Tiny Fan Makes Big Difference

Last year the factory built blower that came with my stove started getting too noisy again so I took it apart and cleaned it, as I have done in the past, but I still couldn't get it to run as quietly as it should be. I figured maybe one of the bearings needed replacing so I took it totally apart and got the bearing #. In the meantime I bought a small $14 fan and mounted it on the wall above and behind my stove to blow air over the surface of the stove. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this little fan worked much better at transferring the heat off the stove than the factory blower that came with the stove. It's quieter, it's blows more air, it cools the top of the stove down better, which tells me that it's convecting the heat better, and it has 3 speeds compared to just the 2 speeds on the factory stove, with a low speed that is very quiet.
I eventually did track down a source for the bearings of the factory blower, but the total cost of the bearings actually exceeds the cost of my little $14 fan. The blower now sits in a box in my shop and the little $14 wall mount fan is still happily blowing the heat off the stove.