[Stoves] Excess Air and >>>>

[ajheggie at gmail.com]

[Default] On Fri, 23 Aug 2013 16:45:13 +0530,Rajan Philip
<rajan4023 at gmail.com> wrote:

>It has been my observation that fire-wood in wood stoves burn better in
>villages compared to cities and towns. Probably because the oxygen content
>in village air is slightly more than city/town air.


We had a thread about this some while back and yes it seems the local
oxygen content in a big city can drop as low as 13% from the global
average of 21%. I think we need at least 7% in order to get enough
oxygen into the body and water vapour and CO2 out. Petrol engines are
quite efficient at depleting oxygen from around them and pumping 13%
CO2 out, probably because petrol/gasoline is easily burned. I would
expect a wood fire to have problems burning before a petrol engine. I
don't intend to visit a city with large numbers of vehicles to test
this idea.

Incidentally when one blows on a fire to fan the embers into a flame
you are still blowing about 18% oxygen along with the water vapour and
CO2 you exhale in normal conditions.

AJH