Ecofan Review
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 พ.ย. 2016
- Review of the Ecofan thermogeneration woodstove fan. This fan runs without electricity (it generates it's own) to automatically circulate heat from a woodstove around the room.
You can purchase an Ecofan from out Amazon store here. amzn.to/2UcZcJA
Watch our Cubic mini wood stove video playlist • Cubic Mini Wood Stove - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Probably the most pleasant review ever,
I felt like I was invited into your home, and you were the most gracious hosts.
Thank you.
I don't know why but it felt super warm to see you & your wife talking about this Ecofan.
God bless your souls, both of you ♥️
I've had an Ecofan for 3 years now and I've been very happy with it. A month ago, it stopped working, so I did some looking on TH-cam, found a couple of possible fixes and set about fixing the fan. Voila, it works again. The fan cost me $135. 3 years ago and I've now put $8.00 into a repair. The repair used a 1.5 gram tube of thermal paste, the same thing used in computers. If the motor ever goes, there are places to buy the TEG (ThermoElectricGeneration) Module for under $20. :)
My Dad in Michigan has a similar fan (Alcona/Caframo) and after years of use the fan stoped working. I was there last month and figured it just needed a replacement motor but didn't have time to order one before leaving back to Texas so I bought him the Ecofan at the local Tractor Supply. I took the old fan apart & placed it in my carryon luggage hoping that it wouldn't be a problem. Well the TSA folks in Dallas never seen one so naturally they were all over it but eventually let it pass through with me. I since ordered the replacement motor & just finished installing it along with new thermal paste. I don't have a wood burning stove but tested it out in a frying pan on low heat on my gas stove & it works like new! I'll be sending it back to my Dad this week and am glad that he'll have two now to also help heat his simple home.
That fan is great, if the electric goes out, it will still work to help circulate the heat. Great idea!
OMG, that is so funny. I thought that was a full sized wood stove in the background, and when you moved back to it you looked like a giant. LOL!!
read your comment and said, it is a full size stove ?? then saw the moment of truth lol
Me toooo!
UtwoBed 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
same, I was like, I never realized those Stove fans were that huge!
I thought the same thing too funny!
I too really love the fan. But also enjoyed how the ‘Mrs’ demonstrated that a grateful heart ( attitude ) naturally makes one more joyful.
So buy this fan and look on the bright side. Your life will be warmer and happier. 😀
The more air that passes over the pipes the quicker and more heat will be drawn from the source also. So you get not just air moving but more heat wicking also. Great idea! Great design. I'm also just now living on an rv. 1989 coachman leprechaun.
Have you not noticed this small blade under the base? It is a regulator, when the temperature of the device is too high, the bimetal blade arches and raises the base in order to reduce the temperature and thus protect the Peltier module.
Thank you for reviewing Ecofan on your TH-cam channel! We think you have done an excellent job of sharing the key benefits of the Ecofan with your audience. We are creating a highlight reel of community reviews on the Ecofan products and if it’s cool with you, we’ll include a small portion with credit at the end. Let us know if that’s ok on your end and we’ll send it your way when it’s finished. Would of course be happy if you shared as well 😉
Just bought an eco fan airdeco 1 today!
@@denverbasshead Fantastic! Thanks for your support. We hope you are extra cosy this winter :)
@@EcofanbyCaframo I've seen many of your fans on TH-cam, and now that we're heating full time with wood it was a no brainer
@@denverbasshead Thrilled to hear that! Thank you!
Best review I've seen in a while. Can feel how much you genuinely like the fan.
I heat my whole house with a big Hearthstone and 2 Eco Fans. I have forced heat and air, but in 20 years have never turned on the heat. I agree with you, they're brilliant!
Our children heat with wood and this would make a great gift for Christmas. Thanks for the info.
Did your children like the gift?
It generates electricity because of the heat. And I love this fans and they are dead silent. They works perfectly and I have been using one of this since 2009.
The one I have is called Twin Fan
wow, I didn't know that they even existed. I had commented on another video of ya'lls about a fan. perfect. I'm from the south. no real worries about being cold. looking at tiny houses brought me here. thank you, both for the work ya'll put into this. it's opened my eyes on things.
