6.9.2015

I find it difficult to give this item 5 stars priced at £67.97 on the 6th September 2015, not because it doesn't work well, it just is unlikely to be sufficient for anything other than a small room. (which is what it is designed for).AFTER NOTE 22nd September 2015=============================I have just witnessed this item working on a very small word burner in a workshop upon which a colleague uses to heat his workshop and cook his breakfast and lunch; a bit like a campfire stove, but with a chimney which is properly built into the wall. He was able to demonstrate that on the heat that he generates for his stove, this item is extremely effective in a small to medium space.He was sufficiently impressed to order one! Which I think is a good indication that in the right conditions and sized room, this item is very effective.First off, you receive a smaller version of the Valiant Stove fans, all of which do work. Due to poor summer which we have enjoyed, I have tested mine on both my stove top and my Aga; believe it or not, this fan will work at 45 degrees C and therefore even when the Aga is on its laid back setting, I can still have this fan propelling the heat into the kitchen; albeit at a reduced rate. Basically the hotter the stove top the faster that this fan propels air into the room.So why have I given this item 4 stars and not 5 stars? Well let's look at the positives and negatives:POSITIVES=========+ Well made, but I will make comment re that in the negatives+ It does work, but I will make comment re that in the negatives+ It propels the air efficiently, but I will make comment in the negatives+ Carries a two year warranty+ Examining reviews on similar (larger) products by the same manufacturer suggest that the item will be durable and effective+ Installation is simple, you plonk it on top of your stove/and or Aga in our case an position the fan at the angle appropriate to where you wish to direct the airflow.The instructions are a bit more specific in relation to where you locate it in relation to the chimney, but it is not complicated to install.NEGATIVES==========+ Whilst it is well made, I was amazed to receive it with wires sticking out of the back; surely they could have fixed these into the body of the fan. Basically you could quite easily damage the wiring. (Valiant have responded with an explanation in the comments)+ It works. No question, however, in order to feel the effect, it takes at least an hour for the air to circulate to any degree - this may be due to the size of the fan. We use ours in an inglenook fireplace and it does propel the air out of the fireplace; the hotter the stove, the faster the fan: ergo more hot air is propelled into the room. Similar with the Aga; ours is recessed and whilst the fan does not spin as fast or the propulsion as strong, it still helps to circulate hot air away from our stove. I just think that the fan is too small for our purpose - but for a smaller room or are prepared to wait a little longer to feel the benefit it is fine.SUMMARY========This is a tried and tested item which is used extensively by people with log burners. I have seen them demonstrated at a variety of locations, including country fairs, stove shops etc and have tested this item for a week, both on our log burner and our Aga. To be absolutely honest, I don't feel that it is sufficiently cold yet to really test the item, but I will re-visit this review later in the year to update you on how it is performing during the winter.RECOMMENDATION=================Would I recommend it? Yes I would, but only if you were unable to install one of the larger fans and on the basis that I have tested it to date, this item is only suitable for a smaller room/ where there is limited space above the stove. Certainly in our 18 feet X 12 feet sitting room, even with a fairly hot stove, the air did not seem to be significantly warmer at the rear of the room, but we could feel it being propelled alright when inserting more fuel - but at this time of year, it is difficult to really assess how effective it really is. The longer that you have it running for does improve performance though.FURTHER UPDATE===============Following on from my initial review, Valiant have responded (nice to get that from a manufacturer) and I wish to make you aware of the following:+ Valiant confirmed that the fan is designed for smaller stoves and similar narrow rooms; ideal for a longboat or workshop+ Valiant advised: "The fan's heat resistant wiring is accessible, but considering it's placed on a very hot stoves we considered this would reduce prying hands, and a guard could impede air flow." (A REALLY GOOD POINT RE PRYING HANDS, BUT EVEN SO, I DO FEEL THAT THE CABLES COULD BE GUARDED BETTER - EACH TO HIS OWN.......)+ Being small it is more stable making it suitable for a workshop or narrow boat; I agree with the responses.Despite the feedback from the manufacturer, I still could not upgrade this item to five stars, but I can only reiterate that it is a good product, a "very solid" 4 star rating and it should last for years (allowing for my concerns re the wiring), carries a two year warranty and if you look at their other products on Amazon or other comparison websites, they are highly thought of by numerous reviewers who use them.Worthy of a purchase.

