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Should I Turn Off My Vent?


Marge

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I've been glaze firing to cone 6 with a 17 minute hold at the highest temp.  I have been turning of the vent (of my Skutt with KilnMaster) after the 17 min hold.  Should I leave the vent on until it cools down to 100 degrees? I was thinking that by turning of the vent it would slow down the cooling.  I like my results, but it takes SO long to cool down with out the vent on.  Thanks for your help!!

 

Margie

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I let mine run one hour after the kiln has fired off. It is an electric kiln that I just use for bisquing. It is located inside my studio and the vent fan is a little noisy. This is an arbitrary decicision. You could let the fan go all night, or turn it off immediately after the cones go down.

TJR.

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Speeding up or slowing down the cooing at high temperatures will change the outcome a lot.

After temperature has dropped to certain levels, nothing interesting really happens in the glaze any more.

If you speed up cooling at those temperatures, it will not change the outcome of the glaze.

 

Not sure why you need a motorized vent on your kiln.

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Not sure why you need a motorized vent on your kiln.

 

Huh? To vent fumes. Any indoor kiln should be vented to the exterior.

 

I thought he is talking about that Skut vent thing, that is under the kiln.

Our ventilation is on all the time and it has no real effect on kiln cooling time because no air is _forced_ in or out of the kiln.

Our kiln has a tiny hole at the bottom and large hole (with a horizontal ceramic pipe) on the side (maybe 10 cm below the lid) of the kiln. Above this we have a pipe that's connected to ventilation system.

 

 

 

                    ______________  |  ||___lid________| |__| |            |__  |            |__| |            | |  Kiln      | |_______ ____|
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Neil, if a firing schedule includes down firing and ramps, with holds on the way down, does running the vent during cooling mean the kiln is working against its self?

Is there an advantage to having air flow through the kiln during cooling if you are not trying to speed up cooling?

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Neil, if a firing schedule includes down firing and ramps, with holds on the way down, does running the vent during cooling mean the kiln is working against its self?

Is there an advantage to having air flow through the kiln during cooling if you are not trying to speed up cooling?

 

Yes, it is making the kiln work harder. But in reality the vent doesn't affect firing times significantly enough from a cost standpoint to warrant needing to turn it off at any time. But it won't do any harm unless, like I said before, the fan is mounted under the kiln like the old style vents. With those you want to leave it running until the kiln gets down to 1400F.

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