This is probably a factor many times but not always. It is still best to take the time to learn how to operate your own stove for the best burn and few problems. Getting advice can be good but if one looks at posts it is easy to see there are many different answers. How does one pick the right one? Or is there a right one given for your stove? It is like when I bought our last stove. It was so different from any I had ever used and I'd used many different stoves. This is why I had to experiment to learn the best way for my stove and my installation. Even folks with the same stove as mine will burn different and it works for them, but when I tried their method, it did not work well for me. It is sort of like running a tractor or even a car or truck. Little differences can make things interesting.
I put in an Outdoor Air Kit mainly so I could open the primary air up when the high temp main burn is ending and the coaling stage begins. I always felt like opening up the primary air would pull so much more air out of the house and bring cold air into the house elsewhere reducing the efficiency. I also cut 2" pine or poplar cookies and short small splits to load east-west specifically for putting on top of the coals after raking them to the front by the primary intake air box. The benefit of the OAK has been somewhat offset by putting in the barometric damper but I had to get that draft from the 33' of double wall chimney down to levels that weren't just eating my wood in an hour and sucking all the heat out the chimney. I can now get 5 hour 400 degree burns that heat the house more effectively and then burn down the coal buildup using techniques like Kevin (Huskihl) mentioned above so I can more quickly get another full load in. I'm almost thinking about putting an OAK in to feed the barometric damper to lower the indoor air usage even more, but I'm not sure if that has been tried yet or if there could be bad side effects from that. As Dennis (Backwoods Savage) mentions, it has been a few years of tinkering and experimenting to get it all figured out to get the most out of the stove in my situation at this house. Seems like every installation has it's own set of unique quirks, but there are many common themes that can be used to maximize most situations. They just may need to be used in combination and tweaked to work best for every unique installation. I try to keep learning because one of the first things I learned was that there is always a better way... Hats off to the Firewood Hoarder Club for providing a melting pot of better ideas and sharing. I've learned a TON from this community over the years and still learning...