Love ours, we got the first one before they came out with the bigger size, I would like to get the bigger one to push more air, but it is still so great. Not only does it save money in electricity, it is amazingly quiet. I just LOVE your mini wood stove, by the way!
nice toy, but it barely moves any air. tested it with a candle and some incense sticks. I bent the blade tips a little. A tiny bit of improvement but not much at all. I feel it was a waste of $35.00.
I bought one for our living room. At first I was sceptical because I couldn't physically feel the heat blowing off it. But boy does it ever make the room warmer. Thanks for the review.
What a lovely little couple ,so sweet to watch.
Anybody thinking about living in an RV better do a lot of research first. We lived in a 35 ft. travel trailer, with 2 large slide outs, 4 nights a week, for the last 4 years before I retired, while I was working out of town rather than staying in a motel or apartment. It did one thing for us, it made us realize just how much we really loved our 2,500 sq. ft. house with a full size basement, 3 car garage and workshop. We sold the trailer as soon as I retired. We had planned to sell our house and hit the road when we retired but after that 4 year experience there's no way in hell I'll ever live in a tiny box again and we had a big bedroom with a queen size walk-around bed and a bathroom with full size fixtures. And don't even get me started on what it's like living in an RV in the South where big thunderstorms and tornadoes are a regular thing.
We have lived here fulltime going on 5 years, and we love it. But living tiny isn't for everyone!
This bizarre (to me, anyway) reaction was initially discovered in the later 1700s. Think of that. Then a guy named Peltier rediscovered it in 1834. Some guy name Seebeck did even more research about the effect. I don't know who figured out this fan trick but it's BRILLIANT!
Your wife is so pleasant. You're a lucky guy.
Great voice too
They are great units but they have a week spot when folks assume that if they put them on the hottest part of the stove they will get more heat. The thermopiles that create the electricity to turn the electric motor are prone to burning out with high temps. The good news is that these thermopiles and the motors can be bought on eBay for about $15 for the both. Once you've repaired one they are quit easily fixed just pay attention to the wiring. Cheers, Billy in B.C..
You two are so comfy and you appreciate the natural things in life!
I love that you two are so snuggled in...
I have a similar fan, but bigger. Mine has a 3 blade fan and I use it on a Vermont Casting airtight wood stove. Another great aspect of this type fan is when the stove goes out and cools off, the fan stops. Unlike an electric fan that would keep blowing cold air until someone turned it off.
That the model (3 blades) is used for pellet stoves isn't it?
Airtight defeats the purpose of fire....
An additional plus is that you can see it slowing down, then you know that you need to add wood.
@@joandorsey2242 True, but if it is slowing down on an airtight, the fire may already be out. They hold the heat for quite awhile.
@@happypappy6371 So far, so good. 👍
That was a great review, and as you say no attachment to a company, I bought one today here in Ireland, can I say thanks for your video and comments and all the best for the future cheers Jimmy and Jean.
The silver looking plate between the bottom "hot" side and the upper "cold" side is a thermoelectric peltier plate. That creates the electricity that then powers the small DC motor to turn the fan.
I'm glad you can keep warm in that little trailer. I live in a larger trailer/mobile home and I have a lot of cold spots. I'm using zone heating with Lifesmart heaters. I still need to get an electrician in here to make me a dedicated line for the other heater so it does not trip my circuit box. I have one spot left they can put a line in. These little heaters pull 1500 watts so they really need a dedicated line. I have both a fireplace and central heat but these heaters seem to be cheaper on the electric bill than that big central heater so I avoid turning it on. I'm disabled and although I have 5 acres of wood source I'm not able to go cut and split wood & carry it in.
I love to hear your antique clock in the background. Its ticking is just so peaceful! :)
Yes, it is. 😊
Nice video! But it fooled me - it looks like you have a full-sized stove that was about 15 feet behind you until you moved your chair back about 2 feet to be next to it! You look like a very happy couple! Stay warm!
Two dissimilar metals that when heat is applied produces electricity. Many different combination of metals will do this. As a jet mech, we rely on this to tell us the temp of many areas of the engine.
