battery for insert-blower

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.

stockdoct

New Member
Oct 19, 2008
194
ilinois
In addition to my new Lopi Freedom fireplace insert with blower, I purchased a Duracell PowerPack 600 battery ...... for when our power goes out (it does once or twice each winter for 2-12 hours), I'll have battery backup for the fireplace blower for about 5-6 hours. I know inserts are more dependent on the blower than woodstoves are.. Does anyone else have something similiar?

The Duracell 600 also has included a AM/FM radio, a high-beam flashlight, and a meter telling how charged the battery is. Seems pretty reasonable to heat our home in emergencies.
 
Never seen that particular one before dut I did a little research.

http://www.duracellpower.com/documents/tech-specs/DS20070710_duracell-pp600.pdf

It's made by Xantrex which is a good name in inverters but it's really only rated for 480 watts continuous output. I couldn't find a run time chart, but a quick back of the napkin estimate is 1 1/2 hours at full load. The stove is probably about 1/4 of this, so 6 hours of run time is about right. If this meets your needs, go for it. It looks like a nice one box solution.

For the money, I think you can do better. A deep cycle marine battery runs about $100 and a 400W inverter goes for about $30. You still need a battery charger, but for the same money, you could have 2-3X the capacity.

Chris
 
My Duracell can be re-charged either by the 120V home outlet or the DC charger hooked up to the cigarette lighter in my car --- help me (i'm not so smart in the electrical departmet) can the Marine battery do that?
 
velvetfoot said:
I think the fan is probably like 30-40 watts.

I checked the blower on my Quad and found that it's only 67 watts but about 120 va as the power factor is pretty poor. I haven't done any run time tests with it.

The marine battery can clip to a car battery with a jumper cable or you can attach it to a cigarette lighter plug and charge it this way. To charge it from an outlet, you would need a battery charger which might be another $50 or so. It's more to mess with, but might get you to that 12 hour figure.

Chris
 
stockdoct said:
My Duracell can be re-charged either by the 120V home outlet or the DC charger hooked up to the cigarette lighter in my car --- help me (i'm not so smart in the electrical departmet) can the Marine battery do that?
yes it can as long as you hook it up to the battery right!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.