Jotul f500

[ron45]

As mentioned you can turn down the air "completely" if the fire is still burning strongly . . . in fact it is preferred as you send less heat up the chimney and more heat into the home.

Incidentally, it is never shut completely as some air still comes into the stove.

This is good news. I have some concerns about possibly increasing build up in the flue.
I burn Juniper and cedar and Pinyon. There is Oak farther up north from me but too far to haul it.
I've been paying more attention to my ash removal in hopes of making less dust in the house. Mostly just being more gentle moving the ash over the grate area.

Does anyone have success using an Ash Vac? I'm pretty sure the problem will be small embers being drawn against the filters and making holes.
There must be a materials engineer some where with a way to deal with this. They have money bags that are fire retardant in some way. It would such an improvement in our lives...... and for our wives.
Ron

 

[semipro]

This is good news. I have some concerns about possibly increasing build up in the flue.
I burn Juniper and cedar and Pinyon. There is Oak farther up north from me but too far to haul it.
I've been paying more attention to my ash removal in hopes of making less dust in the house. Mostly just being more gentle moving the ash over the grate area.

Does anyone have success using an Ash Vac? I'm pretty sure the problem will be small embers being drawn against the filters and making holes.
There must be a materials engineer some where with a way to deal with this. They have money bags that are fire retardant in some way. It would such an improvement in our lives...... and for our wives.
Ron

One suggestion that I've read on this forum is to clean up ash through an open door while the stove is burning at a medium rate. This allows the draft created by the flue/stove to suck any errant ash back into the stove. Some have reported even cleaning up the front shelf and around the stove like this .

 

[ron45]

As mentioned you can turn down the air "completely" if the fire is still burning strongly . . . in fact it is preferred as you send less heat up the chimney and more heat into the home.

Incidentally, it is never shut completely as some air still comes into the stove.

Thank you, I understand about the air inlet not being air tight. But lets talk about the damper. This is the first time I've had one in a flue since the late 80s. We had several catyletic converters that worked well or us back then. I didn't pursue it this time around because my memory is very troublesome.

BTW, thanks for the reminder about the side door. I guess because the access door to the ash pan and pan are there I just got into the habit of working there but it's a no brainer [now] that the side will be better. Thank you for that.

I'm very grateful for everyone's generosity with their time.

Ron

 

[ron45]

I began ash cleanup at the front only cuz the door was there. I'll change to the side that's a much better choice.

Does anyone use a damper element in their flue near the stove? Also..... it seems to me that if I wait til near the middle of the burn it might be possible to slow the burn and avoid some of the build up in the flue. I keep an eye on the spark arrestor after I've done that.

I've only done it once because i wanted to find out more about the buildup issue.

Lastly.... I usually check the temp every half hour or so and I a low 900's reading there so i backed off on the air inlet. How critical is it that we don't spend much time in that temp. zone? I've caught it that hot two times not. It's why I began using the infrared thermometer.

I should warn everyone, I'm dyslexic and have memory and focus issues. I'm taking prescription medicine for the memory and focus. So fare it's not working. I really have to check everything I write but something will get bye sooner or later.

Ron

 

[Woody Stover]

I usually check the temp every half hour or so and I a low 900's reading there so i backed off on the air inlet. How critical is it that we don't spend much time in that temp. zone?

That's a bit too hot, I think. I use my phone timer, especially when starting a new load, to remind me to check in case I space out.

 

[xman23]

Low 900, this is the stove top? I don't recall if the stove top thermostat goes that high. Way to hot. I guess you have some draft. 400, 500 and max about 600 is what I would be doing.

 

[Allagash350]

One thing I do is open the air all the way when I am opening the stove. I've found this helps most of the little bits of ash fly right up the chimney.

 

[Simonkenton]

Let me tell you, Amigo, I have had 7 wood stoves. Hands down the Oslo is the sloppiest stove I ever had.
Ashes spill out all the time, no way to control it.

Further the "ash pan" is just useless, nach meiner Meinung. I have a 2 gallon stew pot, and every 3 days I let the fire go out and I just scoop the ashes out into the stew pot. That ash pan in the big Jotul is just too big of a mess to deal with, I just let it fill up, and I leave it filled up all the burning season, and I take it outside and dump it every year in April when burning season is over.

Never the less I love the Oslo and it is, of all the stoves I have owned, my favorite stove.

The low 900s? That is too hot!

 

[firefighterjake]

I began ash cleanup at the front only cuz the door was there. I'll change to the side that's a much better choice.

Does anyone use a damper element in their flue near the stove? Also..... it seems to me that if I wait til near the middle of the burn it might be possible to slow the burn and avoid some of the build up in the flue. I keep an eye on the spark arrestor after I've done that.

I've only done it once because i wanted to find out more about the buildup issue.

