HOW TO ACHIEVE LONG BURN TIME ? JOTUL 550

Welcom e to the web site. If you really load up your stove when you have a good fire going already, then shut the damper down half way then set the fan to three-fourth speed you should have a good number of coals in the morning. If this doesn't work keep trying you will get used to this great insert If all else fails, put a few big splits in when you take the nightly jaunt to he head. Good luck.

I thought a longer burn would be achieved by setting the air intake at the lowest possible setting. Am I wrong? After I get a fire going good, burning at 500 degrees or more, I shut the air 1/2 way, then 3/4, then all the way. It takes 15 to 25 minutes by the time I start shutting the air valve until I close it fully. I am not sure if I should be taking more time for this process.

I also wonder if I would get a longer burn if I burned more regularly. I burn at night and when I am home on weekends. I wonder if the people who get the longer burns are the people who are burning 24/7.

soxfan13 said:

I thought a longer burn would be achieved by setting the air intake at the lowest possible setting. Am I wrong? After I get a fire going good, burning at 500 degrees or more, I shut the air 1/2 way, then 3/4, then all the way. It takes 15 to 25 minutes by the time I start shutting the air valve until I close it fully. I am not sure if I should be taking more time for this process.

I also wonder if I would get a longer burn if I burned more regularly. I burn at night and when I am home on weekends. I wonder if the people who get the longer burns are the people who are burning 24/7.

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I have gotten 7-8 hour burns with oak. You really need to load the stove up though, I mean full. I stack it completely to the top and use 18-20" splits to get the long burn times. Adjust the air down based on the quality of your wood, if dry, then you can reduce it from full to half to closed in 10 min. intervals.

Good luck. The manufacturers seem to only use the "ideal" conditions when rating their burn times, I must admit though, even if we don't stuff the firebox, we always have coals for an easy morning fire.

I was burning 24/7 a few weekends ago when the high around here was only in the low 40's. As a previous post says, pack the stove as much as you can and you should have a nice bed of coals in the morning. load up some more wood in the AM and the coals should ignite the new splits pretty quickly. I actually dont do the interval damper shutting if my stove is already up to temp. I just load it up, run it wide open till the wood is charred (about 5 mins) then shut it down to 1/2" from the closed position (if the blower is on) or all the way down if the room is warm enough. the stove temp usually gets to about 500-600* by the time i close the damper down.

I like pack the sides of the over night fire with small pieces front to back, leaving no voids. I also throw a smaller round or two in as well.

adisb said:

As I posted in a different thread, I am not able ...yet...to get more than 4.5 hrs out of my insert - which is rated for 8-10 hour burn times (under ideal conditions)

I understand it has to be a combination of several things to get good burn time: temperature, damper setting, definitely dry wood, raking the coals to the front...but it would help if someone could quantify some of these things: at what temp. to close the damper?

in general what do people out there do to get a long overnight burn so that it is still red coal in the morning.

thanks in advance for your time.

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Welcome to the forum adisb.

You have a pretty good handle on the factors involved except on the wood you just state, dry wood. The type of wood is also a huge factor.

Getting long burns does not vary a lot from stove to stove. There can be a lot of variance though in how to set the draft. There are many factors involved there such as the wood, the chimney, the weather, etc. But the basic thing still is to get an established bed of coals first. Then when you load for the long burn, pack the stuff in there good and that sometimes can take some twisting and turning. Best for long burns is to not put anything in that has a knot as that will rob some space where you can't put wood.

Leaving the draft full open is usually the way to go at the start followed by dialing down to perhaps half way. Depending upon the wood, once it is well charred then you can turn the draft down more. (Temperature depends upon the stove.) How much depends on those factors mentioned, like wood, weather, draft, etc. Some might drop to .25 draft and some might go higher or lower; usually not higher though if wanting a long burn.

soxfan13 said:

I thought a longer burn would be achieved by setting the air intake at the lowest possible setting. Am I wrong? After I get a fire going good, burning at 500 degrees or more, I shut the air 1/2 way, then 3/4, then all the way. It takes 15 to 25 minutes by the time I start shutting the air valve until I close it fully. I am not sure if I should be taking more time for this process.

I also wonder if I would get a longer burn if I burned more regularly. I burn at night and when I am home on weekends. I wonder if the people who get the longer burns are the people who are burning 24/7.

Click to expand...

Soxfan, the lowest possible setting is not necessarily the way to go and usually for sure shutting the air off full is a questionable practice. 10% to 20% is usually much preferable.

Those who turn the draft down too much to try for the long burns are also the ones who have more creosote problems.

That said, we do turn ours down a long ways. On our draft dial it goes from 1 to 4 and we will turn down to .25 in the winter months. That is extremely low but we also have a cat stove so it works out well. That combined with the dry wood (7 years in the stack) and we just do not have a creosote problem. In fact, I cleaned a handful of soot from our chimney this fall and it is the first time since we put it up that we've cleaned it. No creosote, only some soot. That is a clean burn.