Jotul F600 Firelight CB

[koavt]

I have a Jotul F600. Used as primary source of heat for my home. What drives me crazy that I only seem to get 2 years before the burn plates (cast iron baffles) crack, and warp. I am also on my second replacement of the secondary manifold that holds the burn tubes. The cast iron warps, and the burn tubes fall out. My dealer tells me that I am over firing the stove. My stove top temp hardly heaver reaches 400 F. Usually hovers around 350 F. I know that some of the other jotul models have gone to Ceramic burn plates. My dealer now constantly stocks the burn plates for the F600. Had to always order them before. Seems like this is an issue for other owners of the F600. I am very careful, and have had other wood stoves in the past. It seems to me that there is some inherent flaw in this stoves design. Jotul's warranty is pretty much useless in my opinion. When the stove runs well it throws out a lot of heat. Just wondeing if any one out their is having similar issues with their F600. I would probably replace right now with a different brand, it just is not in the budget. I am hoping that someone might have some ideas. Thanks.

 

[bholler]

I have a Jotul F600. Used as primary source of heat for my home. What drives me crazy that I only seem to get 2 years before the burn plates (cast iron baffles) crack, and warp. I am also on my second replacement of the secondary manifold that holds the burn tubes. The cast iron warps, and the burn tubes fall out. My dealer tells me that I am over firing the stove. My stove top temp hardly heaver reaches 400 F. Usually hovers around 350 F. I know that some of the other jotul models have gone to Ceramic burn plates. My dealer now constantly stocks the burn plates for the F600. Had to always order them before. Seems like this is an issue for other owners of the F600. I am very careful, and have had other wood stoves in the past. It seems to me that there is some inherent flaw in this stoves design. Jotul's warranty is pretty much useless in my opinion. When the stove runs well it throws out a lot of heat. Just wondeing if any one out their is having similar issues with their F600. I would probably replace right now with a different brand, it just is not in the budget. I am hoping that someone might have some ideas. Thanks.

I work on quite a few of them and honestly none of them have had this issue. What are your pipe temps? Where are you measuring temp on the stove? What is your typical burn procedure?

 

[charger4406]

I've had my f600 for 5 yrs now and I run it pretty hard at times and I have never
had to repair anything other then replacing the door gaskets.

 

[begreen]

This is a first for me to hear too. Something is amuk.

 

[webby3650]

My 600 was over 10 years old and had the original baffle and tubes, no cracks or warping.

 

[branchburner]

Well, I'll chime in, because I took a chance and bought a Jotul 600 used that had very warped baffles. The prior owners found it was running too hot, and we assumed it might have a leak. But I never could find a crack or bad seal after multiple attempts. It ran ok, did not run too hot but the burn times seemed way too short, so something was amiss. I retired it when I got the chance to beta-test a Woodstock, but plan (haha) on doing a rebuild "one of these days."

The temps sound very low for a stove showing heat damage. Are you using multiple tools to measure, like an IR gun in addition to a magnetic thermometer? What are burn times like? In the morning I would have ashes and no coals, so it seemed to me that excess air was somehow entering the firebox and burning down the coals.

 

[begreen]

This is an odd one. The low stove top temps are curious. That could be a faulty thermometer. Or with short burn times, low stove top temp maybe there is some sort of misalignment or misfit of the baffle allowing flue gases to go right up the chimney?