Lapierre 24x60 Blower options?

[MapleME]

Anyone with a Lapierre 24x60 add a blower? Id like to hear some thoughts on best blower placement. On my previous 2x6 Mason, I used a small wood stove blower that blew up from the ash pan up through the grates.

Thanks

[maplwrks]

The best blower setup I've seen in a stock rig, was done by a freind of mine on his 2X10. He made a closed loop of 4" stove pipe that he connected his blower to. The loop of pipe hung from the grates with stainless straps. The loop basically went around the entire interior wall of the ash pit. On the top of the pipe he drilled 2 rows of 3/16" holes. The holes were drilled so that one row was right on the top of the pipe and the other at about the 10 o'clock position. The holes were spaced about 1/2" apart, along the pipe. He used a squirrel cage blower from a furnace to provide the air. A rheostat was necessary to calm the thing down. This rig had no air tight front on it, and I would put this rig against any stock rig on the market today. Good gasketing on the rails is very important when putting any blower under a stock rig.

[Jec]

I put my blower under the belly of the arch so that it would blow in on the bottom of the ash pit. I then closed off the draft door with ceramic blanket.

[MapleME]

Jec, nice youtube video. So can you take some pics or tell me more about how you mounted the blower? I have a blower from my previous evap that worked well. It was from my old wood stove and worked really nice and was quiet too! I just set the evap in place, I see the ash area on the bottom you talk about. From what your saying, sounds like that bottom area needs to be somewhat airtight for the blower to work well? The other thing I notice in your video is that the two front doors (grrr, wish they had just done a single door) has a pretty big space in between the doors. Do you suppose you loose any amount of forced air with a blower because of that? I appreciate your assist with this.

[Jec]

Hi MapleME, the ash pit does need to be pretty air tight. That why I ceramic blanketed the whole front of the ash pit. I also high temp caulked the blower inlet. About the doors, that gap is pretty anoying, and without a fire you can feel the air blow out. But, when you have a hot fire, the fire pretty much eats all the air. So there is a lot less leakage.
Hope this helps,
Joey