Jotul Oslo thoughts after 1 month of use

How well insulated is your home? Do you have an outside air kit? I thought the same thing about my new BK but realized I was just pulling 20 degree air in through every nook and cranny without the outside air kit. Difficult to get to any reasonable temp when you're constantly exchanging heated air for ice cold air.

Check your wood it's probably not seasoned enough,buy a moisture metre split a piece take reading from inside fresh split at room temperature.semi dry will burn but a real pain in the butt.

If you can't run w/o the door open and the temp drops when you close it down, that does point to wet wood. If you need to to leave the door open on a cold start should only need to for 5 min or so. As the fire establishes (door closed) and you start cutting air the stovetop temp should rise.

Nearly all new burners (new to EPA stove that is) find out the wood they are using isn't that good. My first year was 18 month cut, split and stacked locust. Wood was still marginal since I could've done a better job with stacking. Struggled with startups and keeping temps up. Things have improved since then and the difference with dry wood is truly night and day.

I could put a couple twigs in my stove and get 200 out of it. Not trying to be the ahole but something is definitely not right with your operation. I loaded my stove 7 hours ago and the air is cut back 90% stt is 400. Give these guys a shot at fixing your problem with all the information you can give them... I bet you will be warm soon.

Bruce P said:

Pros : starts in a snap ,great draft from my 26' external chimney and 4' internal pipe.. Cleans up easy. Airwash is fairly effective. Cons Eats wood like crazy. takes a while to heat up. Need to run wide open with side door cracked to reach 300 to 400 degrees. Basically leave it open to have it hot and burn quickly or cut it back tp make it burn longer but temp falls under 200.Tonight its 25 out and Ive been burning all day got it to 69 in the house.need to reload every 3 hours even with 5 splits and air cut way back. Stove is in a large open floorplan house. Thinking maybe stove is too small to handle temps under 20 degrees. Dont want to run propane.

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Either something is off on your stove . . . you may want to check the air sliding mechanism and make sure the blanket above the baffle has not shifted while moving the stove inside and is now blocking the flue . . . or the more likely issue is wood that is not seasoned enough.

You should not be going through this much wood this quickly . . . and the stove should be heating up within 30-45 minutes with strong secondaries. The fact that you say the temp (on the stove I am guessing . . . not chimney?) falls to 200 degrees F seems to me to indicate it may be a problem with the wood . . . but check the other possibilities as well.

In comparison . . . the room with the stove is easily in the mid to high 70s (at which point I find it a tad bit warm for my liking).

My oslo heats 3200 square feet in my 2yr old house in northern MA. House is 70 degrees. The stove does take a while to heat up but when it is at 450 degrees you should cruise along. Get a moisture meeter and see how close your wood is to 20%. Let us know what you get.

See these posts every year from new epa stove burners. It's either the chimney or the wood or a combo of both.

How long has the wood been cut/split/stacked? Is the chimney a class A or masonry chimney? If it's masonry is it lined/insulated?

Bruce P said:

House is new and airtight

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Does the stove have an OAK?(outside air kit)

A few thoughts/questions:
- your 26' external chimney; is it masonry or metal?
- where are you measuring temp on your stove. You are talking degrees F right?
- don't assume your wood is not the problem until you test it with a moisture meter as already mentioned. About half the folks that come here with burning problems eventually find out their wood is not sufficiently seasoned.
- moving the air lever should provide some resistance and result in a light scraping noise. Its very easy to remove the "doghouse" cover to verify that the sliding plate that controls airflow is moving as it should.
- any house that is new and airtight should have an outside air source connected via outdoor air kit (OAK) to the stove.

Edit: I was typing when rdust posted. Sorry for the redundancy.
Edit2: If you have a multimeter (ohm meter) you can measure moisture content this way: https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/using-a-multimeter-to-measure-wood-moisture-level.40033/

Bruce P said:

burns too fast , wood not an issue

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Wet wood typically burns fast since you have to keep the air open for it to burn.

As you turn the primary air down the temp of the stove should rise when everything is right, not drop.

Once the fire is established and burning strong start inching the air down in steps. With a non cat I used to turn it down until the flame got lazy, after they recover I'd turn it down a bit more(lazy flame again) until the primary air was close to closed or closed depending on the load.

You should also have secondary combustion happening when you hit the right "tune up".

What Kind of wood are you burning. How long has it been cut split and stacked for? This stove once heated up should pour heat. I'm thinking your wood is not dry enough just like the others said. You can definetely tell when you are truly burning seasoned wood in this stove. I only heat about 1700 sq feet with mine and most of the time it's to much stove even when it's close to zero out. That being said the wood has always made the biggest difference with truly seasoned compared to still wet. Try some other stuff and let us know it takes some figuring out but you will get it.

Good review Bruce. Like any stove it runs differently, due to the draft from cold to having a hot stove and a bed of coals. Everyone's setup is a bit different as well as the wood they are burning. If burning is new to you, try a few different burn cycle techniques and find what works best for you and the house your heating. For years I burned a lot of extra wood. The house was always to hot and the windows were open.

Here's what I think about my stove and some of what I do. It's heavy cast iron burn plates, when cold take a lot of wood to get hot. To get the stove hot quickly I need to stuff the box with small splits and wide open air. It takes keeping the box stuffed and everything ripping to get my stove to 600. I rarely do this anymore. With the outside temp at 30, I can heat 1500 Sq ft. with 2 splits on a bed of coals. It runs up to 300 or so and back down. Then reload before the coals are gone.

Bruce P said:

burns too fast , wood not an issue

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If you knew what the issue was, you wouldn't be here asking for help. I suggest you listen to the advice given instead of being immediately dismissive.

Question: when installed a month ago, was the stove brand new, or used?

Bruce P said:

26' external chimney and 4' internal pipe

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Sounds like a semi-slammer install. 6" stainless should go all the way up for max efficiency. Considering it is an external chimney, insulated 6" stainless would be best.

And:

Get yourself a moisture meter and give us a reading. Should be less than 20% on an internal, freshly split piece.

This description of the Oslo describes my experience with it to a "T" ! Dumping wood into it, leaving the side door cracked open, chewing through wood while struggling to get up to and maintain temps!
That was the year we had nothing but fresh oak to burn and the pipe dumped into an outdoor oversized masonry chimney.
Thanks to this place, I learned a lot about fuel, pipes, and safe set ups and have since made everything as it should be, and went from hating the stove to loving it.

Warm_in_NH said:

Thanks to this place, I learned a lot about fuel, pipes, and safe set ups and have since made everything as it should be, and went from hating the stove to loving it.

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