13.3.2014

We have a wood burning stove in our house and it provides the only source of heat for the 200 square meter space. It's a good one, it's heavy and burns well and it can stay in overnight. We do not, however, have any means of circulating the heat it generates; it simply rises and disperses mainly to the upper floors meaning that the bedrooms up there are generally warmer than the living spaces below, i.e. the wrong way around.I did temporarily install a fan within the chimney enclosure which enabled me to transfer some of the heat to another room. This is the basis of a popular method of heat transference. It worked well although it was a bit noisy. So when I heard about stove fans (via an earlier post on SFN)I was intrigued.Stove fans sit on top of your wood burner and are powered by a small thermoelectric generator, this requires no mains power or battery; they are completely autonomous and even vary their speed according to the the heat produced by your stove.Positioning is important, they must draw cooler air from behind to function correctly. For this reason they must be placed at the rear of the stove. One thing you need to be aware of is that they have an upper temperature limit, there is a bimetallic strip on the underside and if they get too hot this will lift the base up slightly to reduce the temperature of the fan. This failsafe will only protect the device up to a point, if your stove pipe reaches 345 degrees Celsius they should be removed to avoid permanent damage. According to my stove pipe thermometer, 345 degrees is way too hot for efficient operation anyway, so under normal circumstances there is no need to touch it.So what do they actually do? The principal is simple and could be, though not quite so elegantly, re-created with a desk fan. (Do not put a desk fan on top of your wood burner!) The heat produced by your wood burner will travel directly upward to the top of your room and that hot air will gently descend as it cools or is displaced by more hot air. The further from the burner you are the cooler it will be. The stove fan moves some of that hot air directly from the top of the stove further than it would naturally travel thus creating a more even dispersion of heat.It works, there is no question about that. How well it will work will be determined by your installation. If you have a ventilation system in place then you may not notice a difference. We do not and as a consequence the result is dramatic. Draughty spots are lessened and there is not so much of a hot spot near the burner.I have two of these fans, one I purchased and another sent to me for review by Valiant Stoves, a UK based company.Upon initial inspection they look very similar; they are approximately the same dimensions and of a similar design. The Valiant is the 4 blade model (FIR360) whereas the unbranded model has two blades. Place both on the stove operating at an ideal temperature of 200 degrees Celsius and they begin to spin within a few seconds of each other. The unbranded one always starts first, possibly due to the lighter weight of the blade arrangement. Removal of the fans stops them both after a couple of minutes.The Valiant is better finished than the eBay purchase, the motor is painted to match the colour of the unit and the handle functions properly, the unbranded one gets stuck easily.I have tested both for a period of days under similar conditions, they operate similarly, the Valiant is totally silent, the eBay purchase is very nearly silent, I can hear a click every revolution if I put my ear right next to it. I hadn't noticed until I did that so it's not noisy by any means. After a few days of use when the stove pipe temperature had reached the upper limit of their recommended use, the unbranded one had a slightly distorted pillar, it had not coped well within the limit of it's stated capacity and had warped! I was able to bend it back into place but that did nothing to restore my confidence in the cheaper unit. The Valiant had not suffered at all.In summary, I am impressed with the performance, they both do what they are supposed to but the Valiant does it better, it is made to a higher standard and I expect it will stand the test of time.

