thor97
ArboristSite Member
Am looking for a woodstove fan, and have heard the eco fans burn up after 4 or 5 years but are cheaper. Love the stirling fan but its expensive and shouldn't be used over 500 degrees. Any thoughts?
which woodstove fan is best?
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TimberWolf530
ArboristSite Guru
I just got an Caframo Airmax Ecofan about 3 weeks ago. It's messed up already. It worked great at first, but now it won't start on it's own. I have to "push start" it, and the top speed is only about half what it was when I first got it. It's pretty much useless at this point. I'm going to call them to see what they will do about it some time this week.
Don't wastes your money. These fans are nothing more than toys.
Not entirely true Del. While they don't move much air, we have noticed that they help get the cold spots of the house warm. Yeah, it's like pissing into the wind..... but.....
sent from a field
sent from a field
Yeah a good buddy of mine has one. $150. or so. That's pretty big bucks for something a little muffin fan can do for $15 or 20 and last for decades. The idea that the fan has to sit on the stove ends up being it's destruction so the money save on buying electricity is a moot point. Probably paying $1 per kilowatt or close.
No doubt it's a large initial investment. We are going 3 years on ours and haven't had to do anything to it. I would argue the majority of failures are from overheating it.
I won't downplay the novelty. It's nifty. But it does move air. Now, does it move as much as the natural convection currents created by a stove, I doubt it.
When the temps really drop is when we notice the need to help air move around the house. Ours is supplemented by a 20" box fan with a furnace filter on it.
sent from a field
Devil Watt generator. They make several solutions to this using the same principle as the Caframo fan only in a larger scale. I've had a couple of the Caframo fans and IMO none are much more than a fun oddity.
My buddy's is on an ancient welded steel stove with no viewing glass. I believe it may be a knockoff of the Fisher Baby Bear. He can tell how his stove is doing by the fan speed. His stove slowly smoulders 24/7 burning 100% seasoned oak.
Yes. The problem is that the thermoelectric chips fade with time and heat. Ripping fires do a number on the fans because the heatsink isn't big enough do dissipate it quickly enough and the chip breaks down. I looked on DigiKey for some higher temp rated chips but they weren't cheap enough to spur much of my interest.
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