Wood burner and heat activated fan

[Jbcory74]

Hi all!

We have a wood burner in our living room which emits heat but only to the surrounding areas now the entire room- well not for ages anyway!

Do you know if a placing a fan in front of the fire will help? I know they should go on top but I don’t have space on top to place one.

Any suggestions?

Photo attached!

 

[Burnerman]

These eco fans get really hot - so much that you can’t touch them- and they require a direct source of heat for the thermo cell to generate electricity ....unfortunately one placed in front of the fire wouldn’t spin at all.
John

 

[RandomGrinch]

Do you know if a placing a fan in front of the fire will help? I know they should go on top but I don’t have space on top to place one

I'm afraid the standard wood burning stove fan won't work in your cicumstance.
Those fans use a peltier device to drive a small electric motor.
The peltier needs a large temperature differential to generate the power, hence a very hot bottom plate that sits on the stove.

A small mains or battery operated electric fan, placed in front of the stove may help, but will lack the aesthetics!

....aaaah, beaten to it!

 

[Burnerman]

Some sort of solution - which would look particularly horrible - would be to slide a steel plate on the top of the boiler and allow it to project outwards a bit and stand the fan on that.
I’ll get me coat now!
John

 

[fourtytwo]

I had a woodburner a bit smaller than that in my last house and it was installed in front of a blanking plate over the original fireplace so that all the surfaces radiated into the room, front, sides and top. IMOP that installation is a bit naff from an efficiency point of view.

 

[RandomGrinch]

....also a little hampered by most of the convected heat going straight up the chimney...

 

[JohnD]

Are you sure that warm air isn't going up the chimney (apart from the smoke)?

 

[Jbcory74]

Would a smaller wood burner have been better?

 

[Jbcory74]

The space around the current wood burner can’t be made bigger (not width ways anyway because of the chimney breast) but we could potentially have the fireplace surround removed and have the area above the stove increased but then would be less space between fire and tv…

Or we could ask for the wood burner to be brought out of the surround more so the heat isn’t getting lost?

 

[Jbcory74]

Any recommendations would be fabulous please if what you’d do in this circumstance x

 

[Jbcory74]

We currently have the Hunter Allure 5 installed but could see what the 4 would be like which is substantially smaller in width and height to give extra space.

I’m not sure if the installer will accept a return for this fireplace now or if we would need to purchase new…

 

[Jbcory74]

Size difference

 

[Jbcory74]

Potentially getting the Allure 4 instead of the 5 we currently have would look more like this, more efficient?

 

[Lower]

It should be possible to bring the wood burner forward out of the recess which would help it emit more heat. But putting a tv above it is not a good plan.

 

[Nige F]

Any recommendations would be fabulous please if what you’d do in this circumstance x

Bring it forward Also , what's that on the left of the surround near the floor ? looks like an old gas fire valve and pipe . A job for gas safe to remove . Was the install HETAS and registered with paperwork for you?