Am I burning hot enough?

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cricco

New Member
Hearth Supporter
Mar 25, 2008
49
Western, Ma
My Newmac BC160 recently gave me quite a scare when I had a small chimney fire. I am now concerned about my burn temps. I have a magnetic Rutland thermometer on my flue pipe about 8 inches from the boiler, and about 2 inches below where the barometric damper opening is. I normally notice that my boiler will run at about 350-450 F. I have tried to get it hotter, and I can sometimes get it up to about 500. My question is, what should my temps be at, and what would be too hot? Am I going to cause any damage by trying to run it hot? Thank you for any advice.
 
I have a add on furnace by Monarch and I struggle to get my flue temp to stay in the 200-250 reading. i'm new to wood burning, I have tied differant draft settings but I am not having any luck getting the temp up. It worries me to burn at these temps.
 
I'm curious... is a magnetic thermometer as accurate as one that has a probe. Maybe you're getting hotter temps than the magnet is reading? Seems the probe would give you a better reading. Just a thought, someone on this board should know.
 
flyingcow said:
I'm curious... is a magnetic thermometer as accurate as one that has a probe. Maybe you're getting hotter temps than the magnet is reading? Seems the probe would give you a better reading. Just a thought, someone on this board should know.
According to Dirk Thomas, in his book "The Woodburner's Companion" (3rd edition, p. 54)
(broken link removed to http://www.hoodbooks.com/proddetail.asp?prod=0911469281&cat=2)
wrt stove pipe thermometer's:
"the surface temperature it measures is a bit more than half the flue gas temperature."
 
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