Jotul C550 Rockland

[Mainah]

Hello Everyone,

I'm a first time home owner, new to this sight, and I've never used wood as heating fuel. My 2700SF colonial house has a beautiful masonry fireplace. The heating system in the house is a central forced hot air propane furnace. Last winter was my first winter in the house and I was completely shocked at how expensive it was for me to heat my home. I live in the lakes region of NH so the winters are pretty fierce. I always thought propane was very efficient which was a major selling point for me on the house. the house is pretty big and the downstairs ceilings are 10ft high, but during the months of December-March I was burning through over 200 gallons of propane a month, and at $2.50 a gallon it adds up pretty quick.

Anyway I do love a nice fire, but I know that fireplaces probably suck more heat out of the house then they do add it. After extensive research I went out and purchased the C550 Rockland by Jotul. As of right now I'm still waiting for the stove to get to the shop. I decided to pay to have a professional install it with a full 6inch liner and insulated block off plate. That is a job I would rather leave to the pro's. Plus with the 1500 dollar tax credit, I'm pretty much getting the installation for free

I'm really hoping that this stove will at least heat my downstairs. I think that would save me a tremendous amount of money on propane. I have tried finding reviews on this stove but it seems like there is not much info on it, probably because it is so new. Anyway I just wanted to introduce myself and if anyone has any suggestions or links to good threads on the Rockland I would really appreciate it.

Thanks

 

[madrone]

Welcome! Nice looking insert. It's not rated to heat your whole house, but I'm sure it will put a dent in the heating bill. Good call on the install, you won't have to worry about it.

 

[Mainah]

Hello Madrone,

Yeah I know the insert isn't rated for the whole house, but like you said even if I could heat the downstairs with it I would be more then happy. Aside from the money savings, the real thing i'm looking for is high quality heat!! Last winter I spent all that money and still wasn't comfortable in my own house. Forced hot air heat seems like a hollow type of heat. I'm hoping that the radiant heat of this insert along with the blower to help circulate the air will give me a nice high quality heat

PS. Nice chainsaw!! I have the MS310/18" and have been very happy with the performance thus far.

 

[madrone]

It's hard to beat radiant heat. Plus, looking at the fire enhances the effect. I find that when I go upstairs at night, it seems cold at first even though the room is at a decent temperature.
The 260's been great so far. It's just enough saw for what I use it for, and not too heavy. Plows through douglas fir.
Do you have enough seasoned wood? It's no fun to burn wood that's too wet.

 

[Mainah]

I don't have any wood yet, but I'm just going to pay the extra money and buy already seasoned wood for this year! I got a few phone numbers from the business that sold me the stove so I'm hoping they're reputable and aren't trying to pawn green wood off as seasoned. I'm going to grill them a bit about wood type and how long the wood has been split and stacked! I may even ask if I can come take a look at it before they just dump 3 cords in my driveway

 

[jadm]

If you really want to grill them ask them if you can check their wood with a moisture meter. :cheese:

Definitions of seasoned wood are varied. I know here a lot consider wood seasoned that has been cut for 2 or 3 months. Cut but not split. Makes a world of difference.

Before finding this site I used to order my wood in June and they would deliver sometime in July. They were always surprised that I was ordering firewood in the summer! (MOst people here don't order thier wood until the fall.....)

Since finding this site I now order my wood in February and it gets delivered by early March. I request the most seasoned that they have and for the past 2 years they have delivered wood that is at 20% or lower. It has been dry come October.

Good luck with your Jotul and may I recommend that you do your break- in fires before the cold weather arrives so that you can have windows open and fans running while burning. The smell is pretty awful.

There is a long thread here from last winter that someone started. Lots of responses from various 550 owners. Can't remember the title. I know it has Rockland and Jotul in it....maybe someone with a better memory than I have will chime in here or else you can do an advanced search and you should be able to find it.

 

[Mainah]

Thanks for the helpful tips perplexed. I don't even know what a moisture meter is but I will surely look into it. I didn't realize that it took that much time from the time you order wood to the time it is delivered!! I'm hoping that if I can get it delivered and stacked by august, it will have a solid few months to season even more. But I'm definately going to grill the guys I buy the wood for and ask them how long it's been split. I also think Im going to buy a pallet of therma logs to be able to mix in with the wood just incase the moisture content is to high. Hopefully they will even eachother out

 

[wendell]

A moisture meter is a device with 2 or 4 metal prongs that you push into the wood and it will tell you what the moisture content is (hopefully somewhat accurately). If you get one, have them re-split a piece and test the freshly exposed surface. The reading may be much different (and more accurate) than the ends or sides.

 

[stejus]

Mark - you mentioned insulated block off plate which is good. FYI - If this is an external masonry chimney, you will want to insulate the liner in the flue all the way up to the cap. Better draft and less creosote with an insulated liner.

