I have a supreme ambiance elegance 40 wood fireplace. It has the normal blower attached to the unit, but also has knockouts to add additional vents to heat up to 25’ away. Of course they want you to buy the “supreme” vent kit and blower for $500, but after doing some searching, it’s just a 150cfm in-line fan with a flange kit to mount to firebox and some insulated duct. It also says you must use their fan or it could void warranty if stove over fires. Question is how could that possibly happen. Has anyone made their own setup. I bought a variable speed fan and duct for $58 on Amazon.
Auxiliary blower on epa wood stove
- Thread starter Millertime2531
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I wouldn't recommend using the blower you found on Amazon: I believe any alterations to the unit that are not approved by the manufacturer will void your warranty and UL listing. If there is a house fire and the appliance is to blame, your insurance carrier will most likely not cover your losses due to the altered appliance.
Highbeam
Minister of Fire
At some point it’s like hanging fuzzy dice from your rear view mirror. Just because it didn’t come that way from the factory doesn’t mean it caused a car crash.
Lots of folks on this forum have bolted aftermarket blowers to their stoves over the years to avoid the 5x upcharge for the dealer supplied version.
I hear ya on the warranty stuff and it does mention it in the manual. I just feel like these companies try to wipe their hands clean of any responsibility by just adding those comments on everything. I just cant seem to understand what could go wrong with this. I mean a blower is a pretty simple mechanism. It’s just sucking hot air out of the unit. It either works or it doesn’t. It’s has nothing to with the combustion chamber. The manual also mentions not to put auxiliary blower on a variable speed switch. Not sure why as the one that comes inside the unit comes factory with one. Supreme mentions their high quality blower that comes inside the unit. After doing some quick research I’ve realized that it really low grade.
I don't like their setup. The way that Supreme has the hot air option setup is quite unusual. Normally the fan is on the cool side, blowing air thru the convection jacket and the heated air is then ducted out. This is the same way that furnaces are setup with the blower on the return air side. Pulling 200º+ temps through the duct and over the fan requires a high temp duct and a blower designed for high temps along with the clearances appropriate for the temperature handling.
FWIW, Amazon sells the Supreme SU250 kit for $429. Given that it is handling furnace temp hot air I would not substitute components without full knowledge of the requirements.
FWIW, Amazon sells the Supreme SU250 kit for $429. Given that it is handling furnace temp hot air I would not substitute components without full knowledge of the requirements.
Highbeam
Minister of Fire
Also, sucking air from around the stove means that any holes, leaks, or cracks could suck smoke out.
Ok so you guys definitely think the way to go is with the dealer kit? I wasn’t sure if there were guys here make there own kits but it seems it’s not a good idea. Might just bite the bullet. I want to close this thing in and just want to hook up my kits while I can still get in there. I don’t want any regrets.
what did you do? I just installed 2 heat zone kits on my quadrafire pioneer 2 c. Blows great except that the air is not hot. air temp exiting the blower is 80F. Not hot enough to do anything. Curious about other mfr efficacy.
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