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Stove fan


bigcol

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37 minutes ago, Loddon said:

What you need is a stirling engine on top of the stove far nicer!

https://www.stirlingengine.co.uk/d.asp?product=VULCANSTOVEFAN

 

Or if you have lots of spare cash

https://warpfivefans.com/products/stove-fans

 

 This was one of 8 Stirling engines I put into two Waitrose stores.

 

Wouldn't fit on a stove though!

 

photo_12.jpg

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3 hours ago, Loddon said:

What you need is a stirling engine on top of the stove far nicer!

https://www.stirlingengine.co.uk/d.asp?product=VULCANSTOVEFAN

I rather like that, but for me the blades are on the wrong way round. I'd want the Stirling Engine to be at the front where I can see it doing its stuff, not tucked away behind the fan.

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4 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

I rather like that, but for me the blades are on the wrong way round. I'd want the Stirling Engine to be at the front where I can see it doing its stuff, not tucked away behind the fan.

Well, you could always get one like Nick has:

 

 

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10 hours ago, rusty69 said:

Well, you could always get one like Nick has:

 

 

 

I can't help thinking that the novelty of such a noisy ornament (nice though it is) would wear off quite quickly.  I know many here would dispute the usefulness of the Ecofan and by extension of the Vulcan but at least, if nothing else, the Ecofan sits there quietly informing you about the heat of your stove. I had assumed that the sterling-engined Vulcan is virtually silent - please tell me it doesn't make a similar racket to this "helicopter". It's bad enough that they've hidden the sterling engine round the back, but if it's noisy too...

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6 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Vulcan is virtually silent - please tell me it doesn't make a similar racket to this "helicopter". It's bad enough that they've hidden the sterling engine round the back, but if it's noisy too...

Dunno, but being a cold  war bomber, unless it is a stealth bomber, I suspect it is noisy. 

 

The main benefit of our stove fan is to see if the fire is still running when I get up at 6am for a pee, without having to walk the length of the boat. 

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On 12/11/2019 at 10:46, Dr Bob said:

Ah, you're all a load of snowflakes!

Of course some fans do work. Not a chance with that Lidl one though as not enough heat getting up to the cell. Buy a decent one with a good heat sink under the cell. There was a very scientific study done by some Muppet a couple of years ago that gave definite proof they work.

 

 

 

I think it may depend on the shape and configuration of the particular boat. I used to have two large 3 blade ecofans on my big stove on my widebeam and did my own tests using a digital Oregon scientific temperature gauge located about 22ft from the stove. In my tests the fans made no difference to the measured temperature without & with the fans. Maybe in the confines of a narrowboat ecofans work, but I suspect in the bigger space of a widebeam natural convection currents take over and the effect of the fans was insignificant. Anyway, after realising that they didn't work on my boat I sold them and don't regret getting rid of them.

 

Plenty of people are adamant that ecofans either work or don't work, but few have conducted any tests on their own boats and have no data to back up what they're saying. Instead their evidence is purely anecdotal. It's easy enough to do your own tests and find out for sure.

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11 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

I think it may depend on the shape and configuration of the particular boat. I used to have two large 3 blade ecofans on my big stove on my widebeam and did my own tests using a digital Oregon scientific temperature gauge located about 22ft from the stove. In my tests the fans made no difference to the measured temperature without & with the fans. Maybe in the confines of a narrowboat ecofans work, but I suspect in the bigger space of a widebeam natural convection currents take over and the effect of the fans was insignificant. Anyway, after realising that they didn't work on my boat I sold them and don't regret getting rid of them.

 

Plenty of people are adamant that ecofans either work or don't work, but few have conducted any tests on their own boats and have no data to back up what they're saying. Instead their evidence is purely anecdotal. It's easy enough to do your own tests and find out for sure.

