Survey.............Jotul Castine

I like the T-series from PE. They seem to offer nice burn times for their size.

How big is your home? Illinois can get rather chilly.

Ive had a castine for 3 seasons now and am pleased. I liked the looks, small footprint, and the clearances worked.

The only downside, and I imagine its common for stoves this size, is that it can be difficult to get a true overnight burn. Ive had coals up to around 9 hours after the start but I typically need to reload every 5 to 6hours to avoid a hassle on relight.

The castine will b plenty if your place is reasonably insulated. I'm heating a 4br colonial and can keep it heated using the stove if I'm attentative.

dorkweed said:

BrowningBAR said:

I like the T-series from PE. They seem to offer nice burn times for their size.

How big is your home? Illinois can get rather chilly.

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About 1100sq.ft. ranch. Not an open design either.

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I'm not working with an open layout either.

I think you would be just fine with a T4 or a Castine. I would lean towards the T4 as it seems to have longer burn times. If you get the T4, get the blower.

No real.issues here..... took some time to learn the stove. Top down fires ive found to be the best technique.

Its all about the wood......properly seasoned it burns like gasoline.

dorkweed said:

BrowningBAR said:

dorkweed said:

BrowningBAR said:

I like the T-series from PE. They seem to offer nice burn times for their size.

How big is your home? Illinois can get rather chilly.

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About 1100sq.ft. ranch. Not an open design either.

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I'm not working with an open layout either.

I think you would be just fine with a T4 or a Castine. I would lean towards the T4 as it seems to have longer burn times. If you get the T4, get the blower.

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Thanks for the insite. I was really asking why y'all thought the Castine was so "finicky"...............at least from what I've read here. Some folks have no problems at all with them..........others have poor draft, or poor heat etc.

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I have never owned or used either stove. My comments are based on what I have read. I have no info on the Castine. I do remember people discussing some issues with the Castine, but I do not know what they are or why they occur.

I looked through the same stoves you did.1300 sq ft poorly insulated and the Rangeley is plenty of stove.9 to 11 hr burn wood cut last spring.I wouldn't want a smaller stove because of burn times.This place was built in 1800 and has small rooms.Just remember,you go too small and you've struck out,too big just means smaller fires.Of course this was a mild winter.What i didn't like about the Castine was the shallow depth of the firebox.Can load this 1 18" straight in N/S and 20" E/W.Boy i love the straight in feature and the fire burns awesome this way.This stove starts really easy from a cold start also.Not to mention the new grill insert. :coolsmile:

I've had a F400 for three years. It's a supplementary source of heat. There's nothing particularly difficult about running it. But, it does have a couple of drawbacks:
1. The small firebox limits burns to 3-4 hours. I only have pine and cottonwood available.
2. The small firebox limits loading to E-W unless you have 9†splits.
3. The glass easily becomes dirty.

If that's all you have to burn i'd go Oslo or Rangeley.They supposedly heat the same sq footage.2000.Just study thoroughly.I'll leave it at that.

I'm a big fan of over-sizing (that should be obvious), but I would be hesitant to go larger than the Castine in this case. If I were to recommend a larger stove I would go with the T5, which is a 2 cu ft stove that is larger than the Castine, but smaller than the Oslo. Also, it seems to be more of a convection heater than the Oslo and Rangley. Additionally, Freischutz was using soft wood in a much colder climate. Both will shorten burn times.

The OP is in a small home without an open floor plan. Throwing a 2.5 cu ft (Oslo) or a 2.8 cu ft (Rangley) stove into that area could end up qualifying for one of those rare instances where the stove IS too large for the area. Especially if this is a well insulated home.

If this home is drafty as hell, and the OP has not mentioned insulation, then the Oslo or Rangley would be okay. But it would have to be 1741 farmhouse drafty. :red:

If he had hardwood i'd say Castine would be fine. Well insulated would be another plus for sure.Soft wood will cut his burn times by 30% anyways i'd say.If he don't need an overnight burn he's fine.I darned near got a T series but looked at alot of stoves.The other half didn't like em.

The castine hasn't been at all finicky in my (limited-just installed ~2 months ago) experience. It burns great and the only negative I've noticed is that a little smoke does tend to spill out if I try to reload before the previous load is burned down-no big deal. I have a 2 story indoor prefab chimney so draft is good & I've been burning red oak that I just bought this year (but it does seem very well-seasoned. I'm in western Virginia, heating 1800 (total) sq ft on 2 stories & have been very pleased with the temperatures throughout the house - SOOO much more comfortable than forced air. It is not an open floorplan and definitely not tight.
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That being said, I would probably have gotten the oslo if my clearances had allowed, just for the increased burn times. If my house was better insulated it probably wouldn't be an issue. I always have coals left in the morning after 7-8 hours, but the house does cool down quite a bit. Also, my wife is home during the day, so she can keep feeding it as needed which helps. If your house will be empty while you're at work all day, bigger might be better just for coming home to a warmer house. Things to consider.... Best wishes.

With 1100 sq feet you could get away with an Oslo sized stove, assuming you have the extra hearth space required for the side door. In my opinion, a radiant stove works better in wide open spaces. My opinion has always been that for heating multiple levels or rooms, a stove with some convection properties work best.

I will be honest here. I think it one of the less forgiving stoves to operate well.

I think the key to success with the Castine is your chimney setup. Ideally it should be top vented with no turns with the chimney length exceeding the minimum requirements by 2 ft. If their is any deviation you might run into problems.

