Well I ended up getting rid of my Jotul 118 1970`s stove and purchased a Jotul f400 on CL for $350. Its probably a 2008 model it has the double doors. The guy told me that th secondary burn would not work so he was selling it to get a newer stove. I took it apart and put in new gaskets and now the secondary works great. I lit a fire for the first time this morning and its cranking away. The outside temp is about 42~45 but it seems to het great with little smoke outside. So far the only issue was getting it to start. It seems like the only good way to start it is to open the ash door which is not adviseable. Im thinking I need to add a little more stove pipe to create a better draft. My chimney is real short like 12 feet max from the top of the stove. It goes through a single story ceiling on the front of the house. Once the fire was going new wood catches fast. The stove was actually running at 600 with the air closed down to 25%. If anyone has experience with this stove does it sound like I need more chimney and is the fire only hard to start because the outside temp is still not real cold yet?
jotul castine f400
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The double door model was prior to 2008. Our F400 in 2006 had a single door. There should be a date code on the back on the UL label. This might be behind the rear heat shield if one is on the stove.
This stove needs good draft. It will want at least 15' of flue for a straight up venting. A few feet can make a nice difference in starting, particularly in milder weather. You can facilitate faster starts by laying down two, 1" thick kindling splits N/S about 4-6" apart, under the wood. This will allow air to get under the splits. Then add some newspaper balls and criss cross some 2-3" splits on top of them and maybe put a 4" split or two on top of that. Light the fire leaving the front door ajar for a few minutes until the fire is burning vigorously. Or just get some Super Cedars. They will start the fire easily.
This stove needs good draft. It will want at least 15' of flue for a straight up venting. A few feet can make a nice difference in starting, particularly in milder weather. You can facilitate faster starts by laying down two, 1" thick kindling splits N/S about 4-6" apart, under the wood. This will allow air to get under the splits. Then add some newspaper balls and criss cross some 2-3" splits on top of them and maybe put a 4" split or two on top of that. Light the fire leaving the front door ajar for a few minutes until the fire is burning vigorously. Or just get some Super Cedars. They will start the fire easily.
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Thanks for the reply. I’m going to get more pipe for sure. The stove seems to run around 500 even 75% closed. Is this normal ? If I close it all the way down the fire dies down to nothing so I’m fairly confident it’s tight.
Yes, actually 450-500º is a bit on the low side of cruising temp for this stove, but good for fall/spring burning. In the winter, ours normally ran in the 600-700F range. You have some control over this with the size of the splits, the species of wood and how quickly the air control is turned down.
Holly crap cruises at 600-700. Man my 118 ran at around 600 and ran me out of the house lol. This seems like a serious heater. In a weird way I can’t wait for the cold weather.
Yes, it puts out the heat and a nice light show while doing it. I ran the stove around 450-550F in milder weather and 650+ in cold winter weather. Burn time goes down as the heat output is pushed harder. The stove was undersized for our old 2000 sq ft house. You may not need to push it as hard.
Ahhhhhh now I see what you mean by a light show. Temps dropped to around 45 so I got a nice burn going and ended up closing the primary air all the way down. At this point the secondaries really kicked in. Pretty cool to watch and even better little to no smoke outside. I’ve been reading reviews where people say they can’t get temps over 300f. It’s git to be that they have crap wood because this stove is effortless to get up to 500~600f. What stove are you currently running begreen ?
Had a little scare tonight. I had a nice fire going and decided to load it up to see how long of a burn I could get. I closed the air all the way down and the secondary was going nuts. The stove temp approached 800 so I removed a couple logs and smoked up the house. Lesson learned.
In the future if it gets to hot open the door i know it seems counterintuitive but the rush of fresh air will kill the secondaries and cool everything down.
T
thanks for the reply
Im curious how much wood is safe to put in this stove and actually manage the temp. It seems like when I had 3 or 4 pieces the temp would stay around 500 or so but when I loaded it up the temp increased fast even with the fire choked down. All of a sudden the secondary kicked in and it got a bit scary. The temp went from around 650 to almost 900 in minutes and the fire was really roaring. If adding a bunch of wood is not good what do you do to get a real nice extended burn without causing problems. I known my Jotul 118 was easy to control. Simply close the dial wheel down on the front and the temp would fall. Im sure its trial and error and learning the burn of this stove but Im not sure learning the way I did last night is best approach.
thanks for the reply
Im curious how much wood is safe to put in this stove and actually manage the temp. It seems like when I had 3 or 4 pieces the temp would stay around 500 or so but when I loaded it up the temp increased fast even with the fire choked down. All of a sudden the secondary kicked in and it got a bit scary. The temp went from around 650 to almost 900 in minutes and the fire was really roaring. If adding a bunch of wood is not good what do you do to get a real nice extended burn without causing problems. I known my Jotul 118 was easy to control. Simply close the dial wheel down on the front and the temp would fall. Im sure its trial and error and learning the burn of this stove but Im not sure learning the way I did last night is best approach.
In winter our F400 was always filled. It sounds like you need to turn down the air much sooner and perhaps burn thicker splits.
Also, make sure that there is not a lot of packed ash built up behind the ash pan. This can keep the ash pan door from closing tightly and preventing the ash pan door gasket from sealing well.
