Enviro Mini - Warped Rear Firebox Panel

Just got around to cleaning the stove for the season, and I noticed that the rear firebox panel is a warped. It still fits in place, albeit a bit crooked. (If you set it on a flat surface there is about an 1/8" gap max.). I remember seeing it fit somewhat poorly in the past, but never thought to check for signs of warping.

A few questions:
1. Is it normal for this to warp? (The stove has never shutdown because of an over-fire situation.)
2. What's the downside/risk for poor fit?

You can't buy just the rear panel, you have to buy the kit consisting of the rear and 2 side panels for like $150 plus shipping.

Below is picture of new rear panel for reference.

j-takeman said:

Has this stove been run for long periods on the upper heat levels?

Click to expand...

I do run it on high a lot of the time. I've seen posts that caution against that, but I've never seen any admonition against that in the owners manual. Last season I did use Barefoot for a while that I recall really put out the heat. That may have been when most of the warping occurred.

I really wish the convection blower could be decoupled from the heat setting. With a real "hot" pellet heat setting 4 would be fine, but the convection blower really drops off in speed at heat setting 4. I'd love to be able to keep the convection blower at max to extract the heat out of the stove.