new to burning with jotul f400. many questions

my wife and i finally completed our installation of our first wood stove in our home. flat black jotul f400. we did a through the wall set up with double wall stove pipe connecting to double wall chimney outside. my wife had a wood stove at her parents house since she was a kid, but it was a much larger steel box stove. i have never burned before this. after doing the 3 fire break in we ran it for about a week and here are my questions, concerns, statements.

i feel we have good draft as i can get a fire going with a single match with news paper and kindling and the damper wide open. takes a few minutes to get going and i can load more kindling and then a small log. all of my wood has been seasoned for around 11 months ( which i felled, bucked and split myself) and is all stacked on pallets with a tarp just covering the top. its all mixed hardwoods oak, maple, cherry.

my concerns... im not sure if im burning correctly to keep from creosote building up. once i get a fire going from scratch ill let it build to about 4-500 with the damper wide open. i turn it down to about half and try to keep the temperature in that range. i will turn it below half a hair and it usually sits right around 450. once i get a good bed of coals i need to turn it down a little more to keep from getting hotter. now to get it to burn through the night i need to almost fill the stove and turn it down to around 1/4 damper. when i wake up there are a few coals but the temp is down around 150-200. is this bad? am i creating creosote from not being able to keep it hot? ill put some more logs on, open the damper and get it back up to temp, turn it down and leave for work. my wife gets up a few hours later and puts another log in. before she leaves for work she turns it down to 1/4-1/3 damper but doesn't fill the stove to the max, maybe just one more log. at 1230 pm she comes home for lunch to find the stove around 200-250. at this point she doesn't have time to bring the fire back up to temp and turn it back down so she just throws a log on and returns to work. ill get home around 530 pm and the stove will be around 150-200 again. am i causing a problem by not being able to keep it at a good temp throughout the night and day?
through all of this our glass is getting pretty black on the edges. a good fire helps, but doesn't clean it off completely. im guessing the up and down temps are causing this but maybe there are other issues.

we bought this stove to help with oil costs like the rest of you, but i just want to make sure im using it correctly. my father in laws stove is so large, he can fill it and keep it at 500 degrees 24/7, where this one it cant be done. that said it would probably be way too hot to do that anyways in our smaller house.

any tips, pointers, advice, anything would be great.
thank you

tarzan said:

I don't see a problem at all with letting the fire burn down to coals before you reload. In fact, that is a good thing. Throwing fresh splits on an established fire of over 400f or so can lead to an over fire. Once the wood has burned down and the stove naturally cools there's not much left to cause creosote to build.

The only thing I can see that could be a problem is when the wife throws a split on and leaves during lunch. It would be best if she could get it going before she left instead of it smoldering a while before getting caught up.

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i feel this would be the issue. if she doesn't have the time to get it back up to temperature, what would be the best way to go about it? maybe she should stack it before she leave in the morning, with the damper down as if we are going to bed, so when she gets home from work there is a good bed of coals and she can fill it again and just let it run? right now im more afraid of an over fire then creosote. i know i can clean everything if i find creosote but an over fire can happen very quickly.

Woody Stover said:

Welcome, Rev. If your wood is dry (sounds like it may be marginal, with less than a year seasoning...soft Maple and Cherry may be passable but not Oak,) you should be seeing some secondary burn, flames in the top of the box by the tubes. If so, you are burning pretty cleanly. You can verify this by going out and looking at the stack; No smoke=clean burn. Later in the cycle you won't see secondary flame since a lot of the volatiles have already burned out of the load. At that point, as the load coals and stove temp drops, not much creosote is being deposited in the flue since little smoke is being created. Inspect your chimney every couple of weeks at first until you get an idea of how often you'll need to clean it. With dry wood, many folks can just clean once at the end of the season. Once you get the hang of running that thing, I would guess she could throw a few smaller splits on at lunch and have the stove ready to set in cruise mode in about 15-20 minutes if she has that long.As you get ahead on your wood supply and begin using drier fuel, your glass will stay cleaner. Overnight burns with good heat output in the AM will always be a challenge with a smaller stove....but your FIL will have more of a challenge feeding his old smoke-blower (?) stove, since it will be eating five times the wood your modern stove will.

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i knew my wood wasn't perfect when i started but its free so im running with it. this morning i saw a lot of smoke coming out of the pipe before i left for work. it wasn't up to temp yet so it makes sense. last night i had blue like flames and they were running over the top part of the stove with all the holes in them. just looked like a good burn. i want to keep the stove up to temp but very scared of an over fire, especially it happening with nobody home ,so ive been trying to figure out how to run it at its lowest damper setting without creating a smolder

my fil goes through tons of wood. like 16 cord a year. that said they have a large house too so they keep the stove on max.

thanks everyone

our schedule doesn't seem the best to keep this stove going 24/7 now that ive seen how it runs. we go to bed between 9-10 pm. im up at 415 am for work and out the door by 5. i get the stove back up and running in that time . my wife is up around 630 and is out the door by 8. she comes home to let the dogs out around 12:30 but she only has about 15 minutes of time . maybe it would be best to have her stack it in the morning before she leaves, turn down the damper and just leave it untill i get home at 530 rather then throwing a log on at lunch . treat it like an overnight burn.

if i

Woody Stover said:

Get comfortable with how the stove reacts, before trying for long burns with big loads when you are leaving. Smaller splits will get burning faster, giving off more smoke and possibly getting the stove pretty hot. Bigger splits will burn in a more controlled fashion. Wood moisture can be another factor in how hot the stove gets. If you are used to giving it a lot of air to get wet wood going, it may go ballistic with a load of dry wood at the same air setting. Or that wet load can take off when it finally gets dried out in the stove, and still has a high air setting. You'll get more comfortable with experience in predicting how the stove will react in various situations.

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if i have hot coals, i dont need to give it much more air. maybe im just playing with the damper too much. i feel my wood is as dry is it can be for the amount of time it has sat. its going to be warmer tonight so we are letting it burn out. i will clean the stove and give the chimney a look.

this is how it looked last night

2 inch granite

thanks!
under the stone is 3 1/2 sheets of wonder board on top of plywood. i may be installing the bottom heat shield . the granite hasn't been even warm but i don't think i will take any chances

one thing that is driving me crazy is some paint came off yesterday . you can see it on the corner right under the hinge for the door. the salesman said it happens due to them not cleaning it very well . should i be mad the a 2k stove had paint come off in 4 days?

they are sending me the paint now.. just a little upsetting. i feel like im over thinking this entire process. i want to be home with the stove and not here at work haha!

begreen said:

It sounds like you are doing pretty well with the stove. This is not a huge firebox and with E/W loading you are achieving fairly good results. You may find that you can close the air down further as outdoor temps drop and draft increases. For easier starts and quicker relights try this technique: Rake coals forward toward the front center of the stove. Then take two ~2" short splits (about 12-14" long) and place them N/S about 4" apart centered on the middle of the stove. Then place your normal load of wood on top of those two splits. Branch material works great as a source of those short sleepers. Loading this way will allow air from the boost manifold to get under the bed of wood. This will greatly improve quick lighting.

Tell your wife to open up the air control all the way, rake the coals forward and then put in at least two logs in the stove. Set a kitchen or phone timer to 10 minutes. Turn down the stove to 50%-75% when the timer goes off.

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i will try this tonight!
she just checked the stove and it was at 150 with only a few coals left. i told her to leave it as it sits and i will clean it out tonight and we will restart it after. she didnt put any wood on this morning so those few coals were from 5 am when i left.

oh dont you worry, she wants this more then i do. i had the windows open last night because of how hot it got and she was giving me the business because of the draft