Yes and no. The fire is hotter and burning quicker, but when the air control is wide open or near to it, there is not enough vacuum in the firebox to pull sufficient air through the secondary manifold. This leads to incomplete combustion with most of the heat going up the flue and a cooler firebox. If there was a thermometer reading the flue gas temps, this would be self-evident.
When the air is closed down enough, the vacuum in the firebox pulls air through the secondaries leading to much more complete and hotter combustion, in the firebox, leading to a hotter stove body and cooler flue temps. This thread illustrates the process, showing how stove and flue temps respond to closing down the air.
Questions about starting a fire and avoiding a runaway stove come up so frequently I decided to document starting our stove. This is a Pacific Energy Alderlea T6 with about a 3 cu ft firebox. The stove is connected to a straight-up, 20' interior flue. The outside ambient temperature is 34ºF. The blower was off all the time for these shots. The firewood is douglas fir at about 17% moisture content. This is a N/S loading. An E/W loading start will follow.
NOTE: as testing will show, the older Condar flue thermometer is reading low. It needs recalibration.
There are 3 instruments shown.
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