Euro style air intake for Oslo 500

[cdirks]

Hello, I purchased my Oslo back in March or April of 2011. Me and my friend just installed the chimney this week. Everything went well. As I was reading about Oslo 500's here on the forum, I ran across some discussion that mentioned a Euro style air intake. What exactly is this and what would be the advantage of having one? Also where do you get them and how are they installed?

Thanks in advance

 

[Nonprophet]

Hello, I purchased my Oslo back in March or April of 2011. Me and my friend just installed the chimney this week. Everything went well. As I was reading about Oslo 500's here on the forum, I ran across some discussion that mentioned a Euro style air intake. What exactly is this and what would be the advantage of having one? Also where do you get them and how are they installed?

Thanks in advance

The Euro style air intake has more holes in it than the US one does, allegedly because while more air improves performance some (at least in terms of start up) it also may increase emissions. I was having problems with our Oslo on start up, and so I drilled more holes in the dog house cover. While this did improve things some, in the end we got rid of the Oslo because IMHO they need 25' plus of chimney to have enough draft to burn correctly and thus are not very well suited for a single story home like ours.

NP

 

[Stump_Branch]

Im curious to your problems...while i have only burned it a couple of times, no problem getting it up past 500 even in this mild weather, and all i have is a lined exterior masonary chimney, about 13 tall.

 

[Nonprophet]

Im curious to your problems...while i have only burned it a couple of times, no problem getting it up past 500 even in this mild weather, and all i have is a lined exterior masonary chimney, about 13 tall.

Hi Stump,

Glad to hear your Oslo is working well for you! If you do a search here for "Oslo problems" or "Oslo doghouse" you should come across a couple of the threads where myself and others were talking about these problems with the Oslo.

It's nice to hear that someone is actually using it in a single story home with no problems--most of the folks who seem to be the happiest with their Oslo have LOTS of draft. What year is your Oslo?


NP

 

[Stump_Branch]

Well i do live kind of on top of a hill, kind of, still lots of trees around.

I believe its an 05 or 06, bought it used, but she was but only gently used.

Whats the difference in years?

 

[My Oslo heats my home]

Im curious to your problems...while i have only burned it a couple of times, no problem getting it up past 500 even in this mild weather, and all i have is a lined exterior masonary chimney, about 13 tall.

Hi Stump,

Glad to hear your Oslo is working well for you! If you do a search here for "Oslo problems" or "Oslo doghouse" you should come across a couple of the threads where myself and others were talking about these problems with the Oslo.

It's nice to hear that someone is actually using it in a single story home with no problems--most of the folks who seem to be the happiest with their Oslo have LOTS of draft. What year is your Oslo?


NP

Got to agree there, great draft makes the stove work great. I also have a Jotul 602 (no-epa) in the back addition with 12' of flue (on a flat roof) that gets a decent draft. I'm sure certain stoves are affected by the draft more than others, and folks do what they have to do to make things work.

 

[cdirks]

I actually have not lit the stove yet. It is still brand new! So I don't know if I'll have problems or not. I was just curious about the dicussion on the Euro air intake. My chimney measures in just under 14'. It is not at the peak of the roof either. If I walk out to the road I can see the chimney rising past the peak though. I live in southwestern Kansas and we have a lot of wind. Not sure what kind of draft I'll have. Smoke from a match or a candle does draft out inside the stove. Completely new to woodburning and have lots to learn

 

[Nonprophet]

Well i do live kind of on top of a hill, kind of, still lots of trees around.

I believe its an 05 or 06, bought it used, but she was but only gently used.

Whats the difference in years?

I don't know if there is any difference--but there's always the possibility that Jotul has made some changes over the years. Ours was an '03, so if you had an 2010 model that drafts great with 13' of pipe, then one would have to wonder if maybe they had made some internal design changes that made them draft better.


NP

 

[Stump_Branch]

Ive read the threads mentioned. Only euro intake i saw was the f400, and hearing yours. Any picsof a euro doghouse? Im curious.

