Kiln vent doesn't seem to work well at higher temperatures

[Ossoceramic]

Hi all! 

I have a skutt km-1027 and a skutt envirovent 2. 

I know some fumes are still going to happen when I fire my kiln even with the vent on, but I was wondering if it was normal that the "match" test doesn't work at higher temperatures. When I turn the vent on and before I start the kiln firing, I'll light a match and hold it over the vent holes in the top of the kiln, and it'll suck the flame in a little bit. But when I try it when the kiln is around 1500 degrees, the flame doesn't get pulled in. Is this an issue? Vent is not clogged, there are no holes in the aluminum hosing leading from the kiln to the vent, etc. 

[Bill Kielb]

2 hours ago, Ossoceramic said:

this an issue? Vent is not clogged, there are no holes in the aluminum hosing leading from the kiln to the vent, etc.

In my experience that is pretty much how they work. If you pull a lot of fresh air into your kiln you very likely will not have enough power to reach peak temperature. To me this is by design and does a decent job of capturing many fumes, but not all. Usually folks complain about the smell of wax burn off around 700 - 800 degrees. So by design they only pull a small amount of air balancing thermal load against essential exhaust. You can ramp up the exhaust a bit but the practical limit would be the air temperature entering the exhaust fan. So say 120 -130 degrees is practical at peak kiln temp using a mix of kiln air and room air. (Mostly room air) The more air you exhaust through  the more power your kiln will need to reach cone.

[Ossoceramic]

Okay thank you so much! I figured it was fine but I definitely could tell there was a bit of a smell.