Date of Jotul Oslo

[jjefferson]

Hey folks,
Been reading the forums for a while and just joined as am looking at a used Oslo F500. Trying to replace a homemade woodstove that has been in the farmhouse since the 80s.

Before i make a three hour drive to look at a used Jotul Oslo F500 does any one know how to get the manufacturing date from a serial # 001251.

Thanks in advance. Now off to stack 3 cords of wood that was delivered yesterday.

Jim

 

[ratsrepus]

email a guy address nsh1957 @ hot mail. I sold him mine which was I bought in 2008, meanwhile I look for some paper work to see if I can come up with a serial number on mine, maybe we can get you close

 

[DAKSY]

That's an older one. I tried to check a couple of places for the actual manufacture date,
but no luck.

 

[KennyK]

Used Jøtuls come up for sale pretty regularly in the Northeast. Without knowing how good of a deal this is, maybe you can find one that is newer and/or closer to you. You may already know this, but two great places to do a wide search for used items are searchtempest.com, which will search Craigslist postings from a range of distances to you that you can set (you can set it to search within 50 miles from you to 4000 miles or more from you), and Facebook Marketplace, which I recently discovered and seems to work well.

Good luck!

 

[jjefferson]

Seems to be a good deal. New homeowner does not want it in the house. I don't know the full back story, but for 350.00 that's a pretty darn good deal as compared to a new one.

JIm

 

[KennyK]

Seems to be a good deal. New homeowner does not want it in the house. I don't know the full back story, but for 350.00 that's a pretty darn good deal as compared to a new one.

JIm

Definitely a good price! Good luck and make sure to post some photos once you get it up and running!

 

[begreen]

That's a good price even if it is from the mid 90s, if it has been well cared for, not overfired, and no cracks. Before going 3hrs I'd want to see several good quality pictures of the stove and some close ups of the base around the grate area and the baffle.

 

[KennyK]

That's a good price even if it is from the mid 90s, if it has been well cared for, not overfired, and no cracks. Before going 3hrs I'd want to see several good quality pictures of the stove and some close ups of the base around the grate area and the baffle.

Sound advice. I recently rented a trailer, took a 1.5 hour trip (each way) with two buddies to get a stove I had been sent photos of that looked good, but when I got there I saw things I wasn’t comfortable with and didn’t appear in the photos. I took a deep breath and made the right decision to cut my losses and turned around. Fortunately, a week later I found an even better deal. Do what you can to get as much good detail on the stove, and in the end still look carefully when you get there and make the right decision.

 

[ratsrepus]

I got a grand for mine this last spring, it was 10 years old

 

[stovelark]

Oslos debuted in Nov 1999. It hasn't changed much through the years. Vermiculite baffle replaced cast baffles (2 next to one another) in 2004. The side door ashlip went away and was molded into the base around 2008-2009. If its been treated right, that is a great price.

 

[XmasTreefarmer]

Oslos debuted in Nov 1999. It hasn't changed much through the years. Vermiculite baffle replaced cast baffles (2 next to one another) in 2004. The side door ashlip went away and was molded into the base around 2008-2009. If its been treated right, that is a great price.

Thanks for the Oslo 500 history lesson - very interesting!

 

[xman23]

Interesting, I bought mine in 2000. I had seen the 600 but when I got to the stove store, the 500 enamel was the one. Didn't know it was new. I'll have to check my serial #.

 

[jjefferson]

Well by the time i finally got to take a peek, the stove price was listed at 300.00 on CL (started at 600). I arrived and noticed two big cracks in the top plate, not what you want to see after driving 2 hours, esp with a dog who is not a big fan of road trips. He was sorry for not mentioning the crack, sounds like he lost track of who he was talking to regarding the stove, and he had never used the stove.

In any event used my cordless Milwaukee vacuum (best tool since the impact driver) to remove some ash to look for more cracks. Did not see any at the time. So long story short, offered a 100 for the stove given the cracked plate. Deal.

Drove home, unloaded the stove, wheeled it into the shop, popped the top and doors and found another crack in the base (left aft ash grate to the back left corner of the stove). Not sure how i missed it, but i did, might have been a deal killer. Could also been the two hour drive on Maine's back roads. Appears that previous owner to the house over fired the stove, ash grate all bent and tubes have a nice dip to them, not to mention the cracks.

Will talk to my local dealer this week about a new top and tubes, and maybe have the welder at the shipyard have a go at the base. Time will tell.

Any thoughts on the cracked base. The crack does not extend all the way thru the bottom base, As in, if i look underneath there is no evidence of the crack. Top plate is a different story, that will be replaced. Plus maybe the new vermiculite baffles (this one has warped steel ones).

Attached are pictures of my toolbox 3/4 ton mini-chain fall in action plus one of the the cracked base. Hour to load / strap the thing on the trailer, and 5 minutes to unload. Love overhead beams and chain falls.

Jim

 

[Jotul Man]

Well by the time i finally got to take a peek, the stove price was listed at 300.00 on CL (started at 600). I arrived and noticed two big cracks in the top plate, not what you want to see after driving 2 hours, esp with a dog who is not a big fan of road trips. He was sorry for not mentioning the crack, sounds like he lost track of who he was talking to regarding the stove, and he had never used the stove.

In any event used my cordless Milwaukee vacuum (best tool since the impact driver) to remove some ash to look for more cracks. Did not see any at the time. So long story short, offered a 100 for the stove given the cracked plate. Deal.

Drove home, unloaded the stove, wheeled it into the shop, popped the top and doors and found another crack in the base (left aft ash grate to the back left corner of the stove). Not sure how i missed it, but i did, might have been a deal killer. Could also been the two hour drive on Maine's back roads. Appears that previous owner to the house over fired the stove, ash grate all bent and tubes have a nice dip to them, not to mention the cracks.