17.9.2015

The Valant Ventum is a compact little stove fan, which was just what we needed for one of our stoves which sits recessed into an old fireplace and there isn't much headroom. We've already got one stove fan, a slightly larger unit, in the family and it really seems to make a difference so I'd been looking for something similar in a smaller size. The Ventum feels substantial, made from cast metal, and seems generally well finished. Around the back a couple of short cables connecting to the motor are left exposed but this seems to be usual with these devices, our other stove fan is the same, so there may be some purpose to it and the cables are heat-resistant so it shouldn't be an issue in use.Thefan starts up quite quickly after the stove is lit and then speeds up as it builds up to full heat. At full tilt the blades are spinning too fast to see them rotating and there's a slight whirring sound, although it's not loud enough to be irritating. Be warned these things get very hot during use and you'll want to keep curious children at a distance. There is enough force behind the fan to get it turning at a good speed but not really enough to cause you any damage if you tangle with it, you're far more likely to get burned than lose a finger if you try to touch or move it during use. The mechanism depends on a temperature differential between the top and bottom of the fan to work, no batteries or mains power required, so it's recommended that you position it to one side of the flue (otherwise the flue will heat the top of the fan too much) and to the rear of the stove so it picks up all the rising heat and blows it forward. There's also a bimetallic strip hidden underneath the foot of the fan which is designed to tip it slightly, reducing contact with the hot stove, if the whole thing ever overheats.So, the main question, does it work? Yes, it does make a difference but it won't completely transform the heat distribution within your room. You do notice the heat from a newly lit fire a bit sooner because more of it is moving laterally into the room - normally you'd be waiting for the heat to rise to the ceiling and then work its way down to sitting height. You also notice more of a warm-zone just in front of the stove, which happily enough is where most of us put the couch, as the fan encourages more of the heat to travel out before then rising up as usual. It's probably worth saying that you really never notice a breeze from the fan, unless you get very close to it, but you do become aware of more movement of warm air around the stove. I don't think this fan (or maybe any normal stove fan) is enough to completely redistribute the heat around the room, but it does encourage the heat to move further horizontally than it normally would and that alone can mean you feel more benefit of the fuel you're burning. It's really worth a try if your stove is recessed or if your room is especially high and you lose too much heat up in the rafters - although I must say this particular stove fan seems a bit pricey (at full retail) to me.

6.9.2015

I must say that until recently I'd never heard of stove fans, despite having had a wood burner for some 6/7 years now. It sits on top of the burner, its aim being to distribute warm air further into the room. This is a small fan, a mere 174 cms high, which should be enough for most alcoves. The base plate measures 11 x 7.5. You do need a flat top burner though. It's clearly meant for a smaller size woodburner. Mine is 54x45 and the fan fits well and sits unobtrusively to one side [you need to keep it away from the flue pipe].Good things - it looks well-made [in the UK]. No wires, no batteries, totally safe. No running costs whatsoever. And, more importantly, almost totally silent.

8.9.2015

This is something that you probably didn’t know you needed, I never knew they existed.What is it? Its a self powered fan that sits on top of your Log burner Stove, the heat from the burner will trigger something clever inside the fan and it will start turning, the idea being that the heat from the stove will be blow around the room rather than be lost up the chimney or similar.Its a solid metal fan, looks very nice and fitted the cosmetics of the stove nicely.I placed this on my stove and started the fire, it did take a fair amount of time for the fan to start, thought for a while it wasn’t going to do anything, it took a good half hour to start turning,

22.9.2015

This is a great little product that starts very quickly and does actually push the air around.We have an existing Valiant fan with larger blades, so decided to test the claim that this fan starts at lower temperatures. This definitely is the case with the fan starting very early on, and spinning fairly quickly before the existing fan actually started working. It also feels to be moving the air around more than our existing fan, which is clearly a benefit in terms of warming the room quicker.One slight negative point around this fan is that it does make a little noise when up to temperature and spinning quickly. it is noticeably louder close up than our existing fan which is practically silent.

12.9.2015

If you have a wood burner then you must have a stove fan. Why? Because theyare fantastically simple yet amazingly efficient at pushing the warmth from your logburner to the furthest corners of your room. A stove fan works by conducting heatthrough the base of the fan which is then turned into electricity which powers thefan's motor.And this Valient FIR362 Ventum 2 Blade Stove Fan is absolutely perfect for the job.This stove fan is small at only 174mm in height yet it is powerful in use and can blowup to 550ft per minute. It is able to blow this amount of air thanks to it's twin blades.This particular fan will start blowing the heated air around the room as soon as thetemperature reaches 45

19.9.2015

We recently replaced an old non-functional gas fire with a small woodburner. We had heard how useful stove-top fans could be but, because we had quite a small gap between the top of the wood burner and the top of the fireplace we hadn't been able to find one that fitted.Luckily this diminutive stove fan is only 17.4cm tall and therefore fits into our tight space. It starts up automatically very quickly after the stove is lit, (it is meant to start at temperatures as low as 45 degrees), and it really does seem to make a difference to how quickly the heat spreads around the room.I've docked a star because the fan seems a little pricey at the current cost of around £68. That said,

