I bought mine about 3 weeks ago. Also paid $2600. My only concern is that there is no time table for delivery. But I shopped all over my area and all the stoves had similar delivery issues so I bought the stove that I first wanted. It was still cheaper than similar sized stoves from lopi, blaze king, pacific energy.
Jotul F45 Greenville Experiences
- Thread starter Todd
- Start date
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Anyone heard of the brick retainers melting in the v2? Heard it from a supposed jotul seller on another forum. Wondering how that can happen aside from over-firing the stove. I try to place the logs gently in, not knocking into the bricks. I also light small fires at the beginning of the season to dry out any moisture that developed over the summer. I heard heating the bricks fast with moisture inside them can cause them to crack.
It's not likely to happen with normal operation. That would take some consistently high temperatures over many overtemp fires. Sounds like someone was pushing the stove very hard, or it's a salesperson's tall tale.
After reading some recent threads about dampers, primary boost air and secondary control I thought I’d play around with my primary boost air again and see what kind of differences I can come up with.
The weather has been very cold so far this month with below zero temps every day so far with the lowest at -33. My draft has been strong and noticeably stronger than temps in the 20-30’s.
For a few days I left the boost air open and with full loads my flue temps maxed out at 700+. Stove temps seem to pretty much follow flue temps give or take. I also noticed with very dry wood the stove would take off very quickly and out gas pretty much all at once. even If I had the air shut all the way down in 5 min it could take off on me. After the off gassing the wood was a large pile of coal with stove temps dropping off too quickly. This caused some coaling problems with reloads and would have to adjust the air higher towards the end of the burn.
With the boost air shut off my flue temps max at 600+, stove temps also followed the flue temps but didn’t seem to drop off as fast. I seem to have more control, lazier flames, less coaling, longer heat with warmer house temps.
Monitoring flue temps tell you a lot and I feel keeping them in the 400-600 range seems to give me the best efficiency for this stove. On reloads I’ve been adjusting my air down from full as I reach 500 flue temp maybe 3-4 times til I get to the lowest setting then it will cruise in that 400-600 range as draft and weather dictates.
I’m not recommending air control mods for everyone, it works for my 22’ straight up chimney but so might a pipe damper that I almost purchased but remembered from older threads here that some people had success with boost air mods and thought I should try that first.
The weather has been very cold so far this month with below zero temps every day so far with the lowest at -33. My draft has been strong and noticeably stronger than temps in the 20-30’s.
For a few days I left the boost air open and with full loads my flue temps maxed out at 700+. Stove temps seem to pretty much follow flue temps give or take. I also noticed with very dry wood the stove would take off very quickly and out gas pretty much all at once. even If I had the air shut all the way down in 5 min it could take off on me. After the off gassing the wood was a large pile of coal with stove temps dropping off too quickly. This caused some coaling problems with reloads and would have to adjust the air higher towards the end of the burn.
With the boost air shut off my flue temps max at 600+, stove temps also followed the flue temps but didn’t seem to drop off as fast. I seem to have more control, lazier flames, less coaling, longer heat with warmer house temps.
Monitoring flue temps tell you a lot and I feel keeping them in the 400-600 range seems to give me the best efficiency for this stove. On reloads I’ve been adjusting my air down from full as I reach 500 flue temp maybe 3-4 times til I get to the lowest setting then it will cruise in that 400-600 range as draft and weather dictates.
I’m not recommending air control mods for everyone, it works for my 22’ straight up chimney but so might a pipe damper that I almost purchased but remembered from older threads here that some people had success with boost air mods and thought I should try that first.
Thanks for the update Todd. That tracks with what I have found with our stove. In a single-story home with a 14-15' flue and just average wood, boost air helps, especially with starting. Conversely, with good dry wood and strong draft, boost air may be more of a liability than an asset.
50º today and the T6 is getting a rest along with an ash cleanout later today.
50º today and the T6 is getting a rest along with an ash cleanout later today.
I could wait for the f45 and got the pe. Summit.
Did your auber come set up with decimal in tenths? Mine didn't.
Shutting the air in stages has been working great and controls the max air temp better but with a basment stove I have to sit on the bench longer and watch the flames...one I see the flames cover the firebox or going well again I keep turning air down.. thanks for info on boost air.
Did your auber come set up with decimal in tenths? Mine didn't.
Shutting the air in stages has been working great and controls the max air temp better but with a basment stove I have to sit on the bench longer and watch the flames...one I see the flames cover the firebox or going well again I keep turning air down.. thanks for info on boost air.
