Freestanding stoves and blowers.

[kevin fitzsimmons]

For all pacific energy free standing stove owners and free standing stove owners in general. Did you install the optional blower, and does it really make a difference? For the most part my super 27 heats well enough, but this past week I could use all I can it has been -39 overnight and wind chills in the -50 range. If the blowers are much like an old fridge, they try hard, make a lot of noise, but in the end do little, then I will likely not buy one. If they make a big diff then I am going to order one and pick it up next time I have to go to the big city.

 

[Jfk4th]

I think it is worth the extra money, faster heating in my book. I like the fact that it turns on and off or you have the option of keeping it on all the time(plus shutting it off obviously). You can also control the fan speed, so lots of options unlike the the fans from a couple of years ago. If your room starts out cold I highly recommend it, I guess if you keep the stove running 24/7 it might not be needed.
I have heard the Vornado fans placed next to it works well too but I wanted the fan that was made for the stove.
Sometimes I don't use it on high, it's nice to have it low coming on and off every couple of minutes.

 

[Rich L]

Without the blower,my Pacific Energy Summit would be worthless.

 

[begreen]

For all pacific energy free standing stove owners and free standing stove owners in general. Did you install the optional blower, and does it really make a difference? For the most part my super 27 heats well enough, but this past week I could use all I can it has been -39 overnight and wind chills in the -50 range. If the blowers are much like an old fridge, they try hard, make a lot of noise, but in the end do little, then I will likely not buy one. If they make a big diff then I am going to order one and pick it up next time I have to go to the big city.

It kind of depends on the house and the stove location. Sometimes convection alone works great, like kenkathy's Summit installation. This is with a large open floor plan, cathedral ceiling and ceiling fan. Other folks need to increase air circulation and get by better with a blower. Our neighbor's Spectrum is this way, the house has bedrooms off of a hall coridor and the heat is more even with the blower going. The stove from living room toward the dining room. With the blower on, the heat is pulled then through the kitchen, then the hallway and back to the stove. But not all floor plans have this nice open loop.

My understanding is that adding a blower isn't going to extract more heat from the stove, ie, the flue gas temps don't decrease. But it can do a much better job at circulating the heat. Tom has done some testing of this with the PE stoves. He can probably add some insight.

 

[Jfk4th]

Hmmmm Don't know if I would go that far Rich L. The Summit is an awesome stove with really long burn times. Do you have an insert? No insert will be without a blower.

Like I said before you can get away without a blower if you use ceiling fans, smaller house fans, door fans. I do love my blower and I think it is worth the extra cash but it does not make the stove. When my area gets too hot I turn off the blower and use my door fans and ceiling fans to circulate the heat, it works well. I can't use regular fans like some people do because my little guy would have his fingers in it as soon as I walked away :0

Hope this helps Chinook


It is like saying cheese makes a Whopper, cheese is good but it is not necessary

 

[Rich L]

Hi JFK,it's not that I'm going to far,it's as far as my stove has taken me.My wood is prime fire wood however my stove has never even come close to moving me out of the room.I'm moving to it to feel it.Without the fan I would try to give it away to a relative or at least sell it and get some of my money back.If things don't improve I'm shutting it down and installing my Woodstock Soapstone Classic which definitely doesn't need a fan to circulate it's heat.

 

[Jfk4th]

WOW, this is a first Rich. How Can I help? Or better yet how can pros like Elk, Gunner, and others help? How big is your house, what temps are you getting from this stove? How long are your burn times? You said you are using good seasoned wood correct?
I guess if you have a huge house this stove might not be the one but ouch this is hard to swallow. I have friends with this stove and 2,000 sq feet and they have good temps all winter long in their house 68-70F.
I guess I will try to help more when you give me some background.
Do you have at least 15 feet of chimney pipe from stovetop to cap?
This stove works a little differently than say Avalon stoves for example, it will take while to find her sweet spot.....
Talk to you soon

I am sure one of the big guns will chime in maybe edit your title to "Pacific Energy Summit Freestanding stove and blower" This will increase your chances of one these guys writing back

 

[cmonSTART]

We bought our Englander 30 with a blower, and we love it. Our floor plan dictates that we move air around to keep the house warm. The blower makes a huge difference. I can stand up and warm air moving out from the stove at a rate much greater than when we don't run it.

 

[BrotherBart]

Yeah the free standing Summit and the 30 were both born for the blowers the way the air is blown across the top of the stove.

 

[wallis54806]

From my subjective experience with my Hampton the fan helps. I think it does drop the flue temp. some, but my current test may be making a liar out of me. That said, when it is -10 deg. with a 20 mph wind I would hate to be without the fan.

