Quad Isle Royal vs. Jotul F600

Just bought an F600 this year and all I can say is HOLY HEAT! Heating 2300 square feet from an unfinished basement with no problem. Easy to run, love the ash pan for cleaning, the large fire box and it's a darn pretty stove!

I would highly recommend this stove to anyone.

We installed an F600 this year as well and the Isle Royale was a serious contender. I found our stove at a closed stove store and could not pass on the deal that I got.

This thing is a serious heater. We have 3300 square feet and I have not been able to stretch its legs until last weeks teens and low 20s. It kept our stove room and kitchen in the low 80s, back side of the house at high 60s and upstairs in the low 60s. I have been able to reload on coals after 8 hours and am still learning how to get the best operation out of it.

Good Luck.

No direct experience on the comparison. In our case, the choice had come down to Isle Royale vs. Jotul Oslo F500. It was a tough call. We liked the top loading possibility with the IR, since we were coming off a top loading VC. But the Jotul was simpler, with one air control lever to operate, compared to two air controls plus a bypass damper on the IR. The Jotul also seemed like it would be simpler to maintain, with rectangular fire bricks and no special bricks with unusual shapes or holes in them.

Also, at the time, Quad was transitioning from their former lifetime warranty to a time-limited warranty, but were still advertising lifetime on some of the web pages and on displays at dealers. When I pressed, though, I was finally told that my new purchase would not actually qualify for the lifetime warranty. Now, that's ok, as lifetime warranties are rare in the industry, but the way it was being handled during the transition just turned me off.

I'm sure I would have been happy with either purchase. There are some very happy IR users on this forum, and I'm sure they'll chime in. We ultimately went with the F500, and we are thrilled with the performance and super-easy operation of the stove. My only complaints are minor, and I think apply to the F600 as well:
1. The front door design along the bottom is such that it creates a pocket for ash to collect above the lower edge of the door. When the front door is opened, that ash dumps out onto the ash lip. The total solution to this is use the stove as a side loader, which works better anyway.
2. The air control needs annual lubrication with graphite powder lubricant to keep it sliding smoothly. It's a 5 minute job and no big deal, but the control gets sticky if you neglect this maintenance.

My only buyers remorse on our F500 is that we cheaped out and bought the standard matte black. The blue-black enamel is truly lovely, and I wish we had spent the extra, but the stove shop was doing a really nice extra discount on the matte black stoves at the time.

Happy burning with whichever you ultimately buy.

Both stoves are great options and will produce very similar real world heating results. 2000 sq. ft. of heating with a 9 to 12 hr burn time depending on draft and wood quality. The biggest difference is if you want to front and top load or front and right side load? Besides that I'll say IMHO it's real tuff to beat Jotul's cast iron quality and simplicity of their clean burn system.
Cory

All I can say is that it seems I am going through a lot less wood than I did with the vigilant. I am anticipating being a cord less wood this year than I used in the smaller Vigilant last year.

Remkel said:

Just bought an F600 this year and all I can say is HOLY HEAT! Heating 2300 square feet from an unfinished basement with no problem. Easy to run, love the ash pan for cleaning, the large fire box and it's a darn pretty stove!

I would highly recommend this stove to anyone.

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Yep, love the looks of the jotuls.

Al said:

Had to rule out the F600. The back vent is just a quater inch too high to make it into my zc fireplace opening. Now looking at the Isle Royale (which just bareley fits) the Jotul Rangeley and the Oslo which would both fit easily. Looks like the Oslo has 2 models; F500 SE and F500. It seems the only difference is cosmetic.
Ready to nail this down tomorrow. It's Cold out there!

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It's a good thing you figured out the height issue BEFORE you purchased, and then found out in the middle of the install that it wouldn't work. We have the same kind of constraint, with a low thimble height out to the masonry chimney (who built this chimney like this?!?). In our case the Oslo just barely makes it. Another half inch would have been too much.

grommal said:

Al said:

Had to rule out the F600. The back vent is just a quater inch too high to make it into my zc fireplace opening. Now looking at the Isle Royale (which just bareley fits) the Jotul Rangeley and the Oslo which would both fit easily. Looks like the Oslo has 2 models; F500 SE and F500. It seems the only difference is cosmetic.
Ready to nail this down tomorrow. It's Cold out there!

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It's a good thing you figured out the height issue BEFORE you purchased, and then found out in the middle of the install that it wouldn't work. We have the same kind of constraint, with a low thimble height out to the masonry chimney (who built this chimney like this?!?). In our case the Oslo just barely makes it. Another half inch would have been too much.