I think you are right that it depends on the shape etc of individual botes. It was surprising when I did that stuff to see the air flows and in particular the high flow of air down the boat at ceiling height and back at floor level, with or without a fan. I guess that just wouldn't happen on a wide beam. 

I doubt measuring temperature works as it would be quiet tricky to keep a stove at a constant temperature over the time needed to do a test. There was a test done by the University of somewhere  in Canada and a lot of their paper was about keeping the stove constant. The were sponsored by Ecofan though.

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I think my big 9kW stove stays at a constant temperature for long enough to do a simple test. I have a basic stove pipe thermometer and although I didn't use mine in my test it would be easy enough to check stove temperature more accurately with an IR thermometer. Anyway, I'm not even sure if my tests required a constant stove temperature because I was measuring air temperature at the back of the boat which did remain constant. So I was measuring temperature outcome rather than temperature input, but I'm happy to be corrected on the methodology.

 

All I did over the course of several cold winter nights was start the stove on the first night without the fans until the digital temp gauge at the back of the boat read a constant 25C for a good hour and then I'd put both fans onto the stove and see if it made any difference to the reading over the course of the next hour. The next night I'd start the stove with both fans on top and after reaching my constant 25C I'd take the fans away and see if the temperature at the digital gauge dropped. The next night I repeated the first test again and so on for 4 nights in total. I'm sure my methodology wasn't flawless but I never saw any difference with/without the fans which convinced me that on my boat they weren't having any significant or measurable effect..

 

One other test that I could have conducted would have been to measure the time taken to get to 25C with and without the fans. However unless I'd used exactly the same amount of fuel that would have been an additional variable. Despite this it generally took about the same amount of time to get to that temperature and I never noticed any difference with or without the fans, although that's obviously anecdotal as I didn't measure the time taken.

Edited by blackrose
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6 minutes ago, blackrose said:

until the digital temp gauge at the back of the boat

!!!!!!!!!!! , the back of the boat???

Now I know I am a supporter of these fans but I showed they only changed the airflow up to around 10-15ft in a narrow 'corridor' but that's significant if it is where where you are sitting. No chance of them changing the temperature at the back.

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7 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

!!!!!!!!!!! , the back of the boat???

Now I know I am a supporter of these fans but I showed they only changed the airflow up to around 10-15ft in a narrow 'corridor' but that's significant if it is where where you are sitting. No chance of them changing the temperature at the back.

 

My stove is centrally located and the back of the boat is 22ft away from the stove with no obstructions between. The space is also 12ft wide. If two big ecofans can't shift warm air 22ft and even raise the temp by 0.5C then in my opinion they aren't working. 

 

There other thing is that if someone is sitting 10- 15ft from the stove and they're not feeling the heat from the stove without an ecofan then something is seriously wrong! Surely the whole point and rationale of these devices is to shift warm air where it's difficult for warm air to reach? Indeed supporters of ecofans often say that the furthest reaches of their boats are warmer with a fan.

 

Edit: picture from near the back of the cabin. The electric oil filled rad wasn't being used at the time of the tests.

DSC_5956.JPG

Edited by blackrose
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On a boat the stove generally stands in the open with free airflow around it. I suspect that in a house where the stove is tucked away in a recess (fireplace), these fans will be more effective. I wonder whether positioning the fan to one side and directing the flow behind the flue would work better, particularly when the stove is in a corner. 

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If other people are satisfied with their ecofans and found that they work on their boats that great, but I suggest you do a proper test to check that your perception isn't more to do with your imagination. As I said, in the narrow confines of a narrowboat these fans are more likely to have an effect than on a widebeam like mine where natural heat convection isn't so restricted.

Edited by blackrose
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On 12/11/2019 at 14:31, TheBiscuits said:

I used to be fond of agricultural machinery ...

 

... but now I'm an ex-tractor fan!

 

 

/coat!

 

 

I was following a magic tractor the other day.

 

I know it was magic because after a while, it turned into a field. 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Haha 1
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