning never have to brush again. Course that's kind of a mute point when there is nothing left to support chimney. By the way, the dryer version isn't much better.
 
The problem is I live in a split level, getting heat from the left side to the right side up 4 stairs, then fromt he right side tot he left side again up 9 more stairs is a lot of lateral movement. That white fan blows on the fan and then right next to it is 4 stairs up into the kitchen.

If I try to buy a new stove I have to get a new hearth, and I'll get slack for not getting a new chimney for the fireplace on the right side of the house and using that instead. Not to mention it's 1.5mo until xmas and I have to buy her a new car this weekend because she just left her job which came iwth a company car, so now she's trapped at home all day with no where to go and no way to get there, and will probably be feeding my stove logs.
 
Wow, all sorts of clearance issues with that current stove / hearth setup. Never seen one like that before, at first glance it looks like a Scandia or another Jotul knock off.

Your best chance is to blow the cold air from the other rooms to the hot air from the stove and try to get some convection going.

If you go with another free standing stove it will have to be a rear vent like your current stove with that thimble so low, if you are looking for a new one I would check out woodstocks stoves, the fireview can be rear vent and does a great job at heating without blowing you out of the room.
 
The stove was an after-thought on the house, the chimney goes strait out the back to a sideways T, one pipe up and one pipe down. The down pipe has a cap on it that I take off and dump out creosote. I have a feeling if I replace the stove i"ll have to replace and re-route teh chimney as well. I believe it's primary function was designed to be for cooking, not heating, it's not the most efficient heater for sure. Still this morning I woke up to a 75F house on the first floor when it was 40F outside. I had 4 logs on it last night and set it a little higher at 3.5 to see how much i had left of the logs in hte morning knowing it wasn't going to be terribly cold. But a sustained burn for more than 2 hours will keep it at 300-350 at most. If I want to hit and maintain 400, I'm no more than 2 hours before I have to add more wood.
 
Computer heat sinks

If you have access to some old computers they are full of heat sinks. Take them out of the old computers and stack them on the top of the stove. Yea I know redneck all the way but that is what they are designed for and will pull the heat off of the fire box. Keep the pipes cleaned so you do not get a fire.

Good luck
 
Just scrubbed the chimney 3 weeks ago before I started burning. Was alarmingly clean considering towards the end of last year I ran out of good wood and had to resort to less desirable wood. However when I took off the bottom cap outside a TON of soot dropped strait out.
 
Do you have a damper in the flue pipe behind the stove? If you don't have one that would help with retaining some heat in the stove. Without it the heat heads out the back of the stove and up the pipe without much heat transfer.

P.S. I would get that stuff away from the stove. You have a fire waiting to happen there.
 
What's a damper and flu pipe? You mean the chimney coming out of the back? The only adjustment or moving part on the entire stove is the slider on the front.

Normally the stove area doesn't look like that but we just moved 5 truck loads of her stuff in through there. The house is a mess at the moment trying to figure out where to put everything.
 
Tmi

FatJay said:
The problem is I live in a split level, getting heat from the left side to the right side up 4 stairs, then fromt he right side tot he left side again up 9 more stairs is a lot of lateral movement. That white fan blows on the fan and then right next to it is 4 stairs up into the kitchen.

If I try to buy a new stove I have to get a new hearth, and I'll get slack for not getting a new chimney for the fireplace on the right side of the house and using that instead. Not to mention it's 1.5mo until xmas and I have to buy her a new car this weekend because she just left her job which came iwth a company car, so now no where to go and no way to get she's trapped at home all day withthere, and will probably be feeding my stove logs.
Click to expand...

LB "Dear Abby" here once more.

Your comments are more about the psychology of relations than about heat ...errrr, wood stove.
Extending a hearth is not a big job. Extending your need to satisfy the demands of your wife, well, that is the question as Mr. Holmes would say.
This advice is not available on ArboristSite. You may PM for more qualified referrals.

...and BTW, hold off on these too personal accounts. As the kids say TMI. :dizzy:
 

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