Auto Draft Inducer, Heat reclaimer

[kevinmoelk]

So I'm surfing on ebay and I see this auto draft inducer device which is suppose to increase the flow of exhaust up the chimney? It looks like a paddle wheel with an electric motor. Does this work? Or is this a joke?

I'm wondering about heat reclaimers too. Do these devices provide any benefit? What if any are the drawbacks?

-Kevin

 

[BrotherBart]

I don't know about paddle wheels but 'heat reclaimers' on your stove pipe should more appropriately be name Creosote Factories. Modern stoves have a much lower flue temp than older stoves. Even with the older stoves those things cooled the single wall pipe enough to line them with creosote.

 

[Gooserider]

You shouldn't need a "draft inducer" - if your stove draws well, it isn't needed, if it doesn't you should be checking to see what is wrong with your chimney setup that it doesn't draft properly. (dirty, wrong cross-sectional area, to many bends, not tall enough, etc.) If anything, a well set up chimney might draft TOO well!

I would wonder if the draft inducer might even be dangerous. What happens if you have a fire going and the power goes out, or the motor craps out? Do you now have an even greater flow restriction in a chimney that already has draft problems??

As noted earlier, the heat exchanger units are also a bad idea, they cool the pipe enough to cause major creosote problems. I would also expect them to make additional restriction in your flue. If you have bad enough draft to be considering a draft inducer, you certainly don't want more restriction!

I have seen one form of heat exchanger in the past that MIGHT be a possible compromise to get some extra heat out of the stove pipe without excessive chilling. (Again, if you have bad draft I wouldn't reccomend any kind of heat exchanger since heat will improve draft as a general rule.) These were spring loaded bands of sheet metal fins that were designed to snap around the outside of a single wall pipe. Each unit was a only a couple of inches wide, and would only touch the outsides of the pipe, so I don't think any one would cool a pipe that much, although you could certainly uses several in a row if the pipe length permitted. I dont know, but it would seem like something along that line might work for fine tuning a flue with excessive draft to get the most out of it.

Gooserider