This product does what it says it does. Our stove use to belch smoke whenever the door was opened. We have almost 20 ft of chimney and unless we have a blazing fire, the weight of the cold air in the chimney pushes the smoke back into the house. It is also difficult for us to keep a small fire going. This little jewel solves both the problems. I just turn it on a minute or so before opening the door and have virtually no smoke escape. Running it on low speed helps keep a small fire going even when the damper and feed air are turned down.
An added benefit is that we can burn wet wood. If we can get even the smallest fire going, running the fan helps move air through the fire box, drying the wet wood and allowing it to catch.
But a word of warning. Throw away the installation instructions, especially the template. It's almost as though they intentionally drew it incorrectly. I took my unit apart so that I could use the housing as a template and things turned out pretty well. If you have to mount it close to the stove's surface (as I did) be sure to use rigid or flexible metal conduit for the wiring.
Another gripe is, why did they put the motor control box on the bottom side, closest to the surface of the stove? Maybe it is to help protect the motor, but it can get pretty hot if mounted close to the stove. We have a room fan blowing across our stove to help move the heat into other parts of the house, so the box and motor stay pretty cool. But with the room fan off, the box can get too hot to touch.
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I am VERY pleased with this whole trasaction. The company,customer service, delivery and product are 100%. This shopping experience was actualy enjoyable!
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The quick review is it does improve the draft; it does eliminate the smoke exiting the stove when the door is opened; it will improve the burning; it does not compensate for a poor chimney or piping installation; it is not an easy install; the instructions are poor; you need some tools and some ability to work with metal; and I can find no reason not to buy it based on my longer review. I've used it now for several weeks and I'm a happy camper but reading the full review may be helpful.
The pic shown for this item is incorrect. For the review to make sense you need to see the piece which fits into the pipe and it's not shown in the pic. The square flange should be seen on the top of the unit as shown so please check my pic before reading on.
I gave the Auto-Draft 5 stars solely for what it can do to remove smoke and that's what I purchased it to do. However, I'd have to give it 3 stars for what you have to do to get it to work properly; the design flaws you must overcome; and the overall lack of design quality that will make it the problem after installation if you're not handy and able to overcome the issues. I do cover them further in my review but, in summary, you will have holes the unit does not fill so there's a natural draft that let's smoke escape; you can't properly fit a flat piece of metal against a curved pipe; the motor does get very hot; and the control switch is all plastic that's near a very hot source of heat. It is not meant to overcome a poor, or inadequate, chimney system but if you have trouble getting a proper draft and/or have smoke issues this was the best and most cost effective remedy I could find.
At the time I posted this review there were only two others. One was good and the other useless because it talked about the "shopping experience" without ever mentioning whom they purchased it from, why they had to contact customer service, if they installed it and did it work. This is not something you purchase unless you have a problem and before doing so you should want to know as much as you can before you proceed so what follows is probably way more than you want to know but if it helps one person install it easier or think of other options I think that's what the review process is all about.
I purchased this directly from Northern Tool on their Website because the shipping was less (it was under ten dollars); the item price was the same as on their Amazon listing; shipping was 2nd day UPS Air which was the same price as standard shipping; they offered a ten dollar gift card; and all this ended up as the equivalent of free shipping. The day after I ordered it the price went up by twenty dollars... though that's still less than other places.
It's cold here on the high desert and there's not much to do in the winter except try to stay warm. Friday nights are for watching a fire, listening to some loud music and downing some libation. We sit in front of a fireplace with a roaring fire and freeze our butts off and have to get up a lot to throw on another log. Fireplaces cause a huge draft and put a lot of heat up the chimney. Meanwhile, in the next room, there's a perfectly good vintage Blaze King (BK) wood stove that cranks out some heat but does not have a glass door for fire viewing. The BK manual states you can remove the door, add a screen over the opening and convert it to an open fire. We tried that but smoke was a huge issue even after heating the stove up for an hour before removing the door. It wasn't just the smoke it was also the black soot that was collecting on everything from the windows to the ceiling. If you can't isolate the room your stove is in then the adjacent rooms form a draft... because they're colder than the room the stove is in... and will draw the smoke in and up to the ceiling until the room fills with it. Seemed like a lost cause and it was back to the drafty fireplace. Adding a glass door would be easier but they're hard to find for a vintage stove and since the stove is in excellent condition replacing it was not an option at several thousand dollars. Then I can across this item in some searches on smoke issues and, for the price, it was worth a shot because I knew I did not have any chimney blockage or defective installation.