I believe it came that way. I think I bought it 5 or 6 years ago, it’s an AT100 and initially used it to monitor my fermentation temps for my homebrew.
Usually turn my stove down in stages as well. As the new load gets up over 500 flue temp there is usually full box of flame and I know to turn the air down to half and wait til she climbs back up to 500 again then turn it down some more and repeat til I’m down to where I want, usually lowest air setting or just a smidge above. Harder drafting days or cold starts I may use 600 as my guide.
Here we are getting close to the end of January and I’ve just past the 2 cord mark. Not bad since I think we’re through about 2/3 of the season. January has been pretty cold, most mornings have been below zero. The stove has been burning well keeping the cabin mid 70’s during the day and waking up a little cooler in the mid to upper 60’s.
I'm switching over to my next pile of wood and decided to let the stove rest for a week. When I went to start it back up I had smoke spilling into the room while the door was open. When it's closed it's fine but any time I go to reload if I take a few mins the smoke from a fresh log will leak out into the room when normally the smoke would exit properly above the baffle when the door's open. I let the fire die out and the following day I did a sweep of the entire chimney and cleaned out a fair amount of soot but no blockages. I also saw some flakes on top in the back of the baffle that I vacuumed out. My house is tightly sealed but this wasn't happening all season till now. I kept the window open nearby for a few mins and tried opening the door with a flue temp of ~360F but it didn't change. I cracked the door open for a few mins then tried opening it slowly to no avail.
Without taking the entire top plate out, is there something going on above the baffle that's affecting the draft? Could something have happened to the baffle blanket to cause the smoke to not draft easily? It's just so odd that it's been running great but after it went out it doesn't draft after a fire has already been going.
Without taking the entire top plate out, is there something going on above the baffle that's affecting the draft? Could something have happened to the baffle blanket to cause the smoke to not draft easily? It's just so odd that it's been running great but after it went out it doesn't draft after a fire has already been going.
I sweep bottom-up so I'm not sure. When the brush went up it knocked off a few flakes down from the cap but I'm not sure. After I swept I made a small fire and it did have smoke exiting the cap properly.
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
You changed wood piles. Have you confirmed it’s the same moisture? I got to the bottoms of my two rows and now I have some wet wood.
It's not. It's slightly higher in MC but the smaller fire I started was with kindling which was dry and it produced the same result.
I removed the top plate and the blanket is still intact. Vacuumed out all the ash and started another fire with the same result. This time I noticed when the door is open, smoke not only exits the door but all the seams of the pipe above it. When the door is closed, no smoke exits. With the door closed and flue temp >500F, I opened the door slightly and saw smoke starting to come out the seams of the pipe again. When I closed the door the smoke stopped leaking. Is this a bad case of negative pressure? I had the nearby window wide open, open an inch and nothing stopped the smoke from backing out. Temp outside is in the 40s but this happened when the outside temp was in the 20s as well.
Will an outside air kit help with this?
Will an outside air kit help with this?
If you had a nearby window wide open I doubt you have a negative pressure issue. Do you have any 90 elbows that could have soot blockage from your sweeping? Did you recheck your cap?
I have ~4ft of double-wall duravent going to a 90* elbow, then a horizontal run to a T outside, then 18ft of class A pipe. I cleaned out each 90* section and cleaned out the soot from the T. No blockages from below.
I called a sweep to come by and check the cap this week.
I called a sweep to come by and check the cap this week.
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get a pair of binoculars to view the cap. And also look up from the t outside with flashlight if you can. You wrote you sweep bottom up but did you get the external chimney through the t cleanout outside.? im guessing you might have a pile of soot if you didn't take the pipes apart inside.
There is the potential for this in a lot of stoves but it is a very uncommon problem and almost always due to frequent overfiring a stove.
I swept up from the T outside and took apart the inside pipe and swept those separately. When I look up at the cap I can see smoke exiting fine. But there may be some blockage that requires a closer look. Hoping to get a guy to come inspect it this week.
Update: Had a chimney sweep come and after sending his drill brush up it knocked a bunch more soot from the walls of the cap - a place my brush couldn't reach. Now the stove's back on and drafting great, just in time for our big noreaster storm tomorrow!
I'll be investing in a soot eater for next season.
I'll be investing in a soot eater for next season.
Glad you got that figured out. Some chimney caps with those screen spark arresters are notorious for plugging. Some people have cut the screens to open them up a bit.
That was my guess as to why it clogged but I asked the guy if it looked like I had one and he said no. He also didn't go up to the cap to thoroughly inspect it. Nonetheless, after he cleaned it and that soot fell down, I lit a fire and it drafted great again.
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