Full disclosure - I work with Ecofan, so take this with whatever grain of salt that deserves. But this is a topic that comes up a lot and I think the actual math is more interesting than either "these things are a scam" or "these things are magic," so wanted to share it straight.
Cost of ownership on a stove fan really comes down to two things: how often you're replacing the motor/fan itself, and what it's saving you on wood. On ours, the motor's rated for about 4-5 seasons of regular use and it's a $25 kit to swap when it does go, versus a lot of the budget options where the whole fan is more like a 1-2 season part and you're just buying a new one. Do that math over 10 years and the total spend looks pretty different even though the shelf price at the stores or wherever looks backwards.
On fuel savings — University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada did an independent study, landed around 12-18% depending on the model or 16% average. Take the price of a cord of wood, multiply it by how many you burn in a year, then multiply that by the % of wood savings your Ecofan model claims. For an Ecofan UltrAir, I've used 3 cords of wood a year x $300 each x 0.14 and it's $126 per year, meaning your UltrAir pays for itself in 1 year, 4months. These calculations were done with CAD pricing. Our newer AirDeco models have a lower start temperature, a higher CFM and even higher cost savings over time.
Here is the the study details if anyone wants them from the University, and if you want to run your own numbers based on your stove/wood costs there's a calculator on our site. Not trying to turn this into an ad, just find the "cheap now vs. pay once" framing gets skipped over a lot in these threads and we find some other fans on the market cannot back up their performance claims with data like this.
Cost of ownership on a stove fan really comes down to two things: how often you're replacing the motor/fan itself, and what it's saving you on wood. On ours, the motor's rated for about 4-5 seasons of regular use and it's a $25 kit to swap when it does go, versus a lot of the budget options where the whole fan is more like a 1-2 season part and you're just buying a new one. Do that math over 10 years and the total spend looks pretty different even though the shelf price at the stores or wherever looks backwards.
On fuel savings — University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada did an independent study, landed around 12-18% depending on the model or 16% average. Take the price of a cord of wood, multiply it by how many you burn in a year, then multiply that by the % of wood savings your Ecofan model claims. For an Ecofan UltrAir, I've used 3 cords of wood a year x $300 each x 0.14 and it's $126 per year, meaning your UltrAir pays for itself in 1 year, 4months. These calculations were done with CAD pricing. Our newer AirDeco models have a lower start temperature, a higher CFM and even higher cost savings over time.
Here is the the study details if anyone wants them from the University, and if you want to run your own numbers based on your stove/wood costs there's a calculator on our site. Not trying to turn this into an ad, just find the "cheap now vs. pay once" framing gets skipped over a lot in these threads and we find some other fans on the market cannot back up their performance claims with data like this.
