"Shrinking" an oversized stove by adding firebricks?

Has anyone ever tried adding extra firebricks to an oversized stove or insert to get better performance from smaller loads?

My Lopi Freedom is a great performer, unfortunately too good on most days, especially since it's in a room with limited doorways to move air into other areas of the house. I have to really pay attention to keep that stovetop hot enough to burn cleanly, but not bake us out of the room. I now wish I'd bought the smaller model, but that's water under the bridge. My problem is not helped by only having well seasoned oak available right now...

Recently, I bought a box of firebricks with the intent of "shrinking" the firebox. My hope was that if I could concentrate the fire and airflow to the middle of the unit, maybe I could get less overall heat reaching the convection jacket, while maintaining stovetop temperature. Perhaps some additional thermal mass would help too. That box of six bricks is barely 0.2cuft, but my initial efforts do seem to have made an improvement.

Before I go out and buy some more firebricks, I hope I can learn from the advice and experience of folks here. Any thoughts? Anybody have success or failure with this approach? I tried to place them where they weren't obstructing heating of the secondary or airwash air channels, but am not sure what the pros and cons might be.

TE

I've certainly thought about a duct like that, I even bought a fan and non-insulated duct at a store closeout sale, but there isn't an obvious or easy place to run it to. I can run my central air to try even out room temperatures, (I've even tried blocking return ducts in other rooms) but it does very little, and any duct fan would be much lower cfm.

TE

Just a quick update on this, one year on. I experimented with the firebricks on the bottom, which was convenient, but I wasn't able to use all the bricks or it would limit the doghouse air. I then placed the bricks upright on the side walls, and "secured" them with a twisted coat hanger. This appears to work, they stay in place perfectly, it's quicker to heat up with a small fire, but on a couple of occasions, inexplicably, I've had the stovetop temperature shoot too close to overfire range for my liking, even with air fully closed. The first time may be been a little alcohol-related bad judgement on reload, but it's happened a few times. I can't really understand how the extra bricks could do this, but I'd never experienced it before adding the bricks.

Any thoughts on how adding bricks to the sides could do this? Is it two sides of the same coin, I want it to heat faster, but now complain when it heats too fast?

TE