How Convection Heating Works in Wood Stoves

Did you know that a wood stove is a great space heater? The politically correct term these days is “zone heating,” but essentially, a wood burning stove is designed to heat a specific space in your home (as opposed to central heating, which heats your entire home to the same temperature).

Wood stoves heat a space via convection. Convection is the process of conveying or transferring heat energy by moving or circulating air currents from one region to another. A wood stove pulls cool air from across the floor of the room into the bottom of the stove. Hot air is then pushed out and away from the top chamber of the stove.

This helpful 1-minute demonstration video from our friends at Travis Industries (manufacturer of Avalon, Lopi, FPX, and Tempest Torch brands), shows how convection heating works:

Chapter 6 from Travis Industries on Vimeo.

Fan that Heat

Many wood stoves enhance the natural convection process via a built-in or optional fan. The fan’s blower moves warm air further into the room at a faster rate, resulting in a more evenly-heated room, better airflow and increased air circulation.

A fan won’t make your stove more efficient, but it will make it feel more efficient, because it’ll warm your room faster than a stove without a fan. If you locate a wood stove in a large room or a room with a high or vaulted ceiling, you’ll definitely want to invest in a stove with a fan.

The Avalon Olympic Wood Stove pictured at right not only warms objects within the room, but it features a five-sided convection chamber to circulate the air around the stove and push warm air back into the room.

At just 2.6 grams of emissions per hour, the Olympic is one of the cleanest-burning large wood stoves ever approved by the EPA. Its large firebox can handle logs up to 24” long, providing up to 12 hours of continuous burn time.

Of course, you can order this stove or any Avalon stove from Rich’s five Puget Sound stores in Lynnwood, Bellevue, Tacoma, Southcenter, and Silverdale. Come on in and warm up!

Related articles

• The Advantages of Zone Heating over Central Heating
• How to Choose the Correct Wood Stove Size for Your Home
• How to Correctly Start a Fire in Your Wood Stove
• Wood Stove Tax Credit Good Through End of 2010

Subscribe to Rich’s blog

Subscribe to our blog via your feed reader or receive our latest posts in your e-mail Inbox. Simply click “Subscribe to this blog’s feed” or fill out the form located in the right-hand sidebar of our blog.

  ‘Like’ Rich’s on Facebook

We also provide daily tips and Internet-only specials on our Facebook page. Hope you’ll “like” us, and encourage your Facebook friends to join us, too.