After a half-day to install it did work and the smoke issue was gone. The install was not easy, which I expected, and some remedial work was done to ensure it was properly sealed. I have discovered that the way a wood stove works with the door open and with the door closed are very different. I now have the ability to watch a roaring fire while getting lots of heat and no smoke. The good folks at BK are wrong in how easy it is to convert your stove from a closed unit to an open fire but this device did it. There are some flaws with it that, if not addressed, will make it tough to go back to a closed fire. I wanted my stove to also function with the door closed so I could also heat the house when I didn't want to be in the room and not have to feed it logs constantly. Yes, an open door fire burns logs much faster than when it's closed. With a closed door I can get through the night on half dozen logs because it burns longer and not hotter. The BK was not properly installed when we purchased the house and I had venting issues so over the summer I did a complete rebuild from the stove through the wall and into the chimney. It's still not prefect but it's the best it'll ever be and this unit made it so.
With the door closed I do not have a draft problem. You can prevent most of the smoke from escaping by opening the door just a crack to let some air in to "liven up" the fire. It only takes it a few seconds to liven up and when you can see the flames, add another log and close it back up again. The natural burn process in a closed stove is slow and smoldering so when you quickly open the door all the way there's a rush of air to the fire; the burn process accelerates quickly; a lot of smoke is generated; and it all comes out the door because that's the path of least resistance.
I have lots of tools and over 50 years of experience using them and I found this install tough. It appears to me that the company has modified one of their existing items, the DJ-3 In-Line Draft Inducer made for furnace venting problems, by painting it black and calling it the answer to wood stove draft problems. That doesn't quite work when you open the box, read the vague half page of instructions and start scratching your head. Here's a list of what I found to be issues:
1. The instructions are poor and once the rectangular hole has been cut into the pipe the unit is incapable of completely sealing the hole.
2. It installs best on a vertical pipe. Anything less than vertical just increases the problems of install and operation.
3. If you're installing it on a horizontal or sloped pipe you can't put it on top because the heat will destroy it and you can't put it on the bottom because it'll fill with creosote and it would also be as far away from the smoke you're trying to eject. That leaves either the left or the right side of the pipe as you're facing the flow of air to the chimney.
4. If you put it on the right hand side, like I did (see pics), the instructions on the switch cover are upside down.
5. Nothing fits the same in an 8" pipe as it does in a smaller one. The smaller the pipe the more issues you'll have installing it.
6. The 3" flat piece at one end must slip into the pipe pointing toward the chimney and the two longer side pieces mount to the outside of the pipe.
7. The flat piece is exactly that, flat, so since the stove pipe that's going into is curved it leaves a gap.
8. The flat end is also squared off so you can't get an airtight, or even close, connection at the two corners.
9. There is a strip of gasket tape but there's nothing in the instructions of where to use it so it's your best guess.
10. There are several warnings about getting it too close to the heat source but the control switch, stem and interior portion are all plastic, the entire switch assembly looks like a cheap plastic toy.
11. The instructions state you should remove this every year and clean it... no way!
12. It is very hard to get a clean, straight and accurate cut in stove pipe while it's attached to the stove.
13. The clips that are provided to hold it in place are weak type of connection and if you tighten a screw a little too much they will strip.
14. You must do some more work to seal the gaps or it'll just suck smoke from the stove and spit it back out into the room a feet further up the pipe.
15. The motor does get very hot, too hot to touch, and that will likely be a cause for future concern. Having a fan on it probably is a good idea to help keep it cool.
16. The fan blades are metal attached to a metal shaft that goes directly into the motor so the heat of the stove gasses conducts directly to the motor. There should be some insulator on the shaft to prevent it.
