Well, over all I believe I have good natural convection currents in the house when the stove is burning, but last year I played a bit with having a fan move cold air toward the stove. This year I"ve started experimenting a bit more with this. It is difficult to really quantify the changes, but I have to say I"m surprised at just how much it seems to change things. Figure I may as well share the info here and perhaps inspire others to give it a try.
Over all it seems that when I use the fan I can get 1-3 degrees higher average house temp. The "Cost" of this seems to be a cooler stove. When I had the fan pointed at the right side of the stove (blowing diagonal across the stove and into the corner behind), I measured about a 100* difference in the temp of the two front corners (via IR). The surface temp of the double wall pipe is also a bit cooler it seems.
Anyway - at the moment it seems my optimal location is using the fan to push air 'around' the stove - i.e. in the side where the corner is and the air then circles around to the left behind the stove (due to wall) and out toward the larger side of the house.
Over all it seems that when I use the fan I can get 1-3 degrees higher average house temp. The "Cost" of this seems to be a cooler stove. When I had the fan pointed at the right side of the stove (blowing diagonal across the stove and into the corner behind), I measured about a 100* difference in the temp of the two front corners (via IR). The surface temp of the double wall pipe is also a bit cooler it seems.
Anyway - at the moment it seems my optimal location is using the fan to push air 'around' the stove - i.e. in the side where the corner is and the air then circles around to the left behind the stove (due to wall) and out toward the larger side of the house.
