I got between 9 and 10 hours with my Oslo. It has very few working parts to go bad. A rear combustion stove has alot of stuff behind the scenes. It's got the Pre-cast refractory panels covering a very fragile combustion chamber. These parts often last for many years, for others a very short time. Is it miss-use? Abuse? It's hard to tell, it has happened to experienced wood burners as well as newbies. The biggest reason I'm trying out this Leyden is because of reported problems from the field, some have had failure after a very short time, others have never reported a single problem. So far I am happy with it. It seems sluggish to get up to temp. but then chugs along just fine for 10 hours or so. It produces very little smoke. The biggest advantage to the top load to me is being able to make better use of a smaller firebox. It can hold more wood than another stove with same box size because you use the entire box, theres no baffle in the way. But, if you have the room, getting a bigger stove and not stuffing it full might be a better choice.Maybe this is arguing semantics but the resolute is actually a horizontal combustion stove. Now maybe that is the same thing as a downdraft stove but I've never heard it called that. I do know that VC's EPA stoves have a reputation for being very high maintenance, otherwise I would replace my resolute with an encore. The Oslo sounds ok but I can already get 6 hrs out of my resolute so not a huge gain there. I was hoping to get 10 hr+ burn times and possibly from a low maintenance top load stove if possible. What makes the downdraft stoves picky? I don't mind spending a little time tending to the stove as long as its a reliable burner like the resolute has been for me so far.