Outside air for FW300010

I am having a problem figuring out how to bring in outside combustion air for a Century FW300010 woodstove (seems to be identical to DutchWest CDW300007 both by Vermont Castings).

Living in Interior Alaska where the temperature doesn’t only drop below -40F but stays there for weeks at a time, every little energy improvement counts. Our house is newly built, well insulated and tight.

The challenge with this stove that the air intake is located above the door as can be seen here: on the attached picture. I have not been able to find a factory made kit that works or could be modified to work, but since this is a fairly common stove, having been sold at Lowes at a very reasonable price I am wondering if anybody has found a good solution.

What I have considered;

a: Do nothing.
Problem, -40 draft being sucked in through every crack in the house.
b: Bring in a air duct that terminates in front of the air intake
Problem visually unappealing, questionable efficancy
c; Bring air in through the ash drawer at the bottom of the stove.
Problem, fire hazard?

So if anybody has knows of a solution that works for this stove or a similar one I would really appreciate some advice.

Thanks for the advice and welcoming to the board!

This will be my third year with the stove now, so taking it back is not an option. For most part I like it. It can give of a lot of heat and simmers for a fairly long time during those cold winter nights.

Getting advice from the manufacturer is more easily said than done. Vermont Castings / Century only list snail mail on their webpage, no technical hotline nor email support, (contact info anybody???) but instead refers you to your local dealer.

There I have two options, asking Lowes where I got the stove or going the local woodstove store.

Lowes had the same answer to this as to most other technical questions that I have tried to get an answer for, “Huh, you are trying to do what?” and the woodstove store has not carried this model and was not going out of their way to find a solution for my since I did not buy it from them.

Century FW247001 has the air intake on the bottom not on the top as my stove does. However if there is a secondary air intake on the back like KWillets suggest that would make the hookup a lot easier. I thought I had looked carefully for air intake other than the front, but it is definitely worth a second look to night.

In the meantime I was playing with PhotoShop, and came up with this rough design. Air coming up along the side of the stove, from a duct in the floor connecting, to some sort of custom made bracket connecting to the front of the stove. Wouldn’t be pretty but would probably work.