Jotul wood stoves

[snowwolfe]

Narrowed our choice for a wood stove down to a Jotuf 500 Oslo in the brown enamel finish. It will be used for heating our new ranch style house which is 2,200 square feet. I doubt we will use it exclusively for our primary heat source in the beginning. But am sure the more comfortable we get with it the more we will use it. Please don't tell me to consider a pellet stove as we live smack in the middle of 42 acres of oak:) Doubt I would even have to cut down a live tree for at least 7-10 years as the contractor saved what he cleared out when the lot for the house and work shop was prepped.
Any one have experience with these stoves? Good, bad or in different?

[big bore 99]

I had one of those a few years back. It is a great stove and I did a lot of research before buying it. Mine was a combi-fire. The door would open down and slide underneath to use it with a snap in screen for the fireplace effect. I didn't use it as a fireplace much, was more interested in heating. They are a true air tight and would hold coals for a very long time. When opening the door to add more wood, always open the draft first, otherwise you'll get an impressive and scary "poof" from the rush of incoming oxygen. I've had other stoves and have built a few and, in my opinion, They are the best on the market.

[Petrol & Powder]

I can't speak to that particular model of Jotul stove but I've been around Jotul stove for years. They are very good stoves. I've never owned one but friends and acquaintance's have and I've operated several of them.

For starters, It is ALWAYS better to run a small stove hot with plenty of air than a big stove cold and starved for oxygen. Running a small fire hot allows you to extract more of the potential heat from the wood than running an inefficient "cold" fire with lots of un-burned potential heat going up the chimney as smoke, soot and creosote. Those un-burned byproducts are nothing but lost potential heat. Futhermore, those un-burned products will cool and condense in the chimney and form creosote.


Unfortunately, the drawback to a small stove is the inability to "bank" the fire and keep it running for long unattended periods of time. In a perfect world you would have someone available to stoke the fire throughout the night and while you were away at work.

So we compromise and make the stove big enough to hold fuel for a long time and inefficiently burn that fuel by starving it of oxygen but not so big that it requires a huge amount of wood just to keep it burning. Jotul comes pretty close to getting that compromise right and does it in an durable package.

You will be surprised at how a SMALL Jotul stove can heat a big house. Don't be afraid to run those stoves hot. You can get a lot of heat out of a little wood if you learn how to run the fire efficiently. When everything is up to temperature, you should have a bed of coals with a blue flame over them and NO smoke coming out of the chimney.

Jotul makes a good product!!

[Geezer in NH]

I would check out the Fisher style papa, mama, baby bear stove first.

My former gunshop, Stihl dealership, auto inspection/repair employment used a PAPA Bear stove to heat the whole 4500 SQ foot building with the help of a few fans. This in the White Mountains of NH. 7 cords of wood were used at the coldest winter with 5 being average.

We were way warmer than needed as the loggers and truckers coming in for repairs truly liked the heat in the shop vs. the competitors shop a few towns away.

IMHO the Jotul was a good product but small and expensive.

But then again my best friend has heated his 6 bedroom log home has been heated with a double 55 gallon wood furnace for the last 30 years using 5 cord of wood per year. The furnace cost total in that time less than $500. Design from Mother Earth News when they were first started around then.

[snowwolfe]

Keep the comments coming! I already have about 4-5 cords of oak logs close to the house that need cutting and splitting. They should be in burnable shape by November 2016. The stove will sit in a central location with a ceiling fan over it. Then the new HVAC system also has a fan that will circulate the warm air and hopefully so will make it to the two back bedrooms. If not, no biggie as they are just spares anyhow.
We don't plan on running the stove 24/7 except on the coldest days.

[reloader28]

We have an Earth Stove and it has been our sole source of heat for 6 years. We turned the furnace off.
When we light the stove in October (feels like tomorrow) it dont go out til the end of April or May.
Theres something about wood heat that is SOOO nice. I make my coffee on it every morning for about 6 months of the year.

We did add a Magic Heat to ours. WOW there is a LOT of heat from one of those.

[starmac]

I have never seen a jotul in use, but researched them several years ago. They are supposedly top of the line and very popular in norway and that part of the world.
The reason I was researching them, is we bought a Jotul wood cookstove that has never had a fire built in it. They quit manufacturing them several years back, and I never even found mention of them.

[BrentD]

That looks like a very nice stove and they have a great reputation.

I have a Vermont Casting Defiant. It is a good stove, but not a great one. It is our primary source of heat also as we have acres of timber.