 

[Nonprophet]

Ive read the threads mentioned. Only euro intake i saw was the f400, and hearing yours. Any picsof a euro doghouse? Im curious.

I think that for whatever reason the F400 shipped with both a US and a Euro plate, but to my knowledge the F500 did not. I think in one of the threads was a side by side photo showing both doghouse covers.


NP

 

[cptoneleg]

Hello, I purchased my Oslo back in March or April of 2011. Me and my friend just installed the chimney this week. Everything went well. As I was reading about Oslo 500's here on the forum, I ran across some discussion that mentioned a Euro style air intake. What exactly is this and what would be the advantage of having one? Also where do you get them and how are they installed?

Thanks in advance

The Euro style air intake has more holes in it than the US one does, allegedly because while more air improves performance some (at least in terms of start up) it also may increase emissions. I was having problems with our Oslo on start up, and so I drilled more holes in the dog house cover. While this did improve things some, in the end we got rid of the Oslo because IMHO they need 25' plus of chimney to have enough draft to burn correctly and thus are not very well suited for a single story home like ours.

NP

They do not need 25' plus of chimney, the amount of chimney will be different on every house, A nearby tree or bld. affects the amount of chimney, usually 4' above peak of house is good. Mine works great with about 14' of chimney.

 

[cptoneleg]

Hello, I purchased my Oslo back in March or April of 2011. Me and my friend just installed the chimney this week. Everything went well. As I was reading about Oslo 500's here on the forum, I ran across some discussion that mentioned a Euro style air intake. What exactly is this and what would be the advantage of having one? Also where do you get them and how are they installed?

Thanks in advance

You do not need one.

 

[cptoneleg]

I actually have not lit the stove yet. It is still brand new! So I don't know if I'll have problems or not. I was just curious about the dicussion on the Euro air intake. My chimney measures in just under 14'. It is not at the peak of the roof either. If I walk out to the road I can see the chimney rising past the peak though. I live in southwestern Kansas and we have a lot of wind. Not sure what kind of draft I'll have. Smoke from a match or a candle does draft out inside the stove. Completely new to woodburning and have lots to learn

Do a small kindling breakin fire and see.

 

[Nonprophet]

They do not need 25' plus of chimney, the amount of chimney will be different on every house, A nearby tree or bld. affects the amount of chimney, usually 4' above peak of house is good. Mine works great with about 14' of chimney.

Ours was installed in a single story cabin with 5' of interior single wall, a straight shot up though the ceiling, and 16' of exterior class A pipe. Roof pitch is 2/12 with no peak, no tall trees around. Our Oslo was always starved for air, you could NOT keep a new fire going without keeping the front or side door cracked for 15+ mins. and you could not shut the primary air down to less than 25% of the fire would go out no matter how hot or how many coals. Bone dry wood I cut, stacked, and split myself over 3 years ago.

I installed an Isle Royale in place of the Oslo: same pipe, same wood, same operator--completely different results--the IR works infinitely better than the Oslo.



NP

 

[sullystull]

Well i do live kind of on top of a hill, kind of, still lots of trees around.

I believe its an 05 or 06, bought it used, but she was but only gently used.

Whats the difference in years?

I don't know if there is any difference--but there's always the possibility that Jotul has made some changes over the years. Ours was an '03, so if you had an 2010 model that drafts great with 13' of pipe, then one would have to wonder if maybe they had made some internal design changes that made them draft better.


NP

I believe the only changes jotul made to this stove was switching out the steel baffle plates with vermiculite and changing the ash pan door handle. I believe this occurred somewhere around 2004...but don't quote me on that.

 

[cdirks]

Thanks guys. I'll do a small kindling fire and small break in fires and see what happens. I'll let you all know how it goes. Once again I'm new to woodburning and a little nervous how everything will go. But I do know there is a lot of help right here on hearth.com

 

[begreen]

It's nice to hear that it is going to work out well for you. The Isle Royale is an exceptionally easy breathing stove. FWIW, this F500 experience seems to have been an anomaly. Hard to say whether is was terrain related or not, or perhaps something was already wrong with the used stove?

