Jotul 550 Wood Insert Fan Direction?

[sog]

We had a Jotul 550 installed two weeks ago, and in terms of the ambient heat output it's a huge improvement over our old fireplace. We had expected more, however, from the blowers.

So, dumb question for those of you with Jotul 550s: is the blower supposed to direct the heated air straight up? We anticipated that the blowers would push the hot air directly into the room on a horizontal current. Instead, the air is blown near vertically towards the ceiling. As a result, it takes the room longer to heat up.

Before I take the front off the stove and monkey with the fans, I wanted to check here with other 550 owners and see if that was normal or if something was off in our installation.

Any input appreciated.

 

[prezes13]

I can only tell you what my stove does. Fans will circulate the cold air around the stove if you will, it's not going to push it 20 feet away from the stove in vertical way. They are not powerful enough. Hot air rises there is no stop to it. But that's how the laws of physics work.

 

[sog]

@prezes13: that's my concern, actually. We expected the fans to push the air horizontally, not vertically. Not 20 feet, maybe, but a couple.

Obviously hot air rises, but the fan is actually blowing it in that direction as well. The question is whether it is supposed to or not.

 

[prezes13]

As far as I know fans are there to move the air around the stove to get the heat out of it, to push the air the way you want to you would need a bigger fan.

 

[rkofler]

The blowers move the air around the back of the stove, then out the horizontal slot you can look into above the stove door. Since that slot is horizontal I'm not sure how yours would be blowing out vertically?

 

[AK13]

Is the air coming out the top of the stove or the bottom? Should be the top.

Its impossible for the fans to "blow up". The air is being pushed out of the stove horizontally through the channel on top of the stove. It comes out so hot that rises immediately via natural convection. There is nothing that you can do about that.

If you have high ceilings then a ceiling fan set to low to push the warm air back down is a great feature to have in the winter. It can make a huge difference.

 

[begreen]

I haven't run this unit but would expect the blowers to force air around the stove body and then somewhat straight out the top front, horizontally. That said it seems like it would be hard to install the blower incorrectly so I am wondering if there is shipping cardboard blocking the airflow. Ask your dealer or start a conversation with stovelark. He installs Jotuls.

 

[stovelark]

Hi BG Sog- As others have stated, indeed the Rockland blowers are separate, they sit behind that lower grill (it just lifts up, careful not to damage the var speed knob). They blow air towards the back and around the stove jacket and out the top louver. Once exiting, of course, the warm air will tend to rise. If you have the stove in a tall ceiling room, of course the air will propagate that way, as others have said. The Rockland blowers are pretty powerful, but not the quietest blowers. They are easy to remove and to check to see if they are "aimed" correctly too, they are just pushed into place. Good luck with them, you picked a real pretty, popular stove in these parts.
PS- no cardboard shipping that I've seen, but I have seen them shift in position during transit, delivery and being installed. Normally a rattle or noise will bring attention to it. (If your grate makes noise, a little piece of flat gasket under the cast grate will cure that..)