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Stove Fan Effectiveness Question


BlueStringPudding

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I've acquired Monkey's stove fan coz he got annoyed with it having no effect on his Squirrel stove. It whizzed round but appeared to move little or no air. 

Today I've got it whizzing round on my Boatman stove. Seeing as my boat has a straight line corridor all the way through it, it seemed worth a try to see if it speeds up the warming up of the far end of the boat. I've held my hand up to the fan and can feel no movement of air at all. Thinking maybe my hand isn't sensitive enough to detect it,  I then plucked a long hair from my head and held that in front of the fan, to the side of the fan, all the way round the ruddy fan and it doesn't cause the slightest sway in the hair! Meaning any movement of air the fan creates seems to be negligible. 

Having missed something? Should it be doing anything? Should I try bending the blades maybe? Basically, are there any stove fan owners out there who can offer some advice please?

20171118_151028.mp4

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Can of worms duly opened.....

 

I dont think you will get a definitive answer to this one as people either swear they work or swear at them because they do not.

 

The makers of the genuine ecofans claim theirs work better than Chinese made copies (which I think yours looks like - apols if I'm wrong) but then they would wouldn't they? I bought one for the stove at home as a nostalgic 'look back' to our days on the boat rather than a belief in the thing working or not, but in truth I dont think it makes any difference what so ever.

Note the word 'simulation' on their diagram.

 

 

 

 

Ecofan.PNG

Edited by MJG
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My 'Cosystove' fan is currently sitting on my Squirrel stove, the temperature of which is registering at 72 centigrade and the draft that it is producing is enough to ruffle a piece of single ply tissue at a horizontal distance of 18 inches. I have previously measured a stove temperature of 320 centigrade and a horizontal tissue ruffling draft at over 3 feet.

It is strange I know, but the mixing effect on the air is far more that you could ever expect given the apparent lack of power of the fan. The saloon of my boat is much more comfortable with a much less noticeable difference in temperature between the deck head and the cabin sole.

 

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14 minutes ago, MJG said:

Can of worms duly opened.....

 

I dont think you will get a definitive answer to this one as people either swear they work or swear at them because they do not.

 

The makers of the genuine ecofans claim theirs work better than Chinese made copies (which I think yours looks like - apols if I'm wrong) but then they would wouldn't they? I bought one for the stove at home as a nostalgic 'look back' to our days on the boat rather than a belief in the thing working or not, but in truth I dont think it makes any difference what so ever.

Note the word 'simulation' on their diagram.

 

 

 

 

Ecofan.PNG

Yes, it's an Aldi flavoured one from last year.

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12 minutes ago, Robbo said:

Try a smoke test to see if that has any movement.   Think the fan should be at the side or back of the stove as well.

They do recommend they go as far back as poss which we can do on ours at home because the flue leaves from the top of the rear panel of the stove. Difficult in some installations where the flue leave from the top panel in the centre (as in BSP's case)

Our JRT thinks it has a definite effect though!!

 

20171118_153755.mp4

Edited by MJG
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51 minutes ago, BlueStringPudding said:

Yes, it's an Aldi flavoured one from last year.

As I have posted elsewhere (The long and rambling OT thread) Bought one of these as I happened to be in Aldi and they were available, thought for £24 it was worth a gamble. Basically I lost the gamble I can hold a tissue paper an inch or 2 away from the blades and it hardly has any effect.

I think the Aldi fans a just a novelty as they are far to light and weak to push any air. I think just enough electricity is produced to turn the, very light, fan but not enough energy to actually push any air about.

I'm still undecided about true ecofans but I am not undecided about the Aldi version.

 

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They're not supposed to move the air so much you can feel it, they're supposed to even out the heat given off by the stove.

Make sure it's in the right place on the top of the stove -- near the back or the side so it can draw air up from behind or beside the stove.  Without the fan, on our boat the floor is colder and all the heat collects up near the ceiling; with it, it's much more even, and you no longer worry about the ceiling getting really hot.

It it evens up the temperature, then it's working.

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It's surprising how quickly the house radiators (painted white) can heat a cold room.  They work by convection but you can't feel any particular flow when you put your hand above them.  I guess the flow is spread across the full length of the radiator and this is why it works with a low airspeed.  But warm air will keep rising and spreading and this is quite different to just pushing it with a fan.  With a stove fan, half the air coming off the front of the fan is recirculated and sucked back into the back of the fan.  I think it might work better if the fan was enclosed in a duct which leads some distance from the fan.  The cooling fins really ought to be remotely situated so the airflow over them is as cold as the coldest part of the boat instead of using air that has already been warmed by the stove.  Even better would be to immerse the fins in the canal!

I always thought the heat sink needed to make more intimate contact with the stove top.  Has anyone tried using thermal paste to get more heat transfer?  On my setup, the fan is right in front of the flue so I placed a tile behind the fan to try and draw in cooler air not heated by the very hot flue.  It still produced a pathetic draft!

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2 hours ago, BlueStringPudding said:

Should I try bending the blades maybe? Basically, are there any stove fan owners out there who can offer some advice please?

Please take care!

Messing about with the aerodynamic efficiency of these devices can have disastrous results.

The are set in the factory to produce little or no draught whatsoever but bend the blades and they can turn into a hurricane producing monster.

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We have a !proper" one (three blade) and swear by it. 

Our back boiler died some years ago and it coincided with us being gifted an Ecofan by a friend who was giving up boating. 

We have never bothered to fix the back boiler, the pump that fed the radiator in the bedroom was noisy and used power and our bedroom is always warm enough with the ecofan 

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3 hours ago, BlueStringPudding said:

20171118_151028.mp4

Great paint job!  But you really ought to paint the stove and flue matt black as it would radiate a lot more heat.  The only colour worse than white would be a shiny silver.  Silver/aluminium is used on tea pots for good reason.

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4 minutes ago, mross said:

Silver/aluminium is used on tea pots for good reason.

To ruin the taste of the tea?

Silver is used for poshness

Aluminium is used for easy mass production.

Ceramic with a good cosy is used for making good tea.

Theoretically glass would be best but aesthetics has to be considered at some point.

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1 minute ago, carlt said:

To ruin the taste of the tea?

Silver is used for poshness

Aluminium is used for easy mass production.

Ceramic with a good cosy is used for making good tea.

Theoretically glass would be best but aesthetics has to be considered at some point.

But a good tea mug need maturing

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2 hours ago, mross said:

Great paint job!  But you really ought to paint the stove and flue matt black as it would radiate a lot more heat.  The only colour worse than white would be a shiny silver.  Silver/aluminium is used on tea pots for good reason.

:glare: I assume you're joking as my stove has been black, metallic copper and cream over the years and has obviously had no discernible heat difference because it's not reflecting heat, it's the source of it. That's why stoves get manufactured in all sorts of colours. :lol: It's not like the roof of a boat in the sun. :rolleyes: You'll be telling me that fire bricks need to be made in black instead of white and pale grey next. ;)

Edited by BlueStringPudding
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44 minutes ago, BlueStringPudding said:

:glare: I assume you're joking as my stove has been black, metallic copper and cream over the years and has obviously had no discernible heat difference because it's not reflecting heat, it's the source of it. That's why stoves get manufactured in all sorts of colours. :lol: It's not like the roof of a boat in the sun. :rolleyes: You'll be telling me that fire bricks need to be made in black instead of white and pale grey next. ;)

Did you fail physics at school?  

I have just lifted this from the web site of a wet towel rail manufacturer as proof:

A 1500 X 600 towel rail in white gives a maximum of 2839BTU, but the chrome version is only 1945BTU

 

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