If you have a wood stove in your home for winter, you know it can provide effective heat when operated properly. But as a wood stove owner, you also know how the heat can sometimes simply escape above and disappear. These instances can lead to burning more wood fuel than necessary.
Wood stove fans sit on top of wood stoves to help evenly distribute heat so it reaches the rest of the house. These operate without electricity and instead use the heat coming off of the stove’s surface.
Wood stoves come in different shapes and sizes and radiate off varying temperatures when they’re up and running. The same goes for wood stove fans and surely, not all options available will work for your specific model of wood stove.
In this article, we dive deep on exactly how a wood stove fan works, all its good and bad points, and other considerations to keep in mind in using one.
What is a Wood Stove Fan?
A wood stove fan is a wood-burning stove gadget and accessory usually placed and sits on top of the stove. What a wood stove does is help distribute the stove’s heat output evenly throughout the room.
While a wood stove produces and provides households with efficient heat, you might notice you have to sit closely to the stove to really feel the heat on a very cold day.
Wood stoves use radiant heat, which means it heats objects and people directly in front of it, instead of warming up the air that surrounds it. In this way, wood stoves are able to offer quick warmth and heat to its immediate surrounding area. The problem is, many wood stoves can have trouble distributing heat to the greater part of the house.
This is where wood stove fans come to the rescue. When sitting on top of a wood stove, these fans turn on and use its generated air to push the warmer air to the rest of the house. These are essentially heat-powered fans.
A wood stove fan is an eco fan and doesn’t require electricity to run. They use the hot temperature of the stove’s surface to power up the motor. Once a stove’s surface reaches a certain minimum temperature, the fan will then turn on and start spinning its blades to generate air and push the warmth across the space.
Wood-Burning Stove Fan: The Good and The Bad
As wood-burning stoves are becoming a more and more popular heating system across many households, so do wood stove fans.
Now, you might be wondering whether you should get one for your stove unit or not. To help you decide whether or not this wood stove gadget is for you, we have below all the good and bad points of owning one:
The good
Cost-effective
Wood stove fans don’t rely on power and electricity. With getting one, you only need to pay the price of the fan upfront and would never have to worry about any increase in your electric bills.
Burn less
Because a wood stove fan works to distribute warm air evenly throughout your home, you won’t feel the need to feed the stove more fuel than necessary. This means you save more on wood stove fuel and lessen your household’s CO2 emissions into the environment.
Get cozy faster
As mentioned above, a wood stove fan would help distribute heat throughout the room by pushing warm air where it needs to go. You can enjoy warmth and coziness faster than without a heat-powered fan.
The bad
Minimum temperature to work
Wood stove fans need a certain minimum temperature for it to start working. If your stove’s surface doesn’t reach that temperature, then the fan won’t work.
They get very hot
Though they need heat to operate, wood stove fans can get too hot. Exceeding temperatures can cause damage to its motor. Just like a hot wood stove can cause burns, so does an exceedingly hot stove fan, especially for kids and pets.
Exposed blades
Most wood stove fans have exposed blades and when accidentally touched, can cause wounds and cuts.
How Do Wood Stove Fans Work?
Now that we’ve got all the wood stove fan basics out of the way, let’s now dive deep on how exactly they work:
Heat from the surface
A wood stove fan needs to be placed on top of a wood stove. The heat-generated power works to turn its blades.
Temperature difference
When the wood stove is up and running, the fan gets its power from the surface’s high temperature. It generates electricity and power by having one side hot and the other side cool. The occurring temperature difference creates a small voltage to turn the motor on and turn the fan’s blades.
Blow warm air into the room
Once the fan’s blades start turning, it will start to work on distributing warm air to the rest of the room and not just into its immediate surroundings.
Wood Stoves With vs. Without a Stove Fan
Hot air rises. Without a wood stove fan, the warmth it generates goes straight above and eventually disappears into the air. Unless you have an air duct system or have your stove placed somewhere low level like a basement, this seems like a waste.
With a wood stove fan, the hot air is pushed towards the rest of the house, instead of going straight above. The fan helps distribute and circulate the heat evenly throughout your space.
Wood Stove Fans: Other Things to Keep in Mind
Before you go ahead purchasing a fan to assist your wood stove, keep in mind these considerations and other important factors first:
Wood stove fans need a minimum temperature to work
Wood stove fans would require a certain minimum temperature to start working. This would vary depending on the model you got, but typically, the minimum temperature can go from anywhere between 85-100°C. If your stove’s surface doesn’t reach this temperature, then the fan would not work.
Wood stove fans come in different shapes and sizes
Not all wood stove fans are created the same. And just like wood stoves come in different shapes and sizes, so do wood stove fans. Because a fan stands on the stove’s surface, you need to consider the size and shape of both. A stove’s surface should be able to accommodate the size and shape of the fan.
Monitor surface temperature with stove thermometer
A stove fan also has a max temperature it can take on. When a stove’s surface gets too hot for the fan, this can cause damage to the fan’s motors. Typically, a wood stove fan can take on a maximum temperature of 345-350°C.
To avoid damage to your fan, buy yourself a stove thermometer to keep the surface temperature in check.
Take extra precaution with kids and pets around
Wood stoves and wood stove fans deal with heat and blades. A house with adults can avoid accidents but a household with kids and pets should take extra precautions to avoid burns from touching the surfaces or cuts from touching the blades.
Conclusion
Wood stoves provide efficient heat, but because warm air rises, the heat doesn’t always reach the rest of the space where you want it.
Wood stove fans help distribute that heat evenly throughout the space. They sit on top of the stove’s surface, transforming radiant heat to convection heat. Plus, they don’t need electricity, so they’re very cost-effective.
And that has been our guide on wood stoves fans and how they work. If you have any questions for us, reach out to us below!