 

[Mainah]

Hello Stejus, I have been a little on the fence about whether I should insulate the liner. I asked my dealer who has been very helpful and he doesn't seem to feel that I need to spend the extra cash! It's about 300 dollars to insulate the liner. I thought I might be able to get away with the extra cost!! If you think it is worth the extra cost then I might just go ahead and insulate it because my chimny is outside and it's about 32 ft high. Let me know what you think

 

[stejus]

Hello Stejus, I have been a little on the fence about whether I should insulate the liner. I asked my dealer who has been very helpful and he doesn't seem to feel that I need to spend the extra cash! It's about 300 dollars to insulate the liner. I thought I might be able to get away with the extra cost!! If you think it is worth the extra cost then I might just go ahead and insulate it because my chimny is outside and it's about 32 ft high. Let me know what you think

The extra $300.00 is money well spent, especially in your case because it's an external chimney in a cold climate. Two benefits of an insulated liner:

1) Much better draft control as the liner stays hot. The greater the difference between the ambient outside temperature and internal liner temperature, the better the draft.

2) Because your liner stays hot, less creosote build up. Cool liners cause the gases to cool and form condensation on the inside of liner thus causing creosote to form. An insulated liner stays hot, to warm at the top, so the gases don't cool.

 

[Mainah]

Thanks for the help Stejus. I guess your right. If I'm spending 4200 already whats another few hundred dollars especially if it saves me money on chimney sweeping in the future. What do you think about the vermiculite that you add water to? I thought maybe I could do that myself after the install was complete.

 

[Summertime]

I have a 1600 sq. ft Cape that I heated with a Rockland last year and only burned 3/8 tank of oil last year...I installed mine myself after watching instructional videos on youtube and rereading all of the clearances and codes several times, I actually purchased the heat shield that Jotul makes for this model as well.

 

[stejus]

Thanks for the help Stejus. I guess your right. If I'm spending 4200 already whats another few hundred dollars especially if it saves me money on chimney sweeping in the future. What do you think about the vermiculite that you add water to? I thought maybe I could do that myself after the install was complete.

Mainah,

I had vermiculite added this past spring because I had the stove installed this past winter and my installer couldn't add insulation at that point. He came back this spring and had two options.

1. Remove flex liner from stove, pull out stove, install a block off plate and put it all back together again.
2. Remove a few bricks from the outside and form a block off below the first clay tile.

He chose option 2 and here's what it did. He removed two bricks on the outside and stuffed some form of insulation (fiberglass insulation I think) around the stove pipe and surrounding bottom clay tile. One partner stayed where the insulation was packed and held it place while the other partner went up to the roof and started dropping the vermiculite into the flue. Once the vermiculite started to fall and hit the blockoff (fiberglass), they let it harden for a while. From that point on, he basically repeated the process by wetting the material, hoisting the bucket up via a rope, and dropping the material down the flue. He jiggled the stove pipe occasionally to get the material to fall into the voids

To work with vermiculite, one partner worked on the ground with a tarp, poured some of the vermiculite onto the tarp and wet it. He moved it around until all the water was absorbed. The material should be like damp kitty litter when ready. Once ready, he filled up a 5 gallon pail and the partner on the roof hoisted the bucket up to the roof.

Now, if you have a standard block off plate installed around the damper area, you will have a much larger area to fill with vermiculite. This would include the flue, smoke shelf and smoke chamber. If you close off the area where the stove pipe enters the first clay tile, you will use less vermiculite.

When they were done, I installed some fiberglass insulation (for now) around the damper area to keep most of the heat in the hearth area and not up in the smoke shelf/chamber. I guess it really wouldn't matter to heat up the smoke shelf/chamber, but I figure every little bit of heat helps when you really need it.

The only section of flex pipe that doesn't have insulation at this point is from the stove top to the first clay tile. I figure the first 2 or 3 feet of pipe. The installer told me not to be concerned because this is the warmest part of the stove pipe and creosote typically doesn't form in this area because it's always getting burnt off.

I think if you have your installer put in a block off of some sort, you should be able to install the vermiculite yourself. The only concern is making sure the vermiculite is the right consistency and it hardens at the base before you start pouring more in.

This insulation would count toward the tax credit so be sure to include it if you install it.

 

[FrankMA]

I have a 2,000 sq. ft. colonial and had no problems heating my whole house last winter with my Jotul c550. Last year was my first year heating with wood and I really enjoyed it. I was not sure how much wood I would need so I settled on 4 cords based on what I read from posts on this site. I actually only used about 3 cords and was pretty much using wood as the primary heat source about 80% of the time.

The staircase going upstairs to the bedrooms is centrally located and proved very conducive to heat transfer from the 1st to the 2nd floor. I also installed a ceiling fan in the room where my stove is located and that helped quite a bit to move the heat throughout the house. My 1st floor would be about 65* (we like a cooler house) and the upstairs where the bedrooms are would be about 60*. This was an ideal sleeping temperature for us - not too hot...not too cool. It made a huge difference in our oil consumption and is very aesthetic as well.

 

[gibson]

I have a Jotul 550 and it is a great stove. I installed it myself and had no benefit of the tax credit. You can tax credit all of the installation so you can bang off 30% of that insulation. That is something to consider. I did not insulate mine. But have a full SS liner and block off plate. My advice is to keep that fire going. Every time it dies out you have to reheat all of that mass in your house and that adds up. Just sayin' as a lesson learned . Good luck, great stove and easy to run. IMO...