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I installed the thimble to work with the Jotul. We even had to drop it about 1/4" to get the double wall to fit right after moving the stove into position. I tried to install the thimble high to be able to work with another stove but the wife did not want to look at stove pipe. I did not fight that battle as it took 2 years to convince her to install a stove. I am glad that it was not going into a masonry fireplace.

Al said:

Had to rule out the F600. The back vent is just a quater inch too high to make it into my zc fireplace opening. Now looking at the Isle Royale (which just bareley fits) the Jotul Rangeley and the Oslo which would both fit easily. Looks like the Oslo has 2 models; F500 SE and F500. It seems the only difference is cosmetic.
Ready to nail this down tommorrow. It's Cold out there!

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How much sq ft are you planning to heat? If its right in the area of the Oslo's range, Id think it would do the job in Sonoma County, unless you're high in the hills. We have friends/family in Windsor and their winter seems relatively mild most of the time. We dropped to the single digits at night last week and our Oslo heats roughly 2000 sq ft no problem and I never use the furnace.

Al said:

Thanks for the replies.
The way my place is laid out, long rectangular single story, Iv'e been wondering if the fan option on the IR would make a big difference in pushing the heat out into the further parts of the house.
Another question i have is the IR being rated higher efficiency(@82.8%) than the Jotul(only 75%), how much more wood do you go through with the Jotul?

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Steady state is only 73% on the IR and 75% plus on the F-500? As for the fan option on both stoves I would not recommend them at first. You should first see how the heat circulates naturally and would recommenced a ceiling fan and use the blower option as a last resort which can be added at a later date. http://www.quadrafire.com/Products/Isle-Royale-Wood-Stove.aspx?page=Specifications

We had an Oslo and replaced it with an Isle Royale and we couldn't be happier! We live in the PNW where nightime temps average 30 degrees during the winter and we get a lot of rain so low barometric pressure both of which effects the draft. Our Jotul just never got enough draft to work properly, whereas with the same exact set up our IR burns like a dream. I think if you have overnight lows in the teens and/or you have a lot of chimney (i.e. 18-20+ feet) the Jotuls are very good stoves, but if you don't, I'll think you'll be disappointed like we were. We've been burning for almost 30 years now, and the IR is the best stove we've owned yet!!

Nonprophet said:

We had an Oslo and replaced it with an Isle Royale and we couldn't be happier! We live in the PNW where nightime temps average 30 degrees during the winter and we get a lot of rain so low barometric pressure both of which effects the draft. Our Jotul just never got enough draft to work properly, whereas with the same exact set up our IR burns like a dream. I think if you have overnight lows in the teens and/or you have a lot of chimney (i.e. 18-20+ feet) the Jotuls are very good stoves, but if you don't, I'll think you'll be disappointed like we were. We've been burning for almost 30 years now, and the IR is the best stove we've owned yet!!

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Interesting. We have about 13 feet of exterior masonry chimney with an uninsulated clay tile liner (usually the worst case scenario), and our Oslo runs great even when it's in the 50's outside.

Al said:

Nice to hear some praise for the Royale.

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We Isle Royale owners are generally a humble bunch.

To me, this is a ford vs chevy question. Most people love what they have and are used to. Both are great stoves.
The Isle Royale is a powerful heater. In my home, it's used to heat two floors and 2300 square feet. My Quad insert
only runs when it's below zero (last night and tonight). I looked at the F600, and I'm sure that I would have been
happy with that stove too.

Al said:

Grommal, Is your Oslo rear vented? If so how long is the horizontal pipe?

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Our install is a top vent with almost no stovepipe at all. A 90 deg elbow exits the top vent and turns toward the rear, connecting directly to a 45 deg elbow turning left (corner install), then there's about a foot of pipe before it goes into the thimble.

I've heard that rear venting on many of the Jotuls requires stronger draft to work well. Maybe that's the difference in experience here.

+1 on northwinds reply. I guess we are pretty humble but we speak softly and carry a big stick.

I think you can be happy with either stove.

Al said:

Well folks, I am now a proud owner of an Isle Royale! Got a great deal combined w/ the 300$ off coupon fr. Quadrafire. It's gonna be a tight squeeze. Doing the install tomorrow. Let Y'all know how it goes.
Thanks for all the good info!! This is a great forum.

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Congrats on the new stove couldn't of gone wrong with either choice.
Cory

Al said:

Well folks, I am now a proud owner of an Isle Royale! Got a great deal combined w/ the 300$ off coupon fr. Quadrafire. It's gonna be a tight squeeze. Doing the install tomorrow. Let Y'all know how it goes.
Thanks for all the good info!! This is a great forum.

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Congrats! The IR's put out some serious heat and I really like the start-up air feature. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.......


NP