Shoulder season wood burning tips?

Guess who's back?

I've been busier than a one armed wallpaper hanger for a while, but things are starting to slow down. As most of y'all know I installed a Harman Magnafire Elite insert many years ago. Well as you can tell by my severe lack of posts it's been humming along just fine every winter since. Last year I gave the stove a break since the bottom fell out of the price of oil and the better half got a new living room suit and didn't want the ash all over it. I can't say as I blame her, its really nice, shoot she even lets me sit on it once in a while too.

Anyway, back on topic, with the recent and potential hurricane type events I'm expecting oil prices to keep climbing for the next few months. Given that, I'm probably going fire the stove up again this year. The problem is that in shoulder season firing up a load of coal is to much work and puts out to much heat just to let it go out. I would like to burn some wood on those cool nights where a coal fire would be to much. Since I lost a nice big maple tree last year, I've got plenty of seasoned fire wood. However the design of the Harman doesn't include air dampers on the fuel door so I have to leave the door slightly open to burn wood which causes smoke to flow back out the door opening eventually setting the smoke detector off. If I close the fuel door and keep the ash door open the wood just kinda smolders since it can't get any air above the grate and eventually goes out.

So after all of that, does anybody have any ideas of how to get this thing to burn wood more efficiently without smoking us out?

When's the last time ya cleaned your chimney? If ya got a good draw, ya shouldn't be having a lot of smoke blow back. Orrrrr, light a newspaper & hold it up by your stove pipe outlet to warm it up before lighting. Wood needs over-air!

If the chimney is clean, and the Harman uses a baro, cap the baro when burning wood. I did that with the Chubby, and the Chubby has 'doggy ears' for over fire air intake. Capping the baro improved the draft just enough in Fall/Spring. If the unit is out of warranty, start drillin', fabricate a secondary air intake like the 'dog ears' on a Chubby, I would recommend. They work.
Cheers

Cut wood to 6 inch lengths in any direction as per the Antique Stove Association web site.
I tried this for a while, was getting less smoke and good heat. After an hour fire bed glows like
nut coal. No stove and pipe numbers to report, just feels like compared to 18 in long chuncks.

Take the baro out and cap the hole. Creosote will build up on it and turn it into junk.