I noticed something curious (to me) last night while burning a fire in my stove. After an hour or so I got it good and hot with pipe temperatures reading about 325- 350 degrees, which seems pretty average so far when I get a nice fire going, but I've only been running this stove for a couple of weeks so I'm still trying to get a handle on what is "average".
I loaded it up again and watched as the temp. dropped, as it usually does after a fresh load. Slowly it climbed up to 350 again and burning real nice. I close the primary a bit (about 1/4 open) and went upstairs to read. My wife comes in about 1/2 hour later and out of curiosity I asked her what the temp. was reading. "575" she says, which is almost 200 degrees higher than I have thus far seen.
So I go down and close the primary a little more and watch for awhile as the temp. rises to about 625, then 675. Puzzled, I opened the primary to about half open and within a minute or two it was down to 550.
So I can see that closing the air inlet can raise the temperature but I am interested to know the reason behind it. To my simple mind more air = faster burn/ more heat, and less air should produce the opposite results.
Help me understand this.
I loaded it up again and watched as the temp. dropped, as it usually does after a fresh load. Slowly it climbed up to 350 again and burning real nice. I close the primary a bit (about 1/4 open) and went upstairs to read. My wife comes in about 1/2 hour later and out of curiosity I asked her what the temp. was reading. "575" she says, which is almost 200 degrees higher than I have thus far seen.
So I go down and close the primary a little more and watch for awhile as the temp. rises to about 625, then 675. Puzzled, I opened the primary to about half open and within a minute or two it was down to 550.
So I can see that closing the air inlet can raise the temperature but I am interested to know the reason behind it. To my simple mind more air = faster burn/ more heat, and less air should produce the opposite results.
Help me understand this.