Calling all Oslo & f600 Brothers & Sisters

Hi 498,

We heat an open concept, 2100 sq. ft. tri-level home with vaulted cielings and skylights on the top floor. this is our fifth season with this stove and it does a great job! I too like the house on the warm side and the Oslo has no problem keeping us happy and warm. The far end of the kitchen is forty feet from the stove and only when the temp drops below 10f do I notice that it cools off much quicker. That part of the house is poorly insulated. Hope this helps.

Jim

Our F600 is AWESOME, that is the only word I can use to describe it. It replaced a VC Vigilant which I suppose is similar i n size to the F500 and it has made all the difference in the world. Happily heating 2300 sq ft not including the basement which is where the stove is located.

I would say that if there is any doubt in your mind whatsoever that the F500 will do the job, move up. You can always run smaller fires if need be.

I'd trade up to an F600 in a heartbeat.

Don't get me wrong, the Oslo heats our home just fine, but the little bit of extra burn time out of the F600 would be nice.

I say go with the F600.

We love our Oslo and it heats our 2000 sq ft cabin perfectly. It is also the only source of heat we use. If I had a couple hundred more sq feet to heat like you do, I would definately upgrade to the 600 without hesitation. It should actually be the perfect fit for you. Best of luck.

adrpga498 said:

Ty both, I'm not trying to make this a 500vs.600 by performance , just wondering if those that got the 500 would have gone larger if they had to do it over again. I know both stoves are great. Ty

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1,800 square foot Cape . . . sometimes I think I could have or should have gone up a size -- typically when the temps are in the single digits or below zero as the Oslo is holding its own, but the overall house seems cooler . . . but honestly, 95% of the time the Oslo does a nice job and heats the house perfectly fine.

To those who are heating their entire house with their Jotuls, at what temp do you have the stove? I really doubt that one stove can heat a 2000 sq ft house, perhaps people are burning at a higher temp than I am.

Tuff Gong said:

To those who are heating their entire house with their Jotuls, at what temp do you have the stove? I really doubt that one stove can heat a 2000 sq ft house, perhaps people are burning at a higher temp than I am.

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We built this home a bit over 5 years ago. It's new and well insulated. We have forced hot air oil heat. We have a 275 gallon oil tank in basement. We've burned a quarter of a tank of oil in 5 years.

There are times we've been away and had to set the oil heat to keep the home from freezing up. We've literally burned less than a hundred gallons of oil in 5 years.

The only other heat is a 1500 watt oil filled radiator we use in the master bathroom that is well removed from the woodstove, and we only need to use that when temp's are below 30.

Our home is a little over 2200 sq. ft.

http://www.dongardner.com/plan_details.aspx?pid=347

I'd still take the F600 if I had to do it over again

Tuff Gong said:

To those who are heating their entire house with their Jotuls, at what temp do you have the stove? I really doubt that one stove can heat a 2000 sq ft house, perhaps people are burning at a higher temp than I am.

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I heat the upstairs of our (1800 square feet) ranch home with an Oslo in our living room. Stove top temp runs 500 - 200 degrees during the burn cycle. Stove room does get warm at 76-78 degrees. The far end of the house with the bedrooms gets to 70 degrees. I use a fan on the floor to blow the cooler air from the bedrooms as needed on colder days.

If I need to warm up the basement area, I have a wood furnace that I run and shut down the Oslo. Not sure how the Oslo would heat the house from the basement area.

Tuff Gong said:

I really doubt that one stove can heat a 2000 sq ft house, perhaps people are burning at a higher temp than I am.

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Say what? Why would so many people lie about this? It looks like you're pretty new to the site and by the line you dropped, definately new to wood burning. You should poke around a bit more and check out some of the Oslo and other stove threads. We have a two story (master bdrm in loft) log cabin. I havent touched the thermostat in 3 years except to make sure it still works once or twice a winter. The Oslo can easily keep our 2000 sq ft above 70 degrees all winter long (in the 80s if I wanted in the shoulder seasons). Depending on the size of our fires, I usually have the house between 68-74 degrees which seems to please everyone. I usually burn between 400-600 degrees in the dead of winter and reload when it goes down to about 300. If the Oslo could not heat my entire home, I would sell it in a heartbeat for a better stove. I think you have a problem somewhere if yours cant do the same. Could be the draft, unseasoned wood, poor chimney or pipe setup, needy floorpaln, or drafty house. Id figure out what the issue is and fix it if I were you, or else you're wasting a perfectly good heating machine. Best of luck.

Tuff Gong said:

To those who are heating their entire house with their Jotuls, at what temp do you have the stove? I really doubt that one stove can heat a 2000 sq ft house, perhaps people are burning at a higher temp than I am.

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Stove generally runs between 450-600 degrees . . .

Room with the stove is typically in the low to mid 70s . . . adjoining rooms are in the high 60s to low 70s . . . further out you go the cooler it gets. Rooms upstairs (two story Cape) run about the same temp as the adjoining rooms.

I do have an oil boiler with thermostats set at 60 degrees for when I am away . . . or for when I am a wuss and don't want to wake up to a house colder than 60 degrees . . . but the oil boiler only kicks on a few times during the winter. I also have an electric space heater that I run in the Mudroom which is the farthest room in the house -- I do this mainly to make sure the water lines there (washer, dryer, sink and hot water boiler) do not freeze up although again the temps rarely dip below 60 degrees.

If you size the stove right (I usually advise going one size up from what you think you will need) and use fans to push the cool air towards the woodstove and you have a good lay-out (i.e. not a sprawling, odd shaped house) and you have decent insulation it is entirely possible to heat a home almost entirely with a woodstove. Truthfully, I have not filled my oil tank in two or three years.