 

[Jfk4th]

No question the fan helps. I guess again the setup of ones house would make a difference. I know with my Summit I do not need to use the blower if I don't want to. I usually do but there are plenty of days that I don't. My friends use ceiling fans and that works really well. I use door fans sometimes and that also works well.
In Summary, I would recommend the blower but I still think the Summit works well without it if you use other means to circulate the heat
In Summary, the Summit is just one kick ass stove

 

[kevin fitzsimmons]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I really haven't explained my situation well and that may help. I have about 25 feet of chimney and i think that some of my valuable heat is pouring up the stack aka florida bungalow syndrome. I am also burning moslty lodgepole pine which flashes off pretty good and then burns really well for a couple of hours and then its gone. I have placed a box fan 3 feet away from the stove an directed the fan towards the stair well. This seems to make a diff, but i know that a blower would move the air up and over the stove. So, i think that i will order the blower and give it a try . Our week of deep freeze seems to be ending, we have a chinook on the way, and we should be near freezing for day temps in a few days

 

[Todd]

Try pointing that fan at the stove to push the lower level cold air towards the stove.

 

[Todd]

Hi JFK,it's not that I'm going to far,it's as far as my stove has taken me.My wood is prime fire wood however my stove has never even come close to moving me out of the room.I'm moving to it to feel it.Without the fan I would try to give it away to a relative or at least sell it and get some of my money back.If things don't improve I'm shutting it down and installing my Woodstock Soapstone Classic which definitely doesn't need a fan to circulate it's heat.

Two different animals. I think your missing the radiant heat the Woodstock gives off. The PE is more of a convection type stove.

 

[Rich L]

Good Day JFK,I don't know how you can help unless you can tell me how to get the stove to radiate more heat into the rooms.Maybe your question of is my chimney long enough for this stove needs to be checked.I've used this chimney for years and had a old wood/coal stove on it,then a performer II,then a Hearthstone II wood/coal stove and now the PE Summit.The draft is strong the wood is blazing however much of the heat must be going up the pipe.I use the stove's damper and a pipe damper to try to regulate the heat flow and the results are nothing like I'm hearing from the many PE users on this forum.I can only imagine what all of the rave is about and not actually experience it.My stove is located on an enclosed front porch.There's a door from the porch leading to the interior of the house.Once that door is opened there's is the stairway leading to the upstairs and attic.All the stoves placed on the porch hearth are used to heat a 10'x25'front porch and heat the second floor.The attic is unheated and since the children are grown and on their own I shut off the attic.The hearthstone II used to heat the porch,second floor an attic in it's prime.The Summit heats the porch area fairly well but only emits enough heat that the upstairs bedrooms only get cool.I'd love to experience what you folks are experiencing with your PE's.I'm open to all suggestions.My cellar and first floor are heated by a Mansfield.Oh by the way Tom suggested I do the dollar bill test to check my gaskets which I did last night.The bottom of my door was slightly spaced so I followed Tom's instructions of tapping the latch lightly and this did tighted the seal and did increase the burn time slightly.

 

[Jfk4th]

Rich,
I guess I am stumped. As always Tom's advice is the best. I wish he was close to where I live. Maybe call out Gunner and see if he has anymore advice, he is getting longer burn times than I or any of my friends that have the Summit. I wish Gunner would do a video of his summit in action from starting up to reloading after 10-11 hours, I bet we could all learn from that.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm....

 

[sleepie]

buy the blower---when u need it you will be glad you did!

 

[elleninpa]

what piece am I missing? a blower is a fan attached to the stove? just to spread the heat into the room? or to help circulate the air/fire on the interior of the stove? I probably need to look at some new specs in new stoves, been running my old clunkers and don't know much about the new cats/blowers/secondary burns/etc...

We use a box fan mounted on a piece of wood attached to the 3 tiered plant stand with our geraniums for the garden in the spring. It is mounted at stovepipe level. It blows across the top of our woodburner and the stovepipe too and helps send the air up the floor vent to the living area above.

Our woodstove is on the north end of the house in the basement. We talked about a return air floor vent in the south end of the house upstairs in the bedrooms but decided against it because of the noise transfer from floor to floor. But it would improve air flow for us and we wouldn't get those funny eddies on the staircase.

Our coal burner is situated on the basement level also but just under our centrally located stairs, and we have floor vents cut to allow that air to go upstairs to the middle of the house upstairs, a sitting room versus the family room at the north end. Not the best location for air circulation. We don't use a fan blowing across it as it would make it burn too hot.

 

[bartlett920]

I have a Century 2000 sq ft stove and did not buy the blower, stove is located in the middle of my 1100+ sq ft house with a tower fan circulating acrossed. It heats my house too well. My friend has same stove with blower in almost similar conditions and cannot even compare to my walmart $22 fan So take from this what you will but try the cheaper route first it may work well enough and save you some bucks!

 

[BotetourtSteve]

I have a freestanding Jotul (F600) in an unfinished basement, and have a stove-mounted fan on it (which is a new feature from Jotul from what I understand). Fan definitely makes a difference in moving air/pushing more heat. I have experimented a bit and found that upstairs temps are 2-3 degrees warmer when fan is running versus when it is not.