New Jotul F600!
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Wow, that's a big leap in output. Was the Castine way undersized or will the 600 be an elephant gun?
It was way undersized.Wow, that's a big leap in output. Was the Castine way undersized or will the 600 be an elephant gun?
Our house is roughly 2200 square feet with ten foot ceilings so the F600 is perfectly sized.
The Castine was my first EPA stove and I was told that they ran hot so to size down to avoid overheating the space. It got the job done pretty well for a number of years but everything had to go perfectly on each load.
Any chance you can fire it up in the driveway to burn off the paint smell before bringing it into the house? I wish I did that with mine in hindsight.
We got the matte black so I'm assuming this will be less smell than breaking in an enamel stove. I will just open the windows a bit during the break in fires. That worked fine with my Castine.
Just the opposite. The enameled stoves emit much less breakin smell. We hardly had any at all with our blue-black Castine. The matte black is a painted stove. It will definitely have a smokey start. The first break in fire won't be bad because the stove temp will be low. But once the stove gets over 400F it will stink. Take it up to 600F right after the breakin fires in order to fully bake the paint finish. Open windows and put a fan exhausting in one to keep the smell from being overwhelming.
Thanks for the advice, begreen.
Our Castine was matte black and I remember just a very slight odor each time we would get the stove up to a new high temp. My plan is to do the break in fires as quickly as possible though so we have the least bit of time without a stove. The stove will be delivered next Tuesday morning. I will have the first fire to 200 degrees. I will let it cool all day and then do the second fire to 300 degrees that night. Wednesday morning I will do the final break in fire to 400 degrees. Wednesday night I will have a normal fire
It took several days to a week for the smoke smell to fully go away on my F45 since I was also doing small incremental fires. It wasn't a major issue since it was installed in September and I could have the whole house opened up but it would be a lot less enjoyable on a cold December day. It was not a pleasant smell to say the least.
I didn't even think about doing a burn in fire before installation until I saw people doing it on this forum. I wish I knew at the time.
We don't want your family's first memories of the new stove to be acrid smoky ones!
I didn't even think about doing a burn in fire before installation until I saw people doing it on this forum. I wish I knew at the time.
We don't want your family's first memories of the new stove to be acrid smoky ones!
Should be an interesting break in now that I see the weather for next week....looks like I will be burning the stove with the windows open in 20 degree weather for a few nights.
That's what I get for buying a new stove at the end of December ☺
That's what I get for buying a new stove at the end of December ☺
That’s a hell of a nice Christmas.
. Congrats!
Nick Mystic
Minister of Fire
Be sure to read the manual carefully regarding where to place your stove top thermometer before you start running the stove up to 600 F. You will see that the thermometer is placed on one of the corners of the top. I have an F 600 and have my thermometer on the back left corner. There is a big difference in temperature readings between that location and the center of the top. For example, when my stove is running 400 F on one of the corners it is well over 600 F in the top center when I hit it with my IR thermometer. So, if that ration holds (my IR thermometer tops out just above 600 F) and you heat your new stove up to 600 F on a corner you may well be running in the 900 F range at the top center. That's hotter than I would be willing to run my stove. I've had my Jotul F600 for about four years now and usually run it around 350 F - 450 F (on a corner reading) and it heats my 2200 sq. ft. upstairs area fine.
Thanks for this advice.
I am used to having my thermometer in the back left corner of my Castine stovetop. I have read the F600 Manual and see it is the same, as you have reinforced.
Congratulations on the F600. That will be my next stove although my f400 is a tank runs great from day 1 , (12 years now.) My bi-level house approximately 2300sf needs more then Castine can carry.Oh well, would like to hear from you how this changes things at your house.
You're gonna love it. We're just under 2200 sqft and probably under insulated and it's toasty throughout the house. The trick for us was building the right sized fire in the shoulder season, but it is handy to be able to build smaller fires when necessary.
jetsam
Minister of Fire
I will let you know. Our Castine ran well too but, similar to your situation, it just wasn't big enough.
I am really looking forward to having the firebox room to choose my fire size. Like you said, I can opt for smaller fires in shoulder season, but also have room to build a big fire on really cold nights.
I have done this in the past but want the stove company to do the full install for me at this point. I'm not keen on moving almost 500 pounds of cast iron myself. Also, for liability reasons, I want the total install done professionally from start to finish. It's gonna be a smoky few nights
Here it is!
You can see we put two pieces of 45 angle pipe at the collar to move the stove out from the wall a bit too. While we are well exceeding minimum clearances, I am still having them put the rear heat shield on next Tuesday. My hearth walls got up to 120F after just my 400 degree break in fire.
Things I have noticed:
1. The air tubes (not secondary burn plate like in my Castine) glow when the stove is in operation! I've read in many other posts that this is totally normal. Very cool.
2. The stove top is way hotter than the thermometer indicates. When it is operating at 400 degrees, with the thermometer placed in the correct location, my stove top is around 550. This is unlike my Castine which was uniform from thermometer to stove top temp.
3. This thing makes heat and holds it! I did my final break in fire this morning where I got the stove top to 400. We were in the mid 20's this morning and the break in fire took the house from 65-70. I started the fire at 6:30am and the stove top is still at 150F at 1:30pm. This was using only three normal sized splits of wood, split into smaller pieces to create a faster, lower temp fire. I'm actually going to save wood with a bigger stove!
4. The only hang up is that the air control, particularly when hot, has tons of friction. I spoke to the stove dealer and they are going to address it Tuesday when they put the heat shield on. I took it apart and you can see that the channel the air slide runs in is a bit narrow as it gets hung up on it about midway through the travel. Nothing a bit of filing won't fix....but at this point I'm going to let the dealer do the filing as it is brand new.
5. I could never live without a side load door again.
The only downside:
1. I have to wait so long in between loads to play with my stove! Wait....that's an upside
You can see we put two pieces of 45 angle pipe at the collar to move the stove out from the wall a bit too. While we are well exceeding minimum clearances, I am still having them put the rear heat shield on next Tuesday. My hearth walls got up to 120F after just my 400 degree break in fire.
Things I have noticed:
1. The air tubes (not secondary burn plate like in my Castine) glow when the stove is in operation! I've read in many other posts that this is totally normal. Very cool.
2. The stove top is way hotter than the thermometer indicates. When it is operating at 400 degrees, with the thermometer placed in the correct location, my stove top is around 550. This is unlike my Castine which was uniform from thermometer to stove top temp.
3. This thing makes heat and holds it! I did my final break in fire this morning where I got the stove top to 400. We were in the mid 20's this morning and the break in fire took the house from 65-70. I started the fire at 6:30am and the stove top is still at 150F at 1:30pm. This was using only three normal sized splits of wood, split into smaller pieces to create a faster, lower temp fire. I'm actually going to save wood with a bigger stove!
4. The only hang up is that the air control, particularly when hot, has tons of friction. I spoke to the stove dealer and they are going to address it Tuesday when they put the heat shield on. I took it apart and you can see that the channel the air slide runs in is a bit narrow as it gets hung up on it about midway through the travel. Nothing a bit of filing won't fix....but at this point I'm going to let the dealer do the filing as it is brand new.
5. I could never live without a side load door again.
The only downside:
1. I have to wait so long in between loads to play with my stove! Wait....that's an upside
NHcpa
Minister of Fire
Curious, do you load from the side or the front? I have an older top load and use the top for loading. I never felt comfortable opening the front doors. Love the 600 but don’t believe I have the clearance for a side door.