That's very interesting. So the level of current produced reflects the temperature difference which and can then be converted into a celsius/fahrenheit reading and shown on a monitor?
@@firholfinance8623 Indeed, but for the sake of being technically comprehensive I'll mention that the current produced is put through a sense resistor and measured as a voltage induced across it, and that measurement is what is then then converted via a few lines of math in a microcontroller.
Read my comment above.
The Ecofan top and base are both aluminum. It is the Seebeck Effect that is producing the current.
All of your Thrive Life cans in the living room, look like a quaint little Country Store decor theme. They add some nice color & are so neatly displayed.
Great vid on the fan too! Love the little Cubic Grizzly. So happy for you guys. Bill really does incredible handiwork. Very nice.
Just a tip for everyone - do not have the fan on the stove when you light it as it will over cook the electrical cable and motor, the fan uses a a Peltier junction, a thermo-electric device that translates heat/cold into electric power practical thermodynamics at its best,
Ecofans have a safety feature...a bimetallic strip in the fan base that curves out when the base gets too warm. The base tips back on the curved strip and returns to normal when it cools down. So smart, so simple. A Canadian product. Smart people, those Canucks.
Very helpful video. We live full time in an RV too. Our Tiny Wood Stove is on its way. I need an Ecofan on its way too!
oh yay!!! I'm planning on moving into a bell tent in a few years and I had seen another video where the guy was living in a bell tent and he had one of these fans on his stove. He pointed out the fan but did not elaborate on it or tell us what it was and I've been dying to find out so this was perfect. Thank you
You're welcome :-)
Had the Eco for some time it's been very good but I decided to upgrade so now I have a Heat Action'ne from a French company ( eBay ) it has twin 5" fans and has a 230 cubic feet minute max output and have to say it definitely pushes more air than the Eco it cost me £69
The dimensions are 6" high ,11" wide & 5" deep so not much bigger than the Eco.
Happy Christmas guys. Good review and these fans are well worth buying irrespective of the model
Regards lee
Jean-Charles Peltier in 1834 found this effect :)
And that element sandwiched between 2 parts of construction.
Glad I came across your review. I've been looking for a fan for my wood stove and was considering the Ecofan. Wanted to make sure it was worth the money and I believe you answered that question for me. Hope it's still providing lots of comfort for you.
Still working, several years later. 😊
You guys look and sound like really nice people. Wish you all the best and hope you keep making videos for us to watch.
What's really good about these is that the fan is powered by the heat differential between the collector on the hot side and the heatsink/radiator in the cold side.... The faster the fan turns, the more airflow you get over the heatsink/radiator and the cooler that heatsink/radiator becomes the larger the differential becomes and the faster the fan spins causing a feedback loop
I don't want to seem critical and I know it's all in a limited space. But it would have been nice to get a little more room/separation from the refrigerator. It's working hard to stay cold, while the stoves working hard to heat the space. Trying to squeeze every ounce of efficiency out of both, stretching that dollar. Great video and review, nice to know for off grid.
There is a heat shield and a wall between the wood stove and the fridge. NO heat gets to the fridge.
Very nice. You both seem so happy. A simple life is a good life.
I read with some interest that people were having some success with theses fans. My experience has been they are pretty to look at but do not do much. Note My experience is with three different houses, three different rooms. But the rooms were big roughly 23 by 22 feet. My two have worn out and I have not replaced them. Though a Family member is still running his two and believes they make a difference.
Go on ebay there are other brands that are cheaper but remember they may not be as good you get what you pay for great video thank you
Hi Preppers, I hope your doing good. This is an update to a previous comment. I found a Thermoelectric Module, AKA Peltier module on E-bay, part number TEC 12706 for around $2.00 plus or minus. Heat sinks can be obtained from old computer or computer repair shop for free to very little money. Just a thought. Be good, C.
I have a similar ones for my wood burners and they make a huge difference to heating my ancient stone built farmhouse and it cuts down on the amount fuel I burn too.
the eco fan needs to be placed at the far back of the stove, placing it in front of the stove pipe will damage it and stop it from working. i know, i'm on my second one now.
