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c/brave-new-englanderssanchez.marysanchez.mary1mo agoMost Upvoted

Took me 4 months to realize my wood stove was stealing all my heat

So last winter I kept wondering why the upstairs rooms stayed freezing no matter how much I burned. I checked the flue, the door seal, even cleaned the chimney in October. Finally my neighbor Bill came over in January and pointed out the heat exchanger fan was running backwards. Four months, like since November, and that little motor was just pushing cold air down from the ceiling. I flipped the wiring and the difference was night and day, bedroom went from 52 to 68 in an hour. Has anyone else dealt with a backwards fan on their stove or furnace? I feel like that's such an easy thing to miss but it costs me a whole cord of wood basically.
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2 Comments
hayden_rivera
And that's the thing @mark_cooper, backwards airflow is sneaky everywhere, I've seen ceiling fans set wrong in summer and even a fridge that was cooling the room instead of itself, it's like the universe just flips a switch sometimes and you gotta question every little motor you own.
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mark_cooper
Had a box fan do the same thing in my garage, blew cold air on me all summer.
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