No Scott. It was ever so less effort to get it to open. The door appeared to be clean around the outside edge when i opened it manually. The only thing I see is when its warmer weather the burn times are lengthened between each other. The fire box gets slimmy and a very thin coat of creosote on it. Im guessing around that door is the same thing. Keep in mind im buring really dry wood. All oak, cherry, honey locas, and alot of really dry dead elm. Its defentely not becuase of wet wood!!!! I can take pics of all my wood pile around the boiler if any questions come about that! The logs that I have down there are honey locas that are still very heavy and assume that are still wet. Haven't cut or split them yet for this reason because of haveing so much dry wood still. I just know this is def a problem with this stove!!!! And ever since that day its been fine. I didn't pull the fan or door out of it this time but prob will tommorrow when i do my weekly cleaning just for piece of mind.