That's why I use a fan to mix up the warm air, it does 16watt and give instant 4 degrees celcius rise on a height of 1.2 meters and it helps to warm 3 other rooms to about 17 degrees celcius :)
Bill you and your wife have a beautiful home. Love the videos please keep it up.
I was looking for a fan to circulate for my pellet stove. Using no electricity or batteries is a bonus. Sounds like it will be worth every penny since not paying out monthly for electricity or batteries will soon make up the cost. Thanks so much for this info!! Most appreciated! I think it should work for my pellet stove because the edges and top are hot. It used to be cooler when we first bought the stove but has become hot since then. Definitely going to purchase one to try. 😃
As long as the top of the stove reaches 165 degrees, this is the fan for you.
Good to know...will check first.
Kimberly, please let us know if it works for you! We have a pellet stove and tried the Ecofan but we had to return it because our stove didn't get hot enough (on top) to run it. We sat the fan on the very hottest part of our stove and it just barely moved.
Christina Bond I have not purchased yet but on my later list with Amazon. In the middle of remodeling right now. Our pellet stove is technically not supposed to be hot on top but parts are. Will have to find something to tell me how hot on top it is.
There is a manufacturer in Canada that produces the most popular brand of these fans. I bought a Chinese made model with good reviews (customer reviews on Amazon) on e-bay a year ago for $39, penny pincher that I am. It has worked well so far.
This channel is so wholesome :)
Excellent Review, Thank you so much! You have a great tiny home!
As always, thanks for sharing!! I will definitely pass this info on to my brother as he has a wood stove and is always looking for ways to move the air.
I am glad you reviewed this fan, as it is a cold start to autumn over here in OZ. I have never seen it before so I intend to hunt one or two of them up, as well as a mini stove for my caravan on a block of land I have out on in the styx. You do excellent reviews mate, and I appreciate the effort you put into making them. Cheers.
Actually, I should have said, you and your wife do excellent reviews.
Thank you for the encouraging words. I'm glad we could help in some way.
How wonderful to see you guys doing well and thanks for the reviews -- they're very helpful. I especially appreciate independence from electricity.
For years Eco Fan was the only device of its type and cost over $100 (and was worth it). Now there are numerous fans on eBay from around $10.
I have a remote cabin I have 2 of them The bimetal strip on bottom is Key I find ceramic tiles under the fans give a little resistance had prolong the life great fan PS there are 2 sizes I believe the vid is the small one Thx
You could also run copper pipe around the chimney and utilize water to heat any other room
The Peltier device is what the power generation is from. its a semiconductor type device that generates voltage from a temperature difference. it can be used in reverse as a heat pump. or cooling device for wine refrigerators.
nice review. thanks. might get one for the pot belly stove.
while the rest of your comment is correct, peltier elemets are not used in heat pumps. Heat pumps work differently. You can read about this e.g. on Wikipedia. The function principles are very different and heat pumps are a lot complexer then thermoelectric generators.
@@mathiasbraunling368 Yes now that you mention it I think i was misusing the term..heat or cold generator i was thinking I meant to say with electricity applied to it it would create the temperature differential in reverse.
I have seen them used in those wind coolers before, but thanks for the clarification and correction.
I love this woman’s voice.
Hi Preppers, You can make one from 2 CPU heat sinks, or suitable aluminum mass, a thermal electric module, about $12.00 to $40.00 on E-Bay and a low volt DC electric motor, from old DVD player and an old flower pot for the blade. Total cost less than $45.00. Just reverse leads to motor if spinning in wrong direction. Use hub for DVD to glue to blade, wire to hold it all together or heat resistant glue. Thought you might like to know. Be good, C.
Hello Tinyhouse Prepper,
I have looked at your channel again and again.
Since I am currently converting a Sprinter Van to a Tinyhouse, I was looking for such a fireplace.
Your VIdeos helped me a lot and I was able to make the right decision.
Thank you.
Best regards from Germany.
And I have subscribed to your channel now.
I'm looking forward to more videos.
P.S: Unfortunately, the ingredients in your cooking videos are not in Germany. A pity. Would be great for long-term campers.
