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I bought my fan in January 2012, and it shipped from Hardware Sales. The fan worked fine out of the box. It warmed up and started spinning in a matter of minutes. It only took a few more minutes for me to notice the difference it makes. The fan is virtually silent, and it does not produce any noticeable air movement (you have to put your hand rather close to it to feel the air move) but it works! I've been having trouble with very cold corners of my house, but this fan really spreads the heat out. It should pay for itself pretty quickly as I will be able to turn off supplemental electric heat in various rooms.
The down side:
My fan worked for less than 24 hours. It slowed way down, though the stove temperature was still hot enough to be powering the fan. Confused, I checked Caframo's website and found a question about slowing down on the FAQ page. It asks you to enter your model, and if you select 812 AirMax (this model) it then asks for the serial number to your fan. I entered my number and a page popped up saying that this particular fan was part of a bad production run and that it needed a replacement motor. It asks for address info and then confirms that they will send a replacement motor free of charge. They have a video on their website to show how to replace it (simple task).
So. . . if the product had worked properly, I would have given it 5 stars. Since Caframo seems to acknowledge the problem and makes it easy to remedy, I'm willing to give it another shot. Until it's up and working though, I have t give it 1 star.
What's a little bit irritating is that they know which ones are problematic, but that did not stop it from arriving at my doorstep. With more organization, I would think they could make an effort to recall the product from their distributors and replace them before they get into the hands of customers. In the meantime, I'll be paying for heat for a few more days.
In addition, Caframo should have informed me of the defect when I registered the product online (which meant entering the serial number).
I am glad I checked their website, otherwise I would have just thought it was poorly designed and that I had wasted $130. I feel bad for customers who might not check up on it and are stuck with a poorly working fan.
I'll update my review once the problem is fixed.
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I bought this hoping it could replace the blower that is built-in to my woodstove, because the blower is very loud and uses electricity. This fan does look very cool, uses no electricity, and pushes a decent amount of air. I'd probably need 2 of them to come close to replacing the blower.However, there are some issues with this fan that prevent me from using this as I had hoped. It's still a useful purchase, but I figured I'd spell out some of the issues so other people can be aware of some of the limitations before they buy this.
-as far as I can tell, the fan does not automatically start. I've waited until the stove was 550 and the only way to get the fan going is to manually give it a spin. I have a thermostat on the stove top
-it takes a while for the heat from the stove to reach the fan, so you have to wait like 20-30 minutes after the stove has reached temperature before the fan will work.
-the fan spins very slow at lower temperatures. It really only pushes a good amount of air at like 500-600.
Unfortunately, this vastly limits the fan's usefulness to me, as I usually start a fire before work or bed and leave while the stove is still at 250-300. I don't have time to wait another 30-60 minutes for the stove to be at a high temperature and the heat to have reached the fan to manually spin and start the fan.
It's a neat little device and works great on days that I am home. It also works great when I have company over and I can turn off the loud blower. But it doesn't work so great for the reason I bought it. I don't regret purchasing it, but I do wish it did more.
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This worked great the first couple fires or so, but then it slowed down dramatically. The instructions that come with it warn you to not use it above a 600 degree fire or so. I have a thermometer on my stovetop that goes to 850, and my fires sometimes get that hot, depending on what kind of wood I'm burning. I'm usually around the 700 range as a high temperature, but I'm sure I've been up to 850. I don't know if I damaged it, or if it just wore out. I certainly don't want to babysit my fire just to have the fan.Honest reviews on Caframo Limited 812AM-BBX Heat Powered Wood Stove Fan
Living in northern Vermont yields some very cold weather, wind, snow & very poorly insulated houses, which is precisely our problem. We'd been looking to purchase one of these fans for several months & finally jumped on it after seeing one at a friend's house on their gas stove. They LOVED there's, had it for several years without incident & said the fan really does make a huge difference. We are so thrilled with this little fan; it works SO well, whirring right along, moving all that cold air that comes in right around across the stove for an outpouring of so much warmth, pushing it throughout the house & reaching even the coolest areas. KICKING ourselves for not buying one earlier in the season! NO noise! Perfect!!I have read reviews about people holding tinsel & paper in front of the fan and not seeing any movement, which I think is either one of three things; either your fan is broken, misplaced on the stovetop (directions tell you exactly where to place it) or simple ignorance. If you want to SEE movement, don't hold your paper or tinsel or tissue directly in front of that fan, hold it to the outer sides of the fan where the blades are actually moving the air from & wait until your fan is really whirring (stovetop temp 450-650 degrees). If you can't feel the warmth moving across the stovetop, you're doing something wrong or your fan is broken.
I also don't think that this is overpriced. We're saving on electricity, we're heating the whole house, the tornado of a fan we had plugged in before did nothing but cool the stove down & keep the house nice & cold in the morning when the fire had died down with the electric fan still blowing across it. This little guy keeps going & has made the most tremendous difference in heating our 1800 sq foot, very poorly insulated home. We have a big pot of water on the opposite side of the stove, too to help with humidity & the fan helps disperse the water vapors more, too, which also adds to the warmth & comfort level. SO should have gotten one sooner!! If this guy quits on us, we'll definitely be back for another one. Seriously a great product!
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I have seen these around for a while, but always thought they were a little gimmicky and kind of expensive. I bit the bullet and bought the larger unit, the 812, for my wife for Christmas, along with a stove thermometer so we could see what temp our stove was actually running at. Now, my situation is a bit different in that I have a coal burning fireplace insert made by Hitzer, so I am burning either nut or pea coal in my stove, not wood (except in the Spring and early Fall during which time I burn some wood to take the chill out of the house). It turns out that when my coal stove insert is loaded up and running for its normal 16 hour stretch between refills (yes, that is why I switched from wood to coal, even though I get wood for free in my back yard), it runs right around 425 degrees F, which happens to be ideal to make the fan spin like crazy, but no where near the 650 degree point at which the fan could be damaged. Contrary to what I read in some of the reviews, we can absolutely feel the warm air being pushed away from the stove and into the family room where the stove is. My insert does have a built in fan which works extremely well as circulating air all around the fire box and pushing it out into the room, BUT, it is noisy AND it uses electricity. The Ecofan just sits there spinning happily with virtually no sound whatsoever. I thought if nothing else, it would make a nice, attractive conversation piece, but after using it for a month now, I will say that, like the title says, I should have bought one of these years ago!
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