What do other people think?
Do stove fans work? By now everyone who has a wood or multi fuel burning stove has heard of stove fans. You know, the handy fan that sits on your stove top, or attaches to the flue pipe, or even to the stove door and promises to distribute the hot air around your room and saves you money. However, you may still be on the fence about whether they genuinely work, or if its just another one of those gimmicky gadgets that are a way of helping you spend your hard earned cash. They can be quite expensive after all. Today we hope to show you that the fan can be quite a good investment, and that they don’t have to be expensive to work.
They have been on the market now for almost a decade and variations of the same design have appeared from a few different companies. Just in case you don’t already know, the stove fan is powered by electricity generated from the heat of your stove. This means that you do not need to have an electricity source nearby or worry about cables and wires overheating. You can read more about the technical workings inside the fan here.
What is general opinion: do stove fan works?
The internet is a wonderful place to find information, reviews and forum discussions that give you an insight to how well regarded products are. We spent some time reading through the different sites and found that in general stove fans are very well regarded. There is some criticism about the price you pay, but on the flip side the cheaper fans (usually from China) that are also available don’t tend to do the job in hand and the feeling is that the money you pay really does buy you quality. Mumsnet was my main source for this information, and since then a new budget fan has been released that performs just as well as the more expensive alternatives on the market. There were many responders saying they truly believed the fan did more than ‘just remind the kids when the stove is hot’; which is just a serendipitous bonus.
Who else uses a stove fan?
Interestingly, the narrow boat community also feel the stove fan really does work on their boats. Discussions on Canal World agreed the difference can be felt throughout the narrow boat. For them, this means they don’t feel the need to turn on other heat sources, and reduces their use of the precious power generator resource.
Scientifically speaking
Amongst all the anecdotal evidence of how people have found their stove fan we found a technical minded owner of a Valiant Premium stove fan. He set up an experiment in his house to measure as best as possible the difference in temperature before putting the fan on and after to answer the question: do stove fans work?
To make the experiment as scientific as they could, the technical mind at REUK made sure the central heating wasn’t on, the temperature outside was falling and then banked up their 4kw multi-fuel stove and waited for the stove temperature readings to level of and start to fall slightly before placing the fan, a Valiant Premium 4 (referred to as ‘PremAIR’), on the stove.
They place digital thermometers at 3 points around the room: just above the mantlepiece – to measure the air rising directly from the stove; 2 metres away from the stove and 2 metres high – to measure the air temperature just above head height of a standing person and finally 2 metres away from the stove at 1 metre high, that measures the temperature of someone sat on the sofa. The results were very interesting.
The results are in!
They were expecting the temperature by the mantlepiece to drop when the fan was place on the stove, and the other sensors to show an increase. That is exactly what happened. They took the fan off the stove and replaced it 3 times, just to ensure the temperature changes weren’t just a one-off. They found that the readings at the temperature sensors further away from the stove increased by 1 to 1 ½ degree. These appear to be minor variations; however, the difference can be felt when you are sat on the sofa, it means the difference between being comfortable and putting more wood on the fire.
Obviously, we think the fans are an amazing addition to your room, we feel they can be quite stylish and are whisper quiet so they are not intrusive to your environment while you’re relaxing by the fire. Visit our shop to see whether there is a fan that suits your style tastes and your budget; we absolutely believe it is a decision you won’t regret.
