Blower questions for my homemade arch

[ACollette]

I have a similar homemade arch. I have a 350 cfm blower plumbed through my ash door. I retrofitted my ash door from a hinged door to sliding doors which split at the mid point. I welded an adaptor to recieve my air duct. When I first started using it, I found out that the blower was way too big. I was blowing my fire almost out, and I was wasting precious heat up my stack. I built a regulator to limit the intake on my blower so that it reduced the cfm. There is no doubt the evaporation rate was dramatically increased by the blower. My pan is a 2 X 3 and at peak efficiency I was showing about an 11 gph evaporation rate. I do have quite a bit of ash going out my stack. I have looked at ways to reduce this. Changes that I will try this season are installing a damper on my stack to act as a baffle and possibly screening the cap of my stack.

[wiam]

Changes that I will try this season are installing a damper on my stack to act as a baffle and possibly screening the cap of my stack.

I would not put a damper in the stack. I tried 1/4" screen on top and it plugged solid in less than 12 hrs boil time.

[rookie]

i just used a 60 cfm bath fan from home depot it was cheap, like 20 bucks then used an adjustable switch designed to be used on a table lamp, every thing all plugged together easy peasy! doubled my boil rate. Full blast was blowing fire out the door to the point where i was worried the shack would go up piped it in from the back of the arch using iron pipe and used a fernco ( rubber pipe clamp adapter) to adapt the fan to the pipe

[valleyman]

Indiana
Thanks for the Surplus Web site for small blowers. I've been using a a small desk fan and it blows a low level amount of air under the fire and it made a noticeable difference. I'm from the school bigger is better, more is better so I hooked up an electric leaf blower up and that nearly incinerated the trees 30' up. Pushed way to much up and out the stack! Went back to the little fan for my small block evaporator. But I melt the little plastic fans every year. I think i'm going to a metal one from the link you posted.
Thanks

[rookie]

I would not put a damper in the stack. I tried 1/4" screen on top and it plugged solid in less than 12 hrs boil time.

wiam, why not put a damper in?

[wiam]

I do not think you would want to slow the draft.

[getting started]

I wouldn't put your blower in the front , i think that you would be much happier with it under you arch. I have a 2 x 6 and i run a 540 cfm blower on it, thats what leader recomended and you may want to buy a quality blower like a Dayton ,around 125$ for my 540 cfm at the local heating supply store

[TC matt]

if you google "stanley blower fan" you'll see a nice yellow, multi-speed fan. I bought this on a recommendation from someone last year on this site last year. Best $39 ever spent on maple equipment! i blow it into my ash door and it does a great job - makes a huge difference. the bottom of my firebox is an iron grate with fire brick placed on top of the grate and i build the fire right on top fo the bricks. I leave about 1/4 to 1/2 inch inbetween the bricks to allow the forced under the fire.