Do stove fan's make a stove more efficient, or does it just help spread the heat around.

[carlan]

It went increase how much heat your wood is capable of produce, that is set with the wood you're using.

It will increase how much of that heat your wood produces actually ends up in your house. Without a fan your stove will get to a certain temperature, heat the air around it and make itself a little insulating blanket that reduces how much heat can be conducted from the stove into the air. The heat that can't be conducted goes out the chimney.

The fan blowing cool air onto the stove will disturb that insulating blanket of hot air around the stove, allowing the stove to give up more heat. The stove, now surrounded by cool air can conduct more heat out of the stove itself, instead of just sending it up the chimney.

So yes fans will increase how much heat ends up in your house from the wood you are burning. It's just simple thermodynamics. Think of windchill, do you feel colder on a still air day or on a windy day? The windy day disturbs your warm insulating blanket of air around your skin, allowing more heat to conduct out of your body into the air, making you feel colder. Really stoves are no different.

Sent from my LG-H812 using Tapatalk

Very well said, all other comments were good but this one nailed it in my mind.

 

[SuperJ]

I ended up with fans eventually. Here are observations .

• My experience matches @Ashful , I can get a long burn by riding the hole with the fans on and stay active. You need to fill it up with good wood and char it properly.
• The BTUs will be limited by the minimum air setting, but it really helps to even out the temperature in my house.
• I never run the fans much higher than low even with the stove cranked up.
• If it's above freezing I keep the fans off since I don't need the extra heat .
• I notice the surface temp of the wall behind the stove is much lower with the fans running. That means I'm losing less heat to outside from overheating my wall .
• I'm assuming the fan housing doesn't count towards my clearances. The back of the fan is definitely closer than the minimum corner clearance, since I only had a inch extra before the fans.