Will talk to my local dealer this week about a new top and tubes, and maybe have the welder at the shipyard have a go at the base. Time will tell.

Any thoughts on the cracked base. The crack does not extend all the way thru the bottom base, As in, if i look underneath there is no evidence of the crack. Top plate is a different story, that will be replaced. Plus maybe the new vermiculite baffles (this one has warped steel ones).

Attached are pictures of my toolbox 3/4 ton mini-chain fall in action plus one of the the cracked base. Hour to load / strap the thing on the trailer, and 5 minutes to unload. Love overhead beams and chain falls.

Jim

I bought mine in Sept. 1999 the same year I bought this house. My serial # is 002837.
As for your crack I found one in my stove just a few weeks ago. There are 2 bottoms to the 500 so even if your crack went completely through the upper bottom you will not see it from below. Just Google Jotul Oslo F500 and you can find a full schematic of the whole stove. This crack is in the upper bottom which is good news. I have used this stove for 90% of my heat since 1999. As for the crack I am going to drill the ends out with a 1/8" drill bit and grind off the top to expose clean cast iron. I am then going fill in the area with JB Weld extreme heat. I expect that it will get me through this season as I am not tearing this stove apart in the winter. I may not even tear it down if this JB Weld holds good. If you are considering welding it then use someone who knows how to weld cast iron. Cast iron is its own animal and does not like to be welded. There are basically 2 ways to do it and I favor cold welding it vs hot welding it. First you have to drill the holes at the end of crack and then grind into the metal. With hot welding you heat the whole piece up slowly and then lay you weld down and then bury it in sand to cool very slowly. Cold welding you fill in small areas about 3/4" at a time and then pean it to take the stress off the hot metal. Then wait until the area is cool and move another 1/2-3/4" inch, pean it and let it cool. Continue until the area is fully welded. Here are 2 good youtube videos

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[Jotul Man]

As I began my process to stabilize the crack in the upper bottom of my F500 Oslo I saw the all 4 corners of the plate were secured with stove cement. After 19 years all all these are loose like cracked teeth so I popped them out with a screw driver. I cleaned the corners and got some Rutland stove cement. I slobbered up the corners good and plenty and let it dry all day. They were still a bit mushy in the evening so I experimented to see what a low grade fire would do to speed up the cure. I wanted to see if the cement cured without cracking and stuck well to the inner corners of the upper bottom plate. Well I ended up with an all night burn and cleaned the stove out this AM and boy was that stove cement is hard and stuck to the cast iron. In the meantime I saw a video on line of a guy who took similar wood stove cement and a long piece of fiberglass tape that people wrap on motorcycle and hotrod exhaust headers. He wet the fiberglass fabric and impregnated it with wood stove cement and laid in on his very cracked cast iron manifold on his pickup and worked it into the surface of the manifold. He didn't even clean the rust off the surface. After it dried he took it for a ride and hot rodded it pushing the engine hard. Upon returning it was solid as a rock and not a bit of leaking. It remains to be seen how long that fix will last. But it makes me rethink that I might try the same technique on my cracked bottom panel and see how well it sticks. My crack is extremely thin, so thin that not even wood ash can get into it. I do not think it is a full thickness crack which is a plus.

 

[XmasTreefarmer]

I don't even have a full burn season under my belt with my new Oslo, but am very interested in your maintenance. Over the years with my trusty old VC Defiant, I had to replace the stove cement where the panels joined several times. Varying success with that and I tried several different stove cements. One was Imperial Stove and Gasket Cement - that has a dry time of 1 hour and then you are supposed to build a slow fire to cure it. The other was Meeco's Red Devil Furnace Cement and Fireplace Mortar and that has a cure time of 24 hours and no provision of a slow fire to cure it. I found the Meeco's to work a bit better than the Imperial, but that's pretty subjective. The Imperial seemed to dry out and crumble and the Meeco's seemed to hold together and stick better.

Just out of curiosity, what is the recommended dry time for the Rutland stove cement?

Keep us posted on how this maintenance and crack fix is going. So far, so good!

 

[Jotul Man]

According to the directions they say apply it in 1/8" layers and let it dry. Then they say within 30 days gradually heat to 500º. But when I popped off those old loose corners that cement was applied 1/4"-3/8" thick at the factory. My guess is they make the stove and the last thing they do is tack those corners with stove cement. By the time it is shipped from Norway or wherever and gets to a store to the US it has had a long enough time to cure on its own even though it was plenty thick. I was taking a chance and had my chisel and hammer ready to knock it off if it didn't work. But I banged on it with a hammer this morning after it was cooled down and cleaned. It was rock hard. When I get the exhaust tape and apply it I'll probably not do it so thick as I did in the corners. The corners have all sorts of angles to hold on to whereas the crack is on a flat smooth surface. So I'll apply the first layer with fiberglass tape impregnated with stove cement let it dry and then add thinner layers throughout the day. If it still a bit wet I'll still fire it up. I'll still start with a small fire in the evening and let it cure under heat and see what happens.

 

[begreen]

The cement that Jotul uses for joint cement is not like the stuff available on store shelves. It's more like refractory cement. Hearthstone sells a similar product.
https://www.woodmanspartsplus.com/product.aspx?d_id=939&p_id=586349
(broken link removed to https://www.rockymountainstove.com/hearthstone-furnace-cement-cartridge/)

FYI, the best way to avoid problems with the base cracking on any Jotul stove is to never use the ashpan door as an air supply to start a fire. Make sure that the door gasket stays in good shape and seals well.

 

[firefighterjake]

According to the directions they say apply