Lastly.... I usually check the temp every half hour or so and I a low 900's reading there so i backed off on the air inlet. How critical is it that we don't spend much time in that temp. zone? I've caught it that hot two times not. It's why I began using the infrared thermometer.

I should warn everyone, I'm dyslexic and have memory and focus issues. I'm taking prescription medicine for the memory and focus. So fare it's not working. I really have to check everything I write but something will get bye sooner or later.

Ron

Like others have said, 900 degrees on the stove top is a little too warm. Try turning down the air earlier in the process . . . if that doesn't work and this is a regular occurrence you may have a strong draft and may want to consider a flue damper.

I have thought about adding a damper myself from time to time, but in my experience it seems as though I only have a really hot fire maybe three or four times a year and I just "damp" it down by using the tinfoil trick to reduce the incoming air. This slows down the draft, reduces the temp and often has the very cool effect of making the fire move in slo-mo while at the same time producing some unusual colors. The other day I did this and had green flames . . . once before I had violet flames.

 

[firefighterjake]

Let me tell you, Amigo, I have had 7 wood stoves. Hands down the Oslo is the sloppiest stove I ever had.
Ashes spill out all the time, no way to control it.

Further the "ash pan" is just useless, nach meiner Meinung. I have a 2 gallon stew pot, and every 3 days I let the fire go out and I just scoop the ashes out into the stew pot. That ash pan in the big Jotul is just too big of a mess to deal with, I just let it fill up, and I leave it filled up all the burning season, and I take it outside and dump it every year in April when burning season is over.

Never the less I love the Oslo and it is, of all the stoves I have owned, my favorite stove.

The low 900s? That is too hot!

Simon . . . I love ya . . . but I still disagree with you on the ash pan being useless. I find the ash pan to be quite user friendly and dump it at least once or twice a month. I do however have to remember to use my shovel to scoop out any ash that has dumped behind the ash pan, but I find it much easier to just open up the ash pan drawer, pull the ash pan out after giving it a shake or two or three to level out the ash and then it's a short walk outside where I dump it into my 5-gallon covered pail. No fuss, no muss.

It works for me. Doesn't work for you. At least we agree it is a great stove though.

 

[ratsrepus]

I had no problems with the ash pan on my Oslo, except I had to empty it every 3 day. Just dont use the front door, and have a lot of wood on hand

 

[Sawset]

The ash pan may take a little getting used to, and can also be an all or nothing thing. Ash up to the grate is ok. Give the pan a quick jerk forward to get the ash settled, and everything pulls out fine. Burning 24/7 means every 3-4 days. If the ash is at the grate or well over, then either use the pan and expect ash to be left behind, and cleaned out some other way, or just let it go, and at some point open the front door and expect a thorough clean up. A vac in that case comes in handy. I used to clean the stove once a month, open the front door, vac the spilled ash, put a 5gal pail at the side door and fill it up, wipe off the glass, vac everything out, close it up till next month. Lately I've been in the mood to use the pan 3/4day route. I kind of like it this way - less thorough cleanups, less equipment to get out. It seems now the glass is the limiter - a gray ash film builds up on the glass over time, and it really is nice to have that clear view - about a month and it needs to be opened up and wiped down.
As far as 900 for a stove top temp - I think its generally agreed 700 max for a stove top thermometer reading on a cast iron stove like this- over that is into overfire range. Then again is a dyslexic 900 actually 600? Then it would be putting out lots of heat, but just fine.

 

[semipro]

I also agree that the ash pan works well.
I'd add that our temps got so high once that I went outside and covered the Outside Air Supply (OAS) inlet. I'd already lowered the air control to minimum. It did the trick - one of the advantages of an OAS (aka OAK) that you rarely see mentioned.

 

[Texas123]

Chive, My stove was built before 2000. It has those 2 piece removable cast iron burn plates on top of the burn tubes. Just after that, they made the burn plate a one piece synthetic material. So I think the stove is as old as mine. Some here say you can warp the plates. Mine are not, and they just sit there and slide out. There is an insulation blanket that sits on top of them. I never understood why they changed the plates from a durable cast iron. We only burn on weekends and don't need to run it extremely hot. Overheating can be death to any stove. Besides needing a little cement the seams, The issue I see. What appears to be a crack on the front. That's bad, Stove is done. If there are no cracks anywhere, IMO its one of the finest stove.[/QUOTE]

I checked the burn plate above the secondary re-burn tubes and sure enough it feels like a type of plastic. I don't understand how a synthetic can withstand the heat of the flames for more then a few minutes.
Does anyone know what kind of ceramic or polymer Jotul uses now in the F500?
thank you very much.

 

[begreen]

The baffle is made from vermiculite. It'll stand up to the heat.

 

[Simonkenton]

I had a Waterford stove a few years back, and it had a cute ash pan, and that ash pan was a POS as well. Otherwise a great little stove, no longer sold here in America.

So, the Irish are tied with the Norwegians making awkward messy ash pans for good stoves.