Blower or air Injection

[backyardsugarer]

I have a blower fan on my D&G which comes from the back of the rig, through the grates and really kicks up the fire. Is air injection through the front better, different or more efficient? Just wondering if it would be worth my time since I have an old wood stove blower and some scrap metal laying around.

Also has anyone out there made a home made woodsaver that I see in the leader catalog? If so, how?
Chris

[Russ]

Our old forced air unit was a squirrel cage furnace fan ducted into the back of our firebox, under the grates. Instead of an ash pan, there was a manifold with maybe six 2.5-3" tubes running parallel to the length of the firebox with holes drilled on the top. That gave us a more even distribution of air going up into the firebox. If you do it this way, it doesn't matter from what side, front, or back the air comes from. What does matter is that you do it! Better fire, more heat, hardly any ash and no build up of coals.

One issue we had was when firing. We had a big switch for the fan mounted to the wall close to the front of the evaporator. If you forgot to shut off the fan when firing, you ended up with sparks and smoke coming back at you. A variable speed control would be my recommendation.

We're hoping the stack blower (induced draft) will eliminate the need for the forced air in the firebox. With enough draft, this will eliminate the need to shut anything down before firing, and will prevent the sparks and smoke from coming back at us.