One thing I would REALLY like in a stove that I don't have, is the ability to route outside air in to the combustion chamber. This would do a lot of things, including increasing efficiency substantially, but the biggest thing is that it would not suck so much air out of the house and thus suck in so much outside, cold, dry air in. It is the dryness that I would like to avoid.

[winchester85]

i have a jotul firelight. i believe it is not a 600? it is a bigger stove and works very well. jotul's are top of the line.

[Petrol & Powder]

"....We don't plan on running the stove 24/7 except on the coldest days......"

Again, I would go with a small stove unless you need to bank the stove so that it can run unattended. With newer construction, better insulation and the intention of using the stove as only as a supplement; a smaller stove is more efficient. The classic "bigger is better" mentality isn't always the best course of action. It is very true that a large stove allows you to put a lot of wood in the firebox and they are better for keeping a lot of hot coals but if you don't need a big stove go with a smaller one and run it with more air.

[Petrol & Powder]

By the way, I looked up the Jotul 500 Oslo and I think you are going to have PLENTY of heat for a 2200 sq foot ranch house !! In fact I believe you will be opening windows to cool the house down!
Jotul is a nice stove, very high quality cast iron. They're a bit on the expensive side so you see them more in higher end homes.
I see a lot of the lower cost plate steel stoves with fire brick that do the same thing as a Jotul, just at a lower initial price. The Jotul's that I've seen are beautiful stoves and I've never heard a complaint. My former neighbors had one of the smaller Jotul's (don't recall the model) that was long a skinny with a smoke chamber on top, looked a bit like an old cook stove but taller. That thing was a work of art and heated a large house with very little wood. I've never seen a Jotul burn through.

[snowwolfe]

We decided to lock in the deal based upon input from you guys. This stove was picked for its beauty as well as how well it will perform. Momma loves how the brown enamel finish looks so in addition to being a good stove it is a nice looking piece of "furniture". The side door will come in handy as well.
Did a lot of research and some people say buy a smaller stove, others say to buy a bigger one. We went middle of road as the house is 2,200 square feet and the stove is rated for 2,200 in our heating zone. Am thinking a black slate tile would make a good looking hearth and we plan to tile the area in back of it for looks as well.

[Rick Hodges]

I have a small Jotul in my cabin in the upper lower Peninsula of Michigan...for the past 10 yrs. I use it mostly as auxiliary heat. It is small and I run it hot, it is all the cabin needs..(900 sq ft) even in minus 25 deg. F. It will burn for 6 hrs or so max. It is well made, clean burning and easy to maintain. It has a glass front door for viewing the flames. The only disadvantage is it only takes logs a maximum of 15" long.

I am not familiar with your model of stove...but don't get one that is too big...they burn best running hot...will self clean the glass. Choked way down they are not near as efficient.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

They are indeed very good, and small ones work well. Enamel is good too. Even within the European Free Trade Area and with lower transport costs, I think you can get better value for money. But you should think of the cost as spread over all the time you should have it.

[Clay M]

That looks like a very nice stove and they have a great reputation.

I have a Vermont Casting Defiant. It is a good stove, but not a great one. It is our primary source of heat also as we have acres of timber.

One thing I would REALLY like in a stove that I don't have, is the ability to route outside air in to the combustion chamber. This would do a lot of things, including increasing efficiency substantially, but the biggest thing is that it would not suck so much air out of the house and thus suck in so much outside, cold, dry air in. It is the dryness that I would like to avoid.

I also have a Vermont Castings stove that I have owned for twenty years..has been a great stove but the inside plates have cracked and the catalytic part no longer works..I have put five cords of wood a year through it for the last twenty years..
I need to buy a new stove in the next few years..I will have to research what to buy now..

Had a great workout with my two Husqvarna saws today. A big tree fell across the road blocking the way..

I would say my heart is in great shape..

I was thinking today how great those two saws have been. I have an old 257 and 262..

[JonnyReb]

I've had a Jotul 602 for right at 20 years. For the first 6 or 7 years it was our only heat source and it indeed will keep our 1000sqft little house nice and toasty. When we had central heat and air installed we found that the electric heat pump wasn't a comfortable heat like the stove and so its been an excellent supplemental heat source and is still run almost daily in the winter.

