sub-zero...i need a blower! T5

[dispatcher101]

Sub zero temps here in Colorado. The alderlea T5 is struggling to heat my 1400 sq ft trilevel. It's not a tight house but I had an energy audit done and sured up the biggest offenders.

So...does the blower have a big effect on burn times?

And...does the blower blow the air out the trivet blades on top of the stove?

 

[raybonz]

Sub zero temps here in Colorado. The alderlea T5 is struggling to heat my 1400 sq ft trilevel. It's not a tight house but I had an energy audit done and sured up the biggest offenders.

So...does the blower have a big effect on burn times?

And...does the blower blow the air out the rivet blades on top of the stove?

Blowers should not affect burn times they do cool the stove off and extract more heat and move it better.. As for the 2nd question I have no idea what you're talking about.. Perhaps another Alderlea T5 user will chime in...

Ray

 

[patrolman467]

I have the Alderlea T5 as well. The blower doesn't affect burn time. The blower attaches on the bottom rear of the stove and blows air up the back and out the top. The air comes out all around the top edge mostly. My stove is doing pretty good heating my 1800 sq ft home, but my temps haven't been as cold as yours. The temp here ranges from the low 20s to the mid 50s. We did have some single digits back in December and it is supposed to get cold next week, like highs in the 20's. When it is really cold out I find that I have to load it up with wood and keep the air lever open to around half way. It does take a long time to get the temps up when you start with a cold stove, but it seems to put out a lot of heat once it gets going. At night I usually have to load it up, basically full, and shut it all the way down once it burns for a few minutes to get enough coals to start another fire the next morning. I was used to a steel buck stove growing up and this stove is a little different. The heat is more gentle. I chose this stove for that reason. The room it is in is small and just off the main great room. I didn't want to be burnt out of the room it was in. The stove does heat the house, but like I said, it if is really cold you have to keep the wood in it and turn it up. I think that if I had a house with a huge great room and a place for a stove I would probably get something different, like a Buck Stove or a Jotul.

 

[begreen]

Burn times shouldn't be dramatically affected. The blower blows across the top. Most of the hot air exits from the slot just under the trivet front.

Keep on working on those fixes. If this is just a temporary cold snap maybe close off part of the house, tack up some plastic or blankets over large windows. If it's common, a T6 may be a better long term solution for pumping out more btus.

 

[Stonefly]

When we installed our T5 (about 6 weeks ago) we were still working on room renovations. The electric was not turned on to the room that the stove was in for the first couple of days of burning. We didn't feel that we were getting heat to the rest of the house like we had hoped. I tried a small fan on the floor in a doorway from another room pointed towards the stove, little improvement but not great. We opted out of the blower because we had installed a ceiling fan in the stove room (stove shop said the ceiling fan would be more efficant). Once I got the electrical turned on and started to run the ceiling fan we noticed a nice difference in the heat distribution. The other thing we noticed is that we get alot more heat out of the stove if the warming trays are opened up. We still some more renovations to do so we're still dealing with a leaky house but so far the electric baseboard has not kicked on.