When to reload? New Jotul f400 Castine owner

[Propane_Poor]

Hi all, greatly appreciate the forums help in being able to read all the info here. We took the plunge on a Jotul F400 Castine in matte black and got it fired up a few days ago for the first time.

(some may recall I complained about having a vogelzang defender stove but too short of ceilings according to the manual so we replaced it with the Castine.) Lehmans Hardware in Kidron OH gave us a good deal and good service on it. I was looking at the Alderlea T5 but it was about $400 more and the dealer wanted to add on 5% more just to offer the 0 percent financing.

Anyhow we're learning and having some issues along the way (black glass, smoke roll out) but we got a load of 3 year seasoned wood today and had a good burn.

My main question for right now is when do I reload it? I put 2 big splits in on a bed of hot coals and had nice secondaries for about an hour and a half, but then they died out and there's no flames... Just an ashen gray shell of a log. Lots of red hot coals underneath with about 350-380 degrees on the stove top.

I've attached a picture of when the secondaries were going and afterward. Not sure if this was an incomplete burn since the secondaries died out? Should I let this burn down more or try to break it up some and put in a couple of more logs?

Thanks!

 

[Woody Stover]

How much stack?
300+ would be enough here to hold room temp unless it was very cold and windy. Reload when you need more heat to keep up.
Second and third pic look like the wood has gassed out. I wouldn't expect secondaries from that.

 

[Propane_Poor]

Sorry, not sure what you mean by stack.
This was with 2 large splits.
Our install is about 15 feet of straight vertical chimney. I had 11 or 12 but added another 3 footer with a chimney support to get the desired 15. We have about 1000 Sq ft so our goal is exclusive wood heat.

Should I only be reloading after there are no flames? I've read of people getting over firing when reloading onto a hot fire so we definitely want to avoid getting close to that.
I also don't know when or how much to turn down the air on this. It does seem like everyone does it differently.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[Propane_Poor]

Sorry, by chimney I am including the stovepipe in that. We have a single story ranch with low ceilings so I have 8 feet above the roof.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[weatherguy]

It's still heating with coals and no flames, I reload when I'm down to just enough coals for a relight. Unless it's really cold I'll load sooner, and fill the box all the way not just 2 splits.

 

[Woody Stover]

The coals are part of the heat cycle. If you can keep from opening the stove until you only have coals left, smoke rollout won't happen obviously. Not sure if that stove will go overnight at high output but if your house is tight it might hold heat well enough to make it 'til morning.

 

[begreen]

Looks pretty normal. Is this with the air control mostly closed?

The fire is in the coaling stage. No need to do anything unless you need more heat. Let the coals burn down, maybe open up the air a little if you want to hustle the burn down. Next time try a full load of wood.

 

[SuperJ]

It's still heating with coals and no flames, I reload when I'm down to just enough coals for a relight. Unless it's really cold I'll load sooner, and fill the box all the way not just 2 splits.

Agree, you'll be reloading sooner when it gets colder. In the shoulder season you probably pulse and glide on the coals as long as you can. If you are maintaining active flames constantly you'll probably be wasting fuel. It's a pain to have build fires constantly, so I usually reload when I still have a pretty decent bed of coals.

 

[begreen]

Burning softwood and some soft hardwood I found the Castine gave us about 6-8hr reload times in mild weather and 4 hrs in very cold weather. It was a bit undersized for our house, but sure looked nice.

 

[Propane_Poor]

Thanks all. I may keep a fan still blowing over it while it cools down then.

I had the air set to about 35% or so at the final stage.

Not a whole lot of room to add more. The logs I have are big so I just reloaded, after raking the coals to the front I put in a large round at the back and a large split and small split one the coals at the front.

Is there a set time on how long one should be ae to stretch out the secondaries? And any guide or chart for how much and when to close down the air?

Can you tell I don't know what I'm doing? Lol!

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[begreen]

Close down the air as quickly as possible without snuffing out the fire. Draft will increase in colder weather. Try closing down the air a bit more when the weather gets in the 20s.

There is not a set time for the secondary light show, but about an hour or two is what I recall.

 

[Propane_Poor]

Is the idea to close down the air as MUCH as possible as well? I haven't put in more than 3.5 logs yet as I'm nervous about it getting too hot... still a lot to learn!

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[CentralVAWoodHeat]

Close down the air as quickly as possible without snuffing out the fire. Draft will increase in colder weather. Try closing down the air a bit more when the weather gets in the 20s.

There is not a set time for the secondary light show, but about an hour or two is what I recall.

I remember the same for our Castine.

Propane-get a stove top thermometer and place it on the stove top where the owner manual recommends. It will help guide you in terms of operating temperatures and give you a numerical metric as to when to reload.

 

[Propane_Poor]

Thanks, I do have two stove top thermometers actually. Well one is a stove pipe and one is a stove top but they read fairly similar. The majority of the time I have it burning between 4 and 500.

My current goal is to find out how to get as much heat out of it as possible. I'm gone at work all day and my wife is out of the house frequently, so if I knew I could fill it completely full and not worry about over heating it that would make me feel better.

I'm partially wondering if we should have gotten a T5 Alderlea for longer, bigger burns, but we really like the looks and ash grate functionality on this one. Less expensive too. I expected to get somewhat cooked out of our small 1000 square ft house but it seems that won't be a problem.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk