Harman TLC 2000 Air Tight.

[Mudmixer]

I am burning a little wood in my stove till it gets cold enough for coal. Wood is oak and over 3 years old. I have to burn wood with all drafts completely closed to control burn, and still will not put out fire. Air tight should smother fire?? All gaskets on doors and top are good.

 

[branchburner]

I don't know anything about coal stoves, but I'm guessing that like modern wood stoves that this stove isn't actually airtight! That is, there is an inlet that allows a certain amount of combustion air in regardless of how far you close down the air controls. There is no normal burning scenario where you want zero air because as you say, that would put the fire out.

That said, I also don't know what sort of baffle system a coal stove might have. If it was a Harman wood stove, and you couldn't control the burn by shutting both the bypass damper and the air control, I'd say you definitely had a crack or some other fault (open ash-pan door?) that was allowing too much air into the stove.

Once I did have a small stick or something that prevented my ashpan door from fully closing, so you might check all doors and gaskets once again. But I would also suggest posting yopur problem in a forum where coal-burners are going to go, since they might offer more help with this stove. Is it even designed to burn wood, other than as a base for a coal fire?