Thrive Life food is actively working on going international. They haven’t told us which countries they are working on, but I’m hoping it includes Europe. And I don’t know the timeframe. But when it happens, We will definitely do videos about it!
Appreciate you guys!! Have a small one that I think I got in at around $30. Nice to see there are larger versions. Thank you for the great video!!
so you bought fan from amazon,? cubicmini , shipping high, it has taken me bout a year to afford everything I need, got grizzly, got heatshield, just ordered all the stove pipe I need, I hope, ordered the mini shovel kit, built in walls for heat, im in a place for free wood, north Ca, panning for gold, just need to start panning, just moved here, just want to thank you for your vids, have helped me so much, …. I will figure out how to send pics soon, 30" 5th wheel,
Jaime
P.S. yall want to pan for gold, lots here, come on, the new 49's gold club, The New 49'ers Prospecting Association, visitors welcome.
You can upload pictures to our Tinyhouse Prepper Facebook page. There’s a link to it in the description of every video. 😀
Amazing thanks for the video because I brought one of these a couple of days ago and was a little disconcerted because it does not actually force air out the front of the blades like a usual fan then it suddenly dawned on me that it acts like an old carburettor and airplane propeller. I have a large cottage with only one very large wood stove except i can tell you that the ambient air temperature was warmer out in the consecutive rooms of the dining and kitchen by using the fan and there were definitely no cold areas in the room where the wood stove is even from window areas. I can’t for the middle of winter to see how it well it works except I do know that I probably used 50 percent less wood and coal , over a time frame of an evening and the stove was still warm in the morning. On a larger stove it obviously may take longer for the fan to start unless you crank up the fire really hot until the prop turns and then turn the fire down to the lowest heat temp straight away for the most economical burn time. Thanks you confirmed what I was worried about which I needed to hear from somebody about the fan not projecting a breeze to be more efficient. Better learn something about aviation physics I suppose haha.
The plane pushes the air behind. The stove fan pushes it forward. From the son of an RAF pilot ww2 DSO and DFC and bar. This innovation is too good to miss. Forward and on.
What a brilliant innovation !
My sister has a couple of those on top of her insert. Works like gangbusters. Amazing piece of machinery.
Thanks Guys, God Bless and Blessed New Year.
Thank you for taking the time to make the video
Great review. Actually there are multiple brands of heat operated circulation fans as low as $28. I can't attest to their quality but the prices are within a huge range.
I have a Stirling engine powered one, no better or worse but it's more fun and mechanical.
Saw a similar fan on "off grid with Doug & Stacy" theirs was made in Canada but I couldn't find it as I didn't know the exact name. Love your set up.
I saw that, too. It's the same fan.
Looks really good, hope it continues to work well for you both.
I ordered my (cub), two days ago. Im really looking forward to trying it out. I will also be purchasing an te fan. Thanks for sharing.
I love the little green cook stove! perfect size.
Elizabeth I saw a sign that said "free hugs" you had it on your fridge. 👍🏼👏🏼👌🏼🤛🏻
Thats a washer/dryer
I have 2 echo fans, I can stand 20' away and it will move toilet paper, so they really do work. You can also buy replacement motors for them....
Oh, look, a positive "review" by a guy who sells the item. WOT a surprise.
We do not sell this item! This was an honest review.
@@LiveSimpleLiveFree Then why did you say that you do? "You can purchase an Ecofan from out (our) Amazon store here." I'm just going by what you said right there in your description.
Ok, you're right. We actually made this video so long ago that I didn't even remember that it is listed in our Amazon store. But we are not salesmen for the company. WE don't sell this product, Amazon does. In fact, our monthly check from Amazon usually averages UNDER 100 bucks - including ALL of the products we sell through Amazon - so we're definitely making a killing on this one! We didn't do a positive review so that we can sell it. We did a positive review because we like the product and thought many of our subscribers would like it too. Here's what we've learned. If we review a good product and then don't tell people where they can buy it, we get a hundred comments asking "Where can I buy this." So putting a link in our Amazon store is really more of a convenience for our subscribers than it is for us to make money (we certainly don't make much). Let me ask you something. Why does it bother you that we might make a little money from our You Tube endeavors? Do you have a job? Do you have any money to live on? Where do you get your money? Well... You Tube is our JOB. It's our only income. We spend over 40 hours per week, writing, filming, editing and uploading FOUR videos per week. Oh, and answering thousands of comments - like this one. If we didn't make a living from our job (You tube), we wouldn't be able to DO You Tube. So WHY is that a problem for you?
