Jotul Olso 500 poor air circulation

New member; first post!

I am a mostly proud owner of a jotul 500 I purchased just over a month ago. I use to have a PE vista classic ( junk) well it wasn't that bad but quickly formed cracks. Anyways, I love the olso, throws way more heat.

Stove location; basement of 1200 sq bungalow.

Chimney height; about 18'

Decent draft, smokes a bit when opening a door too quick.

So my problem other then front door ash out pourings, is poor air circulation. I notice, if I have a nice bed of hot coals, and I throw 2 logs about 18-20" long 5-6" round, the front one , burns great. The rear one is choked out, and just smothers in the back. Open the side door, both start roaring intensely, then when door is closed, again the back log flames disperse. Even with air control opened all the way. Is this normal? I find I always have large chunks of coal and ash left over. Now my wood isn't ideally seasoned. It's definitely not below 20%. Some is partially rotten maple, ironwood, black cherry and elm.

Let me know what you guys think!

Sootfoot

Nick Mystic said:

Everyone is going to tell you that you have to have dry wood for a stove like the Oslo to burn properly. No getting around it. However, I think your Oslo has its dog house right up front the same as my Jotul F600. When I load the stove I first make a channel straight back through the ashes and coals from the dog house to the back of the stove so that the primary air coming in through the dog house can pass under the splits/logs and escape up through the cracks between the wood pieces. I place the forward most split with a flat side facing downward so that I can rest the front lip of the spit on top of the doghouse to make sure my air channel remains open. Be sure to pack your wood a bit loose, especially with marginal wood like you say you are having to burn. Good luck.

P.S. Welcome to the forum.

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Awesome thanks for your help & quick reply! I'll definitely try the trench idea!

Warm_in_NH said:

What's the 18' chimney made of? Masonry, lined, if lined is it insulated, class a pipe, single or double wall off the stove, etc...?

Short answer is the wet wood is your problem. We had really wet wood a couple years ago with an over sized masonry chimney. Smoke would pour out of the stove when you opened the door. Now have borderline wood, and ditched the masonry chimney for class A and life is much much better.

The air channel like Nick mentioned will help a lot too with burning wet wood.

Welcome.

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Chimney is 10" Selkirk. I have some double walled stove pipe on the interior, mainly because my 90 degree bend is only 8" from floor joist. Not sure what class a pipe is

I find my jotul works best with I jam pack a ton of small splits in, I picked up some free beech and poplar from a hydro cut down, and I split small for my PE. But if I load a ton of those small splits in I can have the jotul up to 700 within 45minutes and get my basement up to 28 degrees Celsius. I find it's difficult to get the same amount of heat out of bigger logs. I might add I haven't been burning long. My dad got me into burning when I purchased my bungalow in the country just over a year ago. He has a dutchwest large with cat but very similar in appearance. His stove is much easier to use, with coals he can just toss a few logs in and open up his ash drawer ( I know bad idea with jotul) and he gets heat quick without monkeying around with proper positioning of logs/ splits like I have to in my jotul. I think I just lack experience is all!


Sootfoot

Oh I will also add, with my PE, MAN it was hard to get a fire started sometimes. I had a heck of a time priming the stove when flew was cold. I thought for sure a coon crawled in my Selkirk and died. I often had the basement filled with smoke because of back fire. When I didn't burn in a day or too, I could put my hand in the stove and feel cold wind whistling in. Never had any such problem with jotul. I think my draft could be better just because of negative pressure from basement and my two elbows.

Warm_in_NH said:

That 10" pipe isn't helping you at all. Ideally that stove vents into a 6" pipe the whole way, even though it's only a few extra inches it more than doubles the inside volume of the pipe. So instead of the smoke hitting that thing, getting it hot and rocketing out the top, it's going in there, expanding, cooling, and choking out the fire.
Usually you can get away with one or two things not being right, but with the basement install, oversize pipe, and wet wood, the stove has every right to smoke you out.

Get a year or so ahead on the wood, it's really the only variable you can easily (well sort of easy) fix and I think you'll see a big difference. Not sure how bad that pipe is going to affect you, but with dry wood, we just chuck a few pieces into the oslo, open up the primary air, and it gets rolling.

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10" inside diameter does that even exist??? I mean outside diameter. Inside is 6" it has 2" of insulation in Selkirk.

Nick Mystic said:

You need to be careful burning a full load of that small stuff. You said you can get your Oslo up to 700 F in 45 minutes, but the manufacturer recommends burning between 400 F and 600 F, so 700 is getting into over firing range. Where are you taking your temperature readings on the stove. I believe the manufacturer calls for placing your thermometer on one of the four top corners. If you got a 700 F reading in one of those locations you're getting the stove too hot. My Jotul F 600 will read 200 F to 250 F hotter in the center of the top of the stove, so when I am burning at 400 F at one of my corners my center top is around 650 F.

Also, if you have a lot of creosote in your flue, like it sounds like you might have, burning a fast hot fire with a lot of small pieces of wood is exactly the formula for firing off the creosote and having a chimney fire. Take care.

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Ok you got me, 700 was a guess. I don't have a temp reader. But it gets hot! I know though one time I got it way to hot, flames must of been shooting right up the stove pipe I saw sparks coming out of the union between stove pipe & insulated pipe coming through foundation. Stove pipe started smoking. I thought for sure I was seconds away from chimney fire. Lucky I caught it in time, closed damper and choked off air supply. It was very scary.