This is my first year with our new non-cat stove. I've been reading up here, and that has been really helpful, but I can't seem to find out one thing. If I'm looking for max heat output of a stove, where do I run the air control? My engineer mind is struggling with this one. I know it seems like the most efficient use of fuel is to run it with the air flow as low as possible while still burning all the smoke with secondaries. It seems that way you are minimizing the heat you are dumping up the flue and getting the most time to transfer heat.
But if the goal is max heat, is there something different you should do? Do you run it more wide open? There is only a certain amount of BTUs per piece of firewood. But when you consume them faster with a wider air flow are you dumping more heat up the chimney and losing the gain? Or does burning faster simply allow you keep the initial hotter burn stage more frequent? Thanks for the help.
But if the goal is max heat, is there something different you should do? Do you run it more wide open? There is only a certain amount of BTUs per piece of firewood. But when you consume them faster with a wider air flow are you dumping more heat up the chimney and losing the gain? Or does burning faster simply allow you keep the initial hotter burn stage more frequent? Thanks for the help.