Out of curiosity, are you putting your stove pipe around the damper piece, or in side of the damper piece? There was a video out there a few years ago of someone setting the stove up with the pipe inside of the damper (not us) which is not how it was designed. The pipe is supposed to go around the damper which, I would guess, would get rid of both issues. Photo example below. Feel free to email me [email protected] if you have other issues. We also may have some dyneema tape laying around that i could send you to get a patch on that.