Nightly fires

I don't think so. The stoves are engineered to deal with the heating and cooling...I can't imagine that the frequency (more or less) of fires would effect the life of your stove to any tangible degree.

No it is not bad. Stoves are designed that way. The expansion and contraction of the steel is calculated and the welds are sufficiently strong to account for that movement. Similar to your office computer, do you leave it on at night or turn it off (not an exact comparison but similar), or your car. You turn that on and off and it still lasts - no one leaves it running overnight.

Remember that you are not introducing hot heat instantaneously when you start a fire. You are warming up the steel well within its tolerance levels. You are fine, burn on the schedule that suits you and enjoy your warmth.

Welderman85 said:

Is it bad to light a new fire every day. I bet home around 530 if I light a fire and let it go through the night. Then start a new one once I get out of work again. Are all the heat cycles bad for a stove

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I've done it that way for 41 years.With my work schedule and type of stove, it
was the only way. It never hurt my stove.

Depending on the temps, I will often do the same thing each evening when I get home. I typically run all weekend and during vacations when we are home most of the day. However, if it is real cold or damp during the week, nothing warms the place up like a fire in the stove when my wife and daughter gets home or makes early morning rising for work/school a little easier.

If this were the case i would think the stove market would be much smaller or everyone would own a bk since one load will burn an eternity. It wont hurt your stove....they are built for it.The only downside to this schedule i can think of would maybe be a dirtier flue than one that is ran constant because of cold start? I have a schedule much the same.

Welderman85 said:

I light a fire and let it go through the night. Then start a new one once I get out of work again.

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“You work 30+ hours per shift?!?”... says every BK owner.

“Real heat” is made anytime the cat is active.

That's how I burn. Light it at night and usually again in the morning. Most people around here burn this way.
Stove manufacturers aren't going to make products that are damaged by lighting fires in them.
But your flue will dirty up a bit faster with all the cold starts.

bholler said:

Not really that much.

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Maybe not in your climate but in the balmy northwest we’re at 40 degrees outside and that low heat setting is keeping my poorly insulated home 76. Nice and cozy.

I might feel differently if it was zero outside and I lived in a stone mansion!

Nothing wrong with it. The early Scandinavian stoves imported to the US, like Jotul's were not designed for all night burns. The concept was when you needed or wanted heat, the stove was lit and it warmed up quickly then went out. If you needed more heat you lit it again. Unfortunately many folks in the US would ignore the instructions of trying to get an long burn by getting them hot the stuffing them full of wood and closing the air damper. The wood would smoulder for hours and would create lots of creosote. Jotul reportedly pulled at least one model off the market as folks where having too many chimney fires in the US despite the design being very popular in Norway.

BTW, most boiler owners including myself start a fire every time they run the boiler to charge up the thermal storage.

Reportedly the Jotul 606. It was a 602 with a large baffled heat exchanger grafted onto the casting on top of the stove. I had a brother (long since deceased) who had one (that I now have in storage) he didnt use it long but did heat a poorly insulated carriage barn with it one winter. It put out a lot of heat for its size. He was warned not to idle it to try to get long burns. I lived in the Portland Maine area at the time which was the home of the original US importer, Kristia Associates, and Jotul's were quite popular. The 606s had a reputation of big creosote creators. The 602s had a similar rep with those that tried to bank them all night and crank down the air but the 606 with its extra heat exchanger was even worse.