I'm writing from Minnesota in regard to my new Woodstock Fireview. It's been a harsh winter, and I've been loving this stove... and I'd like to keep it running at it's best for years. My concern is overfiring. I'm burning seasoned oak and ash. I have 19' steel-lined, center-house chimney. When I first started burning this fall, I followed all Woodstock's instructions to a T. Using the supplied stovetop thermometer, I slowly cured the stove with initial moderate burns and then a couple hotter ones (around 500 on my stovetop). After a few days, I brought my stovetop to around 600, at which point the stove seem scary hot. It took about 40 minutes to reach this temp on a full load of wood with the damper at about 2. Afterwards I let the stove completely cool. On inspection of the firebox parts of the cast iron (mostly the iron directly above flame) had some reddish oxidation. this concerned me so I order one more stovetop thermo. the 2nd thermo seemed to read about 50 degrees hotter. so i ended up buying a Condar 8" probe thermo. if the stovetop thermos read 500, the probe will read 1500. even if the temp drops, the probe will stay 3x the stovetop. Woodstock claims the stovetop is half the combustor temp. this concerns me. being a novice, i don't know if I've damaged my stove. there is lite reddish oxidization on most of the castiron above the fire area, yet the combustor doesn't have surface cracks. should i be concerned? if i start keeping the temp on the probe down below 1400, will the oxidization keep spreading at this point?