Wood Stove dampener and blower questions

[Smawgunner]

I'm heating a 24x18 two story hewn cabin with a small no frills wood stove...door with glass...not a potbelly. It does an okay job but goes through wood pretty quickly. I've been told by a friend of mine that it's a must to get a dampener for efficiency. Are there any dangers to these? I don't know much about them. Also, he was talking about a blower too. Any brand names or other info I should look for? My stove has a heat type shield on the back that I thin was made for a blower? Do most of you use these two add ons?

 

[Jackalope]

I'm heating a 24x18 two story hewn cabin with a small no frills wood stove...door with glass...not a potbelly. It does an okay job but goes through wood pretty quickly. I've been told by a friend of mine that it's a must to get a dampener for efficiency. Are there any dangers to these? I don't know much about them. Also, he was talking about a blower too. Any brand names or other info I should look for? My stove has a heat type shield on the back that I thin was made for a blower? Do most of you use these two add ons?

I had a catalytic wood stove by Vermont castings that came with a blower. It had a thin metal heat shield surround much like you're describing. I personally took it off because I didn't like the constant sound of a blower. On low you couldn't hear it, but it didn't move a bunch if air, for it to have any use it had to be on high. I questioned the validity of it because how far could it really be moving the air. Hot metal is hot metal and that heat is dissipating in to the room regardless. A ceiling fan would do far better a job at moving hot air than a stove mounted blower on a free standing stove.

They say you shouldn't on a catalytic stove but I installed an flu pipe damper on mine. This helped greatly with being able to regulate the burn rate of the stove. On a catalytic stove the internal flu is either opened or closed. Meaning that you are either bypassing the catalytic and going straight to the chimney or its closed and going through the catalytic. The problem is the flow through the catalytic is only regulated by how restrictive it is. Basically it's open to the chimney and a lot of heat still circulates through the catalytic and out the chimney. They claim that you can regulate this by cutting down the air flow to the stove, but even with my air on the lowest setting it still burned quick. Adding the pipe damper allowed me to slow down this flow and better regulate the burn rate. A word of caution though it is possible then to completely choke the stove down and kill the fire if both the air supply and the damper are completely closed. Handy for making lump charcoal though.

The number one factor to how much wood you burn will be the efficiency of the home however. You probably notice that in the early season you load it once in the morning and in the evening. But when it's in the teens outside you're feeding that sucker all day. The more cold that's getting inside the faster you have to burn to keep the house at a reasonable temp. In early season you may have the stove completely closed down for air, then in dead winter you're setting the air to half way or all the way open and burning faster. The stove and inside air will be the same temperature as early season, but you have to burn faster to hold that temp the more leaky the home is.

Anyway. Hope that helps.

 

[hickslawns]

We have a blower on a stove in one of our buildings. Don't use it often but the blower is nice when it is used. I would think the damper would be built into the stove.

 

[Floki]

Most wood stoves have a dampener. If you want max efficiency get magic heat. Box that’s on stove pipe. Not pretty but it’s the cats ass. I think i May have an extra blower laying around. I will look tommrow. But your wood stove should have cut outs for it.

 

[Buckkillr]

I think a dampener of some sort is a must unless your a firewood cutting machine.

A blower that is mounted in the stove is amazing, the stoves designed for them have a dead air space all around the stove and the blower forces all that heat out, it's like a normal furnace at home.

If what your doing now is ok then doing both of those and setting them right, and you'll be opening windows after a few hours