cant find draft fan thread...

This is the same fan I use. Works great. I got lucky and won mine for $60.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Wood-Burning-St...ZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem

The link I showed you was a different vendor. Go to E-bay and type in draft - inducer. Hopefully you will find an auction on one. The brand I have is Tjernlund. It does a real good job. I rarely get smoke out of the door unless I do something stupid like open open the door at begining of burn cycle... Make sure the fan is rated for wood appliances because the same company makes them for oil and gas boiler as well...

Are you going to use this all the time, or only when loading wood?

I'd say that a decent warm chimney will be pulling air into those openings, not leaking smoke out of them. The inducer should also be helpful when you are tring to light a new fire.

Al

The only time I ever had smoke come out of the shaft area was on start up. Off coarse you will have the fan on then. I put a timer and different rheostat on my fan. The factory rheostat would not allow the fan to go slow enough for proper draft. I used a fan dimmer... I run the fan for about 3 hours at start up then the timer shuts it off.

I would be concerned with the pressure drop when the fan is not on. Perhaps an inline style would be a better choice?

http://www.tjernlund.com/draftinducer.htm

I would also be concerned with the bearings cooking when it is not running, as most of these have a small fan outside the airstream to act as a heat slinger.

Just thinking out loud...

Chris

barnartist said:

Well, I installed the draft inducer. No leaks from whole I cut, but crap- I still have smoke at me when I have the loading door open! Im not sure what this means. It is raining steady here all day, so Id rather wait before I head to the roof and inspect the stack cap. No other areas that I can see have any sort of buildup. ^%$#^%$#

Click to expand...

Barnartist, h've been a bit too busy lately and have to do some catching up here. Ever-since I installed the ad-1 I have had much less smoke. The times I do get some from the front door is when a: the by-pass is only partially open, b: the bottom door is open c: very wet wood creating a lot of smoke. I have only seen smoke from the opening when a startup "puff" took place.
I also keep an eye on the unit temps. If the unit is mounted as instructed, with the motor on the bottom, the heat will not destroy it. My exhaust temps low enough not to heat the unit during regular gasification. ( unit off)

Just a quick question BA, do you actually feel a draft with the fan on? I run a 7" pipe and I am just done filling the unit. If I leave the door wide open when there is some, it will come out the front. When I have very little smoke (getting more wood build in the chamber) the smoke will go through the by-pass. I feel there is a problem with the door opening , in the way that it is right at the ceiling of the chamber. Any "flow" will take the way of least resistance. When the door is wide open, the draft in the chimney is still good, but the air speed in the door opening will be much less due to it's larger opening. (20 "Sq v.s 175" Sq) almost 9X larger.
When we ran a Newmac combo unit, it had a lot of space above the door, and even without a fan it had very little smoke billow out. I am thinking about making a movable "flap" inside the door, partway in the door opening. Still allowing wood in, but trapping some smoke inside and reducing the door opening.

Henk.