The 602 is nothing but a beautiful little porcelin covered cast iron box. Its about 2 feet deep, a foot wide and maybe 15" tall. As tiny as it is, it'll heat 1000 sq ft quite well and if its banked right and good wood is used, it'll hold a fire for 8 hours. I used coal in it for quite a few years too, and coal is almost too hot..the exterior will reach 750deg. Coal may be the reason i see slight warping in the internal cast plates...no trace of burning through and the original glass, gaskets and sealant is untouched. I can't imagine a better built product.

The top of the 602 has a cooktop like plate on it and i've cooked many a meal on it, when the power goes out it becomes the focal point of the evening, its beautiful, efficient, tough and an absolute bargain.

I can't recommend Jotul products highly enough.

[Petrol & Powder]

I think you're going to enjoy your new stove. You will get many, many years of use out of that fine product.

I did a little research on the internet to find the stove that my neighbor had and it appears to have been a Jotul model 118 based on the photographs. I had to live in the cheap seats and generally had some stove made from welded plate steel with firebrick, which worked just fine but I admired that Jotul. That little cast iron Jotul put out far more heat that one would expect and it was easy on wood. It was beautifully well made and clearly well designed.

[tygar]

Since I read your post I have been researching Jontul & have found a continuing thread. The older ones were good, but the new ones arn't as good & it eats wood & has design flaws etc. Check it out some more.

[45bpcr]

Fisher is , alas long gone. so unless you can find a good used one your out of luck. They were an excellent stove though.

We have a small Jotul F100 in our large family room. It heats that room and a good part of the rest of the house as well. it burns pretty much 24/7 from about now until spring. It's clean, efficient, well made and produces very little creosote using seasoned oak or maple. If we use Bio-bricks it produces no creosote. We're very happy with it. We live in NH as well

Craig

[nagantguy]

Have the stove love it, like it better than any other wood stove I've owned or had growing up. Best money hands down we have ever spent, this will be it's third year heating our house and as another poster mentioned burn it hot. We live in MI, our last to winters have been near ice age cold, last year our town set a new record @49.7° below zero for a full 24 hours as recorded at the local airport. Joutl kept the house 72°. I'd also suggest to let the guys you buy from install it, they do a great job, in and out in about 2 hours and warrenty the work for 2 years when our addition is built in the nest few years we will get another smaller one.

[DougGuy]

If you have oak to split, you BEST get to doing it! Once seasoned, oak is a real bear to split! 5x harder once it sets for a season!

[BD]

All the Jotuls I've been around have been good stoves with the exception of the #3s. I don't know who smoked their lunch the day they designed the 3's, but no sober person had a hand in it.

[FISH4BUGS]

Our Jotul 500 Oslo (just the plain Jane cast iron model, not the fancy enamelled version) heats our entire 1650 s/f farm house. It is a bastardized 1790's 3 bedroon 2 bathroom center chimney Cape with 2 floors, and an addition that was done in 1860 or so. The stove is in a center downstairs room, and what made a HUGE difference was small box fans in the corner doorways, pushing out heat to each side of the house. These 55cfm fans keep each side of the house toasty and a small floor fan helps circulate the air around the stove room. The stove room gets to be 85 or more, the living room and kitchen in the mid 70's and the upstairs of the house 60-65 or better
To some people 60-65 is way too cold. Here in NH we learned to dress for the weather. Pajamas, long sleeve undershirts and fluffy socks to sleep in and walk around the house keep you very warm even at 60.
We have propane for a backup but our heat is set at 50 throughout the house, and has not come on as near as I can tell. We even downsized our propane tank from 500 to 150 gallons, and that only does our hot water now.
I can't say enough good about the stove. It likes very dry wood (what stove doesn't?) and if you load it up, let it catch, then shut it down at let's say 9 pm, you can go easily until 2 a.m. Refill the stove at 2 a.m. or so and you have solid heat all night long.
Daily cleanouts of the ash pan is vital. If the ash pan fills up too much, it affects the breathing of the stove. The stove likes to breathe, but there is just a throttle setting under the wood grate to supply oxygen. That alone works fine.
You need to learn to balance the dryness of the wood, the amount of air and a creating a good bed of coals to keep the thing operating at its peak. You also need to make sure you rake the coals down before loading it up again. Give it 15 minutes or so to catch then shut it down.
But let me tell you something - that stove puts out a ton of heat. Use the fans to circulate the heat - but that holds true for ANY stove. This stove will easily heat your entire house for you if you circulate the heat, or have registers in the floors.
We bought ours from the stove shop after being used a a floor demo for one season. We paid half of retail for it. That was 4 seasons ago, and it is still going as strong as the day we bought it. I hate to admit it but when I clean it out and wash the glass, I like to sit and groove on the fire and just watch it burn. There is a simple satisfying beauty in a nice bed of coals, not to mention that is when it is putting out its best heat.
I would buy another one tomorrow. I don't think I would get as good a deal, but i would do it again.
So buy it!
PM me if you want any more info.
p.s. as for not running your stove 24x7, ours runs that way from about late October until late April. we burn 6-7 cords or so depending upon how cold the winter is..,...but then we are in New Hampshire where is gets cold and snowy EVERY winter....some are just colder and snowier than others.

