Inner/outer arch hight

[Stephen drew]

Have found all kinds of help on the Forum building my 42 inch oven. I have not found any mention of any advantage or disadvantage of the outer arch being lower than the inner arch. Would having the inner arch 12 inches high and the outer arch 11.5 inches make any difference in shunting smoke up the chimney? Any thoughts would be apprecieted.

[Tscarborough]

I do not think it matters for the draw, but I will tell you that the major design flaw of my oven is that the inner and outer arches are the same size. This means that my inner door has to be in two parts to enable it to be placed.

My advice is to make the outer arch big enough to pass the door through in one piece.

[fxpose]

I thought about that while building my oven. My guess would be that it really doesn't matter as long as your smoke chamber is well designed.

EDIT: Tom, good point about the door fitting through.
I made my outer entry wider but not taller than the inner entry, therefore I do need to slightly tilt my door to clear access through the front entry.