If you rear vent the stove their probably will be some smoke spillage esp. if your chimney system is too short.

If draft is a problem the situation can be improved by building zipper fires logs (EW on top of small pieces NS) and the liberal use of kindling in the middle of the coal bed between the two NS logs and the use of dry wood is always a MUST.

In building a clean burning fire I find it most efficient to initially have an escape route of flames along the middle of the firebox to the baffle near the length of the 2nd row of secondary burn tubes. If you can accomplish that the operation of the stove is a cinch. If your haphazardly pack in pieces where the flame escape route is on the ends of the wood pieces your fire will create much more smoke.

I think the major design problem is the far corners of the glass seem to always get dirty upon operation and the large door allows continuous spillage of ash which in turn will cause a dust problem in the house. I think a side door would a higher lip would prevent the ash spillage.

But if you are a pyro there is nothing better for viewing a fire than a Castine. Also I think the quality of the parts and looks of the stove is top notch.

With a ranch house, I think you might have trouble getting a proper chimney set up (enough height) for a good draft. As others have said, you want to EXCEED the minimum recommendations for trouble free operation.

My brother has the min. of stovepipe for the Castine in his house and has had absolutely no draft issues. I run his stove pretty frequently when at his house and like the way it runs. His glass never gets dirty besides the little bit of fly ash most stoves get after a week of burning. If I had his house I'd have gotten the same stove. Nothing wrong with those T4-T5s either from what I've heard. Sounds like you're doing your homework.. best of luck.

I love my Castine, and this is my second season of burning steadily, if not 24/7.

Mine is top-vented, straight run of class-A, and drafting has never been an issue. Dry wood is maybe even more crucial in this stove than a few others you could mention. I like my splits to be in the 10-12% exterior, 15-17% interior range. Ditto what some have said about leaving a top exit for flame above your E/W load...that will facilitate secondary burns. I've never had much of a problem keeping the glass clean. By that, I mean soot blackening. Ash particles sticking to the glass is something that has never bothered me too much, and that does happen. When the glass gets dark, it is usually because I was burning less dry wood, and choked the primary air back too far. In other words, this was due to "operator error." I have noticed that performance of the Castine is also fairly reliant on the depth of your ash bed. If you let your ash build up to a depth as high as the front lip, performance suffers. It also makes for messy operation as you are going to spill ash everytime you reload it. The grate at the bottom of the stove doesn't really allow the ash to drop to the pan at a rate high enough to keep the ash level down to normal operating depths. As a consequence, I have to tediously poke it down with the tip of my poker before I reload in the morning, and then empty the ash pan. Sometimes I just shovel the ash and coals out and skip that step...it depends on if I'm trying to save coals for a relight, or not.

Burn times are fairly good. I can have a 500+* fire at 10:00 p.m., wake up at 6:30 the next morning and the stove will still be radiating at about 250*. During peak operation, you do need to keep stoking every few hours, which can lead to excessive coals building up and reducing the size of your useable fire box. At those times, I like to just open the door and let the coal heat blast into the room, but I never leave that unattended.

Despite my liking this stove, I would have gone up to the Oslo if I had the footprint. Well, I could have had the footprint, but the wife was adamant that she didn't want a stove that would "take over" our living room. <sigh> She is now the first person to holler for more heat on those really cold nights. With our open floor plan, high ceilings and leaky windows, it is sometimes a struggle to keep the large room temp up to 70 degrees. I'm pretty certain the Oslo wouldn't have a problem heating this space much better.

This is a good burning stove, and I'm liking it.

We don't need the bigger hearth because it's front and top loading and of course only need the ember protection under the stove.Clearances are super with the rear and bottom heat shield which is incl with stove.Maybe try the 55 if top loading isn't an issue.I think you'll want the better burn times.Just because i have 1 doesn't mean i wanna get you to buy 1 but it is a stove that works for me.Go check 1 out,ask a bunch of questions and then see what fits ya.That Oslo sure is purty though.lol

ploughboy said:

The grate at the bottom of the stove doesn't really allow the ash to drop to the pan at a rate high enough to keep the ash level down to normal operating depths. As a consequence, I have to tediously poke it down with the tip of my poker before I reload in the morning, and then empty the ash pan. Sometimes I just shovel the ash and coals out and skip that step...it depends on if I'm trying to save coals for a relight, or not.

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Sounds like you need an ash rake if you don't already have one. Rake the ashes around the firebox. Ashes fall through the grate and the unburned (or still burning) chunks stay on top.

http://www.northlineexpress.com/item/5PI-17141/18-Black-Iron-Ball-Handle-Ash-Rake

Thanks for the recommendation Catspaw, but no, not really. I've used all manner of fireplace tools, and I'm pretty well convinced that the fault is with the grate construction. Really, it is not even much of a grate at all, justa series of small slits in a cast iron plate in the middle of the bottom of the firebox. You can push and stir the ashes around all you want, but the openings are too small and too narrow to do any kind of efficient job. You have to clear them one at a time, push ash back over the slot, poke it down again...rinse and repeat. Mostly, I just shovel them out. I understand of course that if were a true grate, large amounts of coals would ultimately come to rest in the ashpan, which is a problem. They could have made the bottom lift-out plate larger, and extended the openings over a larger area of firebox bottom though, and that would have been a much more workable solution. Ah well, as they say where I work, "I was not consulted!"