The Seebeck effect. From the surname physicist Thomas Johann Seebeck, who discovered this phenomenon of electromotive force.
limadeltazulu Yes, he was German, a doctor and pysicist 😉
I have one and I am very pleased with it! Works very well!
I have my small wood burning stove in my pubshed all I need to do now is too get the chimnea thru the metal roof.w/ a hole saw,& I paid around 65$ for the fan that came w/ it.from Amazon.
Thanks for the review getting our first wood stove wanted one forever.. you guys are so cute.
I think there is a peltier inside it, which makes the electric motor turn. Peltier module generates electricity with a principle of thermo differential.
I love your review on the cubic mini stoves and this genius godsend of a fan. Thank you so much for helping me decide what I’ll do. Have you considered some sort of fire brick or soap stone mass around the stove? They absorb heat and slowly release it 🔥
There really isn’t much room in that tiny little place for brick heat mass.
I bought a Cub stove for my motorhome. The fan I will buy later.
Easiest way to increase stove heating efficiency is just to add some (vertical) cooling fins on a chimney.
Михайло Сєльський In an efficient modern stove the last thing you should do is cool the flue gasses further by adding heat fins to the chimney. Good, efficient stoves already emit relatively cool flue gasses, and cooling them further may result in poor draw and potentially creosote. Most manufacturers state flues should be lined and often insulated, completely the opposite of what you are proposing.
Hi Bill and Elizabeth, I really enjoy your videos!
Thanks for your video. I have a four blade and don’t really notice any difference. Looks nice though
I'm an avid anti-prepper, when the shtf I want to be among the first to go. Not interested in 'living' in a post apocalyptic hellhole. Nice review though and if I had a wood stove again I'd get one. Saw an idea to couple side tubes to double up the chimneys to do the same much cheaper.
You've done us a great service with this informational video! Please reach out to let us know if we can send you a new Ecofan. Thanks so much!
We’d love a new ecofan. How does that work? How do I “reach out” to you?
Ahhhhhhh I wish I had one chance to lived like that ❤️💙
Have you ever considered mounting an EcoFan under your Grizzly Cubic Mini Wood Stove?
it wouldn't work with the heat on the top side lol
Lovely stove two lovely people, super,
I looked at your video when you first installed the Cub stove, and I wondered why you had not put a fan to circulate the heat. I also wondered how you two could sleep if you always had to feed the Cub stove. You two have certainly gone through trial and errors which is so appreciated because you're now sharing your experiences to help a lot of other people, and thank you so much, you're the greatest. P.S. Btw, is there a reason why you opted for the pipe curve over the stove?, because in the first video you had the pipe going straight up. Why did you change the direction of pipe?
Is this easier for you to clean the creosote? I intend to get the Grizzly model, but I'll put a metal plate in to elevate it up so the ash won't block the vent holes at the bottom.
I've had 1 Big and 1 Small one for 4yrs. Get the Big One. It works well locally but can't spread much heat to the rest of the house. But just recently both are clanking & I can't figure out why. I'll get another one if necessary.
your wife is a very good speaker....very calm voice. just saying.
Thank you! 😊
Make a base for that fan out of thin Ttitanium with a resivor of Gallium Aluminum alloy to absorb and conduct the heat from the stove to the fan. The Gallium Aluminum alloy will absorb and conduct lot's of heat even after the wood in the stove burn's out. 😊
Nice to see that your wife lives the lifestyle you do, She seems so friendly
Always a thumbs up, and I love to be reminded. That is an awesome find, but I am going to miss the coffee pot. I do love that I can still see it on the stove across from those cute little measuring cups. Your tiny house looks very cozy!!!
If we need to make coffee, we can move the fan for awhile.