17. The motor assembly is on a steel plate and bolted to the housing with three mounting stems so it faces the stove. This could easily have been designed to allow you to move the motor to one of three position but they didn't do it so you're stuck with what they give you unless you're into modifying it.
Some hints on the install...
1. One review complained about the template but it worked for me on an 8" pipe. Since the template is made for a curved pipe it is likely oversized if you're using it on a smaller pipe.
2. It really doesn't need to run constantly... in most cases. Once the pipe and chimney heat up it should create a natural, or at least better, draft. The abundance of smoke that you get off a fresh log being added is in the first few minutes of burning. To make life easier, I added a remote controlled outlet so I can add a log, sit down and then turn off the fan when the smoke ceases.
3. Cutting pipe that is in place is not easy. I used an abrasive cutoff wheel that was very thin and though I have a 4" tile saw you can mount discs on a drill. You can also use a saber saw with a fine tooth metal blade or drill a few holes and go at it with a sheet metal cutter will also work. The best way is to remove the pipe, cut it and then reinstall. Not all stoves have the correct pipe: which is 24 gauge thick. If yours is thinner then cutting it with a saw blade will cause bends and it's harder to cut a straight line.
4. You can also avoid using this unit if you want to install an exhaust through-the-wall fan to the outside near and above the stove to pull the smoke out. However, a decent size fan will cost more than this unit, require a lot of work and need some electrical wiring to it.... you can't use a simple little bath fan. Lastly, you're still dealing with smoke in your face and room and you're sucking heat out.
5. I bought some extra wood stove gasket; placed it over the gaps I had on the top leading to the chimney; cut a piece of metal off the piece from the opening I cut out; and screwed it over the seal to stop the leaking with some self-tapping black stove screws. I will touch up everything up with a little spray paint and I'm done till the spring.
6. This unit weighs a few pounds so add at least three screws to every pipe joint to get a tighter hold or your pipe may not support it properly.
7. This will only mount in single wall pipe.
8. I mounted mine directly on the side but it should be lower and I'll correct that later.
9. I am adding a small fan to blow on the motor but letting an electric motor get so hot will cause it to fail and replacing it will be as much as the original cost of the entire unit.
10. You do not need armored cable or conduit for the electrical connection because they will also conduct heat to the unit. A solid rubber cord cable is good but I just cut the female end off an old computer cable and it works fine. You do need a three prong plug.
In closing, if you're installing it on a vertical pipe most of the above won't be much of a concern. I did a good job, all things considered, in installing it but I will remove it in the spring; bend some of the metal flanges more; round off the square edges; install it in a new piece of pipe while it's on my bench; drill the side panels and install with about 4 self tapping screws on each side; seal it with some thicker braided gasket tape; redo the motor bracket so I can point it away from the stove; cut the drive shaft and add an insulator to keep some of the heat from transferring to the motor; remove the old pipe; and then install it on the stove for next season because I'm not happy with what I now have... even though it eliminated my smoke problem. This all may seem pretty anal retentive but I can't see a reason to not do it correctly and not feel safe going to bed with a fire burning.
Honest reviews on Tjernlund Auto-Draft for Stove Draft Problems, Model# AD-1
Easy install I had a prob with smoke back draft comming in to my green house after I built my rocket stove this seems to have solved the problem that said this was in summer months so I haven't been able to test it in winter where cold air could possibly change the dynamics of the air flow I will keep my fingers crossed
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Tjernlund Auto-Draft for Stove Draft Problems, Model# AD-1
Our woodstove 'chimney' has had venting / draft problems for years. We were not sure what was causing it and decided to install a new woodstove to see if it was the unit itself causing the issues. After I installed the new woodstove, the draft problems persisted.
The draft problems were occasional and apparently associated with a cold chimney (and the relatively heavy, cold air).
I ordered this inline fan to help in getting the draft started to avoid a backdraft (and smoke in the house). It works wonderfully.
The only issue with this fan is the difficulty with installation.
I would only recommend this fan to someone with the tools and expertise to accurately cut and drill sheet metal (or access to someone who does). Based on others' reviews, I did not even look at the included instructions, but instead took some measurements and proceeded to cut the metal and install the fan.
