If you are considering using a wood burning stove in your home then you should also think about wood stove fans. A properly installed wood stove fan can do everything from helping to distribute the fire inside the stove to making sure that the heat from the stove is evenly dispersed throughout the home. You can opt for an electric fan or a fan which is powered through the heat of the stove. Many people are finding that using the latter increases the efficiency of their energy consumption, and as such it is usually considered to be the better option. Not to mention the fact that some electric wood stove fans malfunctioned when they were placed so close to the radiant heat source of the stove.
Before the revival of the wood burning stove, many people relied on fireplaces to keep their homes warm in the cold winter months. However, people found that even though the fireplace was a more attractive option, much of the heat that they wanted to harness was actually lost through the chimney and was not evenly dispersed throughout the home, making it an inefficient heat source. Even if you were to use house or ceiling fans to circulate the heat, you would still be facing the obstacle of having much of the heat escape.
However, by relying on a metal wood burning stove with a fan you are turning it into a radiant heat source. This means that not only the stove is considered to be a heat source, but also the chimney, as it is also metal and will retain and disperse the heat. By adding wood stove fans to the mix, you are working to ensure that you are operating your home at peak energy efficiency levels.
Without having a wood stove fan installed, you will be losing some of the heat. This is because the heat from the stove will not be able to distribute evenly around the room. This means that you will have some people in the room next to the stove that could be uncomfortably warm, while others in the back of the room might be a little chilly. By employing the use of a fan that is powered by the radiant heat, the heat from the stove will be forced up from the belly of the stove and into the air around it. This means that everyone in the room can be comfortably warm without raising the costs associated with the heating method.