[snowwolfe]

As I said, already gave the contractor and his wood stove contact the go ahead.
Might start splitting when I move over in two weeks as I'll be living in the RV and be bored. But plan on renting a log splitter for a weekend after the wood pile is pretty big.

[MaryB]

Instead of trying to push hot air into rooms with colder(heavier) air do the opposite. Put your small fans in the cold rooms and push the cold to the stove. The warm air flows into the empty space the cold used to inhabit. Many of us over on a corn burning forum experimented with it one year and moving cold is far more efficient and I used less fuel 2 winters in a row that were harsher than the first year I tried pushing hot air.


Our Jotul 500 Oslo (just the plain Jane cast iron model, not the fancy enamelled version) heats our entire 1650 s/f farm house. It is a bastardized 1790's 3 bedroon 2 bathroom center chimney Cape with 2 floors, and an addition that was done in 1860 or so. The stove is in a center downstairs room, and what made a HUGE difference was small box fans in the corner doorways, pushing out heat to each side of the house. These 55cfm fans keep each side of the house toasty and a small floor fan helps circulate the air around the stove room. The stove room gets to be 85 or more, the living room and kitchen in the mid 70's and the upstairs of the house 60-65 or better
To some people 60-65 is way too cold. Here in NH we learned to dress for the weather. Pajamas, long sleeve undershirts and fluffy socks to sleep in and walk around the house keep you very warm even at 60.
We have propane for a backup but our heat is set at 50 throughout the house, and has not come on as near as I can tell. We even downsized our propane tank from 500 to 150 gallons, and that only does our hot water now.
I can't say enough good about the stove. It likes very dry wood (what stove doesn't?) and if you load it up, let it catch, then shut it down at let's say 9 pm, you can go easily until 2 a.m. Refill the stove at 2 a.m. or so and you have solid heat all night long.
Daily cleanouts of the ash pan is vital. If the ash pan fills up too much, it affects the breathing of the stove. The stove likes to breathe, but there is just a throttle setting under the wood grate to supply oxygen. That alone works fine.
You need to learn to balance the dryness of the wood, the amount of air and a creating a good bed of coals to keep the thing operating at its peak. You also need to make sure you rake the coals down before loading it up again. Give it 15 minutes or so to catch then shut it down.
But let me tell you something - that stove puts out a ton of heat. Use the fans to circulate the heat - but that holds true for ANY stove. This stove will easily heat your entire house for you if you circulate the heat, or have registers in the floors.
We bought ours from the stove shop after being used a a floor demo for one season. We paid half of retail for it. That was 4 seasons ago, and it is still going as strong as the day we bought it. I hate to admit it but when I clean it out and wash the glass, I like to sit and groove on the fire and just watch it burn. There is a simple satisfying beauty in a nice bed of coals, not to mention that is when it is putting out its best heat.
I would buy another one tomorrow. I don't think I would get as good a deal, but i would do it again.
So buy it!
PM me if you want any more info.
p.s. as for not running your stove 24x7, ours runs that way from about late October until late April. we burn 6-7 cords or so depending upon how cold the winter is..,...but then we are in New Hampshire where is gets cold and snowy EVERY winter....some are just colder and snowier than others.

[Freischütz]

You can find a lot of wood stove information at www.hearth.com

[bearcove]

I have the plain stove from home depot. $700 on sale in spring. It has the tubes under the smoke shelf for air, burns real clean. Think its rated for 2200sf. Never bought one of the nice stoves cause the cheaper ones seem to work just fine. It is our only heat. Furnace has not been lit for 4 years. But I won't buy another one will build my own from now on. They are quite simple.

[Ed K]

Bought Oslo in fall of 2003, twelve years later it is still our only heat source. 4-5 cord/year for 2250 square feet.