Blower too small, other blower too big! Whats right for Mason 2x3? Who needs 550cfm

[BlueberryHill]

I have a WF Mason 2x3 and it has a little blower. I think it is the one that you can buy from Mason, but I am not sure of that. It is small. And it does not push much air. I am fairly certain that I could benefit from more air. Trying to get a stronger boil going.
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I have a very nice condition 550cfm blower that if from an oil furnace setup. I just rigged up a wire for it and plugged it in and wow! it pushed a lot of air. Fairly certain that it is too much air for the Mason 2x3 I would probably have flames shooting out of the top of my stack.

Does anyone know of the optimal blower size for a 2x3 evap?

Does anyone have an appropriate sized blower fr my unit that is looking to upgrade to say... 550 cfm? :)

[jmayerl]

You can find cheap($25) squirrle cage blowers online that are in the 250cfm range which would be good for your set up. Otherwise you can use the bigger one and just damper down the intake side.

[BlueberryHill]

I had thought about getting an extension cord with dimmer switch on it t see how that would work. Choking off the intake air like you suggested might work too. Hummm.... I don't have enough eletrical knowledge. Does anyone know if using a dimmer cord and running at half speed or so would cut down on the power usage, or is that motor sucking the same amount of juice either way? Figure I don't want to run some huge motor if I don't need to.

[jmayerl]

Using a dimmer switch will fry the motor the first time you use it, that is why you must use a damper. The damper must also be on the inlet side not the outlet or that also will fry the motor.

[BlueberryHill]

Awesome! Thanks for the info. Glad I asked. I think I'll slap a piece of sheet metal over half of the intake and see how that works out. Hopefully I'll get a roaring fire!

[jmayerl]

No problem, good luck with it. Try a sheet metal screw holding it on the top as a pivot. Then you can adjust the air flow in, it worked well on my 2x6 lest year. I just bent a corner up to use as a handle to adjust it.

[jputney]

I've had a dimmer switch on my blower for 2 years with no problems.

[steve J]

I am useing a dimmer switch on a mason 2x4 with no issues I run it half throttle and this is my third year doing so

[WI Sugarpop]

When you buy these blowers you can also get speed control switches for them. Is that different than dimmer switches?

[bowtie]

i use a dimmer swtch on my 2x4 mason run at about 1/2 speed also it works fine. i rev it up to get started and after i fire to keep a good strong boil. without the dimmer the blower that i purchased with the evap from mason would have melted the stack.