Insert without blower turned on... interesting

[ClydesdaleBurner]

The last week or so has been an interesting experiement. I am waiting on a piece for my blower, so right now I have no blower and honestly in the 3+ yrs I've owned the insert (Hearthstone Clydesdale) I've never burned the stove without the blower on. I always looked at it as wasted heat. So seeing that I have no option now I've been having some fires during the evening and on weekends and I've found out a few things.

First the length of time the stove retains its heat is sooooo much longer. This makes perfect sense, since there is no blower pulling the heat off the stove. But as an example, one Saturday morning I started the stove up at 7am, medium sized load, maybe 4 splits. Stove surface temps got up to 375, on the Clydesdale that is also about medium, since the stove top is not directely touching the firebox. Well at 3pm the stove was still warm. Stove top was 100 and inside the firebox was warm/hot with slight coals. That's 8 hrs later on one medium sized load of wood. Had I been running the blower, even on low, by noon the stove would have been that temp. So that was interesting. Also keep in mind it was in the high 40's outside, as opposed to a cold winter day...

Second big thing I've noticed though is that the living room 15x24 warms up nicely with the radiant heat, but as soon as I leave the living room, ie the dining room and kitchen, are noticeably colder. I contribute that again to the radiant heating vs the convective nature of a blower moving the cold and warm air around the first floor of the house better.

So anyway its good to know if I lose power I can still heat the living room no problem. Also I'm thinking for the upcoming winter, if I want to do overnight burns without stuffing the firebox to the gills, I could just turn the blower down to low or even turn it off and probably have some pretty good coals come morning. Food for thought for anyone with an insert and blower if you're not getting long enough burns times, try turning down the blower... experiment with that this winter!

Happy burning

 

[Fsappo]

Having a ton of happy Clydesdale owners, I can say that their best results for overnight burns is stuffing it full on a good bed of coals, letting the wood just start to catch and keeping the blower on low. Can load and come back to a warm stove still blowing heat and a good bed of coals 10 hours later. Glad you like your stove and hope you get your parts soon.

 

[flyingpig]

Good info.

That what I think about trying for my insert. This year I'm short on good wood so I don't want to do an overnight burn when all of us will be upstairs sleeping. But I want to use minimal wood to have enough coal to relight in the morning instead of restart from cold stove again. I'll try turning the fan off and see what will happen.

Cheers......Som

 

[eujamfh]

Thats really interesting. I think I will have the wife try that with out HI300 - setting the blower to low vice high where we usually have it set. Certainly can not hurt and would definitely help in the morning to get things going quickly. When its really cold out, unless it is loaded with good oak, we sometimes don't have a good coal bed fora restart. But this may help...

 

[davidmc]

I am running the Buck 91 as a freestanding and while in the shoulder season I have rarely used the blower.

I get a lot of radiant heat using it freestanding, but I would not want to be without it during the next few months.

I have noticed that it pulls down the cat temps when I run the blower. I wondered if I Buck recommended running the blower all the time, because of heat buildup, so I called Buck and spoke to a tech and asked if I needed to and he told me that all the test were ran without the blower so I could run it any way I needed to and would not harm the stove.

 

[HotCoals]

On my old non-cat Bk I hardly ever ran the blower.
With my new cat BK I have been playing with it some..but when the cold really gets here I doubt I use it much..maybe on the coldest days.
Since it's fairly warm here I'm not using the fans..other then to play around.
We do use the ceiling fan in the room where the stove is though often.

 

[ClydesdaleBurner]

Well it's been a month and a half without a blower. I'm still in the process of getting a piece for my blower assembly... Anyway it's been interesting because I'm using my Clydesdale insert like a free standing stove... with no blower! I've been pleasantly surprised that the insert, even with half its thermal mass inside the fireplace and not out radiating, it still heats my living room very well. The biggest difference I've noticed without the blower is that the heat does not leave the living room as much. So my kitchen, which is connected by a hall way is still noticeably cooler. With the blower I can heat the whole first floor more evenly. But really we spend most of our time in the living room, so its been working good. Also the burn times are a lot better with out the blower. I'm getting 7-8+ hr burns (down to coals) vs. 5-6 with the blower on medium. One thing I've learned, is that when I do get my blower up and running I do not think I'll run it on high or even medium. I think even at low speed it will move some air and heat well. Maybe medium will be reserved for when the stove is fully cranking.

Just my observations...

 

[BrotherBart]

For 19 years I always ran the blower on my old big Sierra insert. Number one I was concerned that if I didn't the fans would get too hot and ruin them. Secondly I didn't think it would heat this barn without'em. Well, two years before the end of its life we lost power for a week. The sucker kept the whole house warm the whole time and when the stove was hauled out the door two years later the original blower motors were still in it and working.

 

[zknowlto]

We lost power for a couple hours last week and noticed exactly the changes in performance you mentioned when running our small (Regency I1200) insert without the fan for the first time. The whole thing got much hotter much faster and retained its heat for a longer time. In the past, we've always run our blower on the high setting, despite the noise, because I had assumed it was the most efficient way to spread the heat around. Now we use the blower on low and have much longer burn times (8-9 hours vs 5-6 hours) with very little overall difference in the overall heating.

 

[krex1010]

My insert has a variable speed blower and I never move the thing from the lowest setting.

 

[Shari]

Keep the blower off. Put a small fan in the doorway of your coldest room, on low speed, and point the fan to the room which has the stove. You might be surprised how your heat evens out and, without running the blower on the stove, you will probably still get the long burn times.

No, I don't own a Clydesdale but the above is how I run my Oslo (which does not have a blower).

Shari

 

[OhioBurner©]

Keep the blower off. Put a small fan in the doorway of your coldest room, on low speed, and point the fan to the room which has the stove. You might be surprised how your heat evens out and, without running the blower on the stove, you will probably still get the long burn times.

No, I don't own a Clydesdale but the above is how I run my Oslo (which does not have a blower).

Shari

Shari, one big difference is yours is a freestanding stove and they will heat the room much better than a 75% sealed off insert any way you look at it. I know my insert without the blower on will warm the back of your pants if you stand in front of it, as far as even heating the room it is in, no. One nice thing along these lines the Rockland does is turn on/off the fan at a fairly high temp (mine seems to be like nearly 300) so if you leave it on auto it will let the box warm up faster before the fan kicks on, and then in the cool down the fan shuts off pretty early to keep the coals warmer, but I leave the fan as high as it will go unless we are watching tv.

Of course the Rockland I have is a flush mount with further hampers its radiant capability. For a radiant freestanding stove though, I think blowers are mostly a waste, especially if you already have a cieling fan in that room.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Keep the blower off. Put a small fan in the doorway of your coldest room, on low speed, and point the fan to the room which has the stove. You might be surprised how your heat evens out and, without running the blower on the stove, you will probably still get the long burn times.

No, I don't own a Clydesdale but the above is how I run my Oslo (which does not have a blower).

Shari

Freestanding stove is a completely different beast.

 

[krex1010]

My house is 1500 sq ft and with the blower on low i can pretty much heat the entire house, without the blower I can heat the room the stove is in. This is why when people ask if they need the blower I always tell them I would not even consider an insert without a blower. The blower is essential in my opinion.