 

[Nonprophet]

It's nice to hear that it is going to work out well for you. The Isle Royale is an exceptionally easy breathing stove. FWIW, this F500 experience seems to have been an anomaly. Hard to say whether is was terrain related or not, or perhaps something was already wrong with the used stove?

I don't know BG, if you read through the Oslo ratings/review pages here on H.com, there's more than a few people complaining about sluggish startups with the Oslo and a general feeling that the stove is needing more air. And when I was going through this two years ago when we first got our Oslo more than a few people said they were having similar problems. I did everything possible to check our stove for defects: I did the "incense check" for air leaks, I ran a stiff wire through all the air chambers to check for blockages, I removed the burn tubes and used an air hose to blow out any clogging, I reoved the doghouse cover and used an air hose to clean out any fly ash or other obstructions in the air chambers, and I drilled more holes in the doghouse cover. The added holes in the doghouse cover did improve startup somewhat, but still the over-riding problem with the stove was just that it needed more air. We could not, under any circumstances, build a fire on the Oslo without leaving one of the doors cracked for 15-20 mins.

Given that there are a lot of people using the Oslo that are quite happy with it, I would suspect that the issue boils down to draft. Other than blocked air passages, I can't imagine any other "defect" that would make an Oslo a "dud." Also, it seems to me that of the people who rave about the Oslo have 25'-30' (or more!) of chimney, and most of the people having problems have less than 15' of chimney, even though the Oslo manual says 15' should be enough.

You would have had to see for yourself the stunning difference in burn quality between the Oslo and the IR once I switched them out--it was night and day different in the same setting with the same wood and operator.

It would be interesting to do a poll on the average height of chimney used by happy Oslo users......



NP

 

[begreen]

I think many of the issues we see are with folks going from a pre-EPA stove. EPA stoves with their ducted, preheating secondaries do require more draft. I think is is more prevalent with rear-exit connected than top vented units. We had this issue with the Castine too when the weather was mild. But I learned to load and start it differently, with the door ajar for about 5 minutes. After that, it was not much of an issue, except when temps were above 50F. We have a 19' flue. In below freezing weather this was not an issue.

As you have discovered, the IR is a real easy breather and somewhat unique in the EPA family. I attribute this in part to it's start up air design.

 

[Nonprophet]

Well, in our case we were going from an EPA stove to an EPA stove.

I agree that the start up air is a GREAT feature to have--IMHO the Oslo would do well to have a similar feature. Although we've only had 3 fires now in our IR, even after it's going and we've shut down the start up air it still breathes much, much easier than our Oslo did.


NP

 

[begreen]

Another difference in behavior might be climate. The Oslo was designed in Norway which is much colder than Oregon. Mild climate areas need more chimney to achieve good draft. Our weather is sometimes like eternal shoulder season.

 

[Nonprophet]

I agree 100%. Here in Oregon our average overnight lows during the winter are 25-30. That said, even when we got our yearly "cold snaps" where temps dropped into the teens for a few weeks, our Oslo burned better, but still not great.



NP

 

[begreen]

Is the flue setup still with a couple 90's on 8" pipe?

 

[Nonprophet]

Is the flue setup still with a couple 90's on 8" pipe?

No. We replaced that when we got the Oslo. The current setup is 5' of 6" interior singlewall straight up to ceiling thimble, and then 16' of Class A 6" pipe straight up--no 90's, no bend, straight run.



NP

 

[cptoneleg]

Is the flue setup still with a couple 90's on 8" pipe?

No. We replaced that when we got the Oslo. The current setup is 5' of 6" interior singlewall straight up to ceiling thimble, and then 16' of Class A 6" pipe straight up--no 90's, no bend, straight run.



NP

I had a little problem with a new Oslo and Jotul just brought me a new one and took the old one away, even asked me what color I wanted I am very pleased with it maybe your purpose here is to run down a great easy operating stove I would not change one thing about this stove.