8.1.2015

We have a multifuel stove in our large (7m x 7m) living room. The stove is rather stupidly built into a fireplace so much of the heat was going right up the chimney. Our house is comparatively modern and reasonably well insulated but when it's below freezing outside, the stove was having great difficulty getting the whole room up to a comfortable temperature quickly without us having the central heating on. This was exacerbated by the fact that we kept the door ajar to allow our cats to come and go.I bought the fan as an early family Christmas present in mid-December. I was a little skeptical about whether it would work as advertised, after all it's a comparatively small fan and it doesn't exactly blow a gale but the difference has been enormous.

22.6.2013

I have had my multifuel stove for about 8 years and often felt that most of the heat just whent up the chimney, not out into the room, - but until I saw a similar fan stood ontop of a woodburning stove in a television program I had never thought that there was a solution to the problem.A quick search on Amazon and hey here was the answer.Delivery was very quick, well packed, and I just could not wait to try it.Today has been wet and cold and very windy so I have put it to the test and it works beautifully.There is no noise at all and spins clockwise, I understand that is the right way, it is very discreet ontop of my black stove and best of all I can feel the heat across the room where previously I would not feel any.I have now sent for a flue pipe thermometer,

2.12.2014

I stumbled upon this by accident after googling my issue - I found the area in front of my multi-fuel stove to be very hot but just taking a step backwards, I noticed the area was now a lot cooler. Most of the heat generated from my stove was going up and out of the house through the chimney. I was skeptical but I decided to try anyway and I'm so glad I did! The fan is silent (I suppose if you were to stand next to the fan you might hear a slight noise!) and works by itself when the stove heats up and shuts itself off, when the stove cools down - it is that simple! Just put it on top of your stove (they say near the back but I've found it more effective if you put it in front of the stove pipe)

2.4.2017

I read lots of reviews before buying this one. The reason for getting is the volume of air it circulates. We recently installed a log burner in the kitchen/dining room which was extremely cold due to having only one faulty radiator which couldn't be fixed due to bad plumbing, which meant having all the upstairs flooring removed!!!The kitchen is about 15 metres long by 3 metres, with the burner at the far end of the room. I did an experiment with and without the fan. Essentially without the fan going it, the far end of the kitchen remained cool as the heat was centralised around the burner. Within 30 mins of the burner up to temperature the far end of the kitchen raises about 5 degrees C plus.

4.10.2014

I have had this fan for about 10 months now, it's currently sitting on top of my wood burner in my living room, working away. Pretty much everyone that comes in to the house when the fire is on comments on it, wants to look at it, pick it up and wants to know how it works! (which is clearly by magic). It really is quite cool, does it help move the heat about the room or house? No idea to be honest, you can absolutely feel the air moving from at least 6 feet away, so it does help at least a bit. However the key attraction is that it is a really great little 'gadget'. You won't regret buying it, ignore the 1 star reviews, these people are clearly expecting too much from a fan that you sit on your burner,

24.2.2016

We have 2 of these now. They perform faultlessly and really do help project the heat into the room. Without them the heat accumulates in the corner ceiling and the floor upstairs gets very hot. Since having these the temperature at the other side of the room has increased by around 2 degrees compared with not using them (ive tested.) Just don't wash them in a bowl of soapy water!! (like a friend did)In between the top and bottom of the unit there is a small cell that produces electricity from the temperature differential (bottom gets very hot, top has fins to cool it down) this in turn drives a small motor which spins the blades.There are some superb makes which last forever but cost £300-400 each.

4.4.2012

I was concerned about buying the "cheaper" option compared to the Caframo fans but I am very glad to report that my worries were not realised. I thought it might have a cheap feel to it or have a noisy operation but the fan is sturdy and runs silently.Our dining room, and corridor outside it, warm up noticeably quicker and to a higher temperature.As the description says the fan is just over 23cm high and to work most efficiently must be located at the back, and on top, of the stove. This would not be possible if your stove only had a low mantle above it. Although not an issue I have its worth noting.If you want a fan for your stove this is the one to buy; does the same job but for less money.

Valiant Premium 4 - Reviews

Info

Analysis

Detail