Insert with blower in a power outage.... should I worry?

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firebuckeye

New Member
Nov 18, 2006
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Hey everyone,

Here is my question. I have a buck model 51, 2.6 cubic foot fire box, and it is inserted into my fireplace with a surround kit sealing off the opening.. I have a blower installed but I wonder if I loose power while at work would this thing over heat? Should I worry. There is no way for the radiant heat to get out of the fireplace. There is very slight convection with out blower. I have tried it with out blower on and it definately does get hotter surface temps per my condar thermometer. This is always on my mind so I was hoping to get some experienced answers fromyou all. Thanks in advance. This sight has been very helpful to me already.

Brad
 
I don't think it would hurt it, I turn my fan off sometimes when the room gets real hot. I've also ran my insert without the fan for small quick fires more for the benefit of the chimney. If it gets too hot on that thermometer, open the doors all the way, if you got a screen pop it on, and watch the temp slowly go back down, thats what happens when I get the temp up too high, you would think the more air, the hotter, but with my doors wide open, the air/ draft seems to calm down a bit.
 
There is nothing in my owners manual about the stove running without the blower, but just mild guidance regarding overfiring. I've run mine for a full day when we lost power last year and I was thrilled to have a warm house on a very cold day. Many friends were not happy with no heat. As long as you don't overfire you should be fine.
 
I think the fact that most inserts have blowers as an option answers this question. If it was required, they would be included.

I have run my insert without the blower. It does get hotter, but I just damper it down a little more, no problems. Heat output is a little less, but not ridiculously so. There's still good air flow around the stove.

-- Mike
 
I would be pretty certain that it was OK, as long as the insert is installed according to manual / codes, etc. I would expect the testing people to have considered the notion of power failures and made sure things don't get to hot w/o the blower.

Gooserider
 
My 17 year old insert's manual says not to run it without the blower on....damage to fan may result. I believe that issue is designed out of more modern stoves. I doubt it would over fire. if I am here and we have a power failure I'm still gonna burn. Sure as heck ain't gonna be cold. might supplement with kerosene heater but I will definately burn the wood stove.
 
No specific info on your stove, but heck, my earth stove manual tells you NOT to run the fan for the initial warm up period to get the combustor up to temp.

I really dont think you will have a problem as long as you can monitor stove temp, have used the stove before, and have a good sealing stove ( door gasket and such)

in preparation for our normal ICY winter, ive got a back up plan of deep cycle batteries and an inverter for my blower!
most fans dont take much current, a cheap inverter will run them.
 
I don't currently run a blower on my insert and I haven't had any problems. It would be useful though to cool the stove down when things get going a bit too well!
 
Thanks so much. I was mainly conserned for when I am at work and can not monitor stove temps. Maybe I will do some trial runs while I am home, simulating how I wouldl eave it when I go to work. It just seams the heat has no where to go. Thanks for your replies!

Brad
 
I once got my insert to overheat (start to glow cherry red) when I was running it with a lot of wood and air and the blower off.

But normally before you go away and leave your fire you'll get the wood charred and damp down the air a lot so it will be in a state where even if the blower failed it wouldn't get so hot as to cause damage.

You can certainly do an experiment to find out for yourself what would happen -- just get your insert into the state it would be in when you leave and turn off the fan manually. Then monitor the temperature and see what happens. If it gets too hot, that means you should leave your air control set lower than that when you leave to be sure of not overheating even if the power fails.

I don't think overheating an insert would actually cause a house fire by the way -- you just risk damaging the stove itself or shortening its life.
 
On my old insert I always ran the fan because of the same concern. Last year we had a seven day power outage and burned the whole time. The convection through the air channels kept the fans cool enough that their old 20 selves weren't hurt at all.

And the temp increase you see is probably deceptive. The internal temp of the stove is the same whether the fan is running or not. With the fan off the stove top thermometer just gets a chance to actually give you an accurate reading of what is going on without the cooling effect of the fan on the shroud.
 
BrotherBart said:
The internal temp of the stove is the same whether the fan is running or not.
Click to expand...

I disagree with this statement, at least for my stove (Regency I2400). I think the fan DOES draw heat away from the firebox and affects the internal temperature. That's why the manual says the fan must be turned off for a half hour after adding a fresh load of wood. It's so the firebox can quickly get hot enough to support secondary combustion. They also tell you the air damper must be at least 1/2 inch open to use the fan, again for the same reason: because the fan cools the firebox and if it gets too cold you won't be able to sustain clean secondary combustion.
 
This is very helpful. My manual says nothing about damper opening and such with fan on. I feel better nowing some have burned with out fan. I am messing around with it right now actually, since its mild temps here in Ohio and I dont need much heat.
 
heydan said:
BrotherBart said:
The internal temp of the stove is the same whether the fan is running or not.
Click to expand...

I disagree with this statement, at least for my stove (Regency I2400). I think the fan DOES draw heat away from the firebox and affects the internal temperature. That's why the manual says the fan must be turned off for a half hour after adding a fresh load of wood. It's so the firebox can quickly get hot enough to support secondary combustion. They also tell you the air damper must be at least 1/2 inch open to use the fan, again for the same reason: because the fan cools the firebox and if it gets too cold you won't be able to sustain clean secondary combustion.
Click to expand...

All the more reason a person needs to ask about and learn the burning characteristics of their particular stove. With my old insert years of measuring stove top, side of firebox and flue gas temps all showed no appreciable difference in combustion temperatures with the fan running or not. Of course the fan wasn't ever started until the stove reached operating temp. It was controlled by a Stove Stat to come on at a surface temp near the fan of 110 degrees.

The same observations have yielded the same results with the new stove. And it now has a Stove Stat on it also.

And leaving the air inlet half open on either of the big firebox honkers, packed with dry hardwood, would have sent the temperature anywhere on the stove headed for the moon. Both stoves level out and perform better at around 25% primary after reaching six hundred or so surface temp.

Every stove is different and takes some experimentation.
 
firebuckeye said:
Here is my question. I have a buck model 51, 2.6 cubic foot fire box, and it is inserted into my fireplace with a surround kit sealing off the opening.. I have a blower installed but I wonder if I loose power while at work would this thing over heat? Should I worry. There is no way for the radiant heat to get out of the fireplace. There is very slight convection with out blower. I have tried it with out blower on and it definately does get hotter surface temps per my condar thermometer. This is always on my mind so I was hoping to get some experienced answers fromyou all. Thanks in advance. This sight has been very helpful to me already.
Click to expand...

You could also run the blower through an Uninterruptable Power Supply. I have a 12V 80AH sealed lead acid battery with an inverter that I use for another hobby. As an experiment, I hooked my blower up to it and ran the blower for hours without a problem - certainly long enough for the temperature to stop dropping due to lack of refueling. I'm an in urban environment so power failures only last a few hours, at most. I wanted to see if I could continue to heat the house if I didn't have power. My configuration with the battery isn't really any different than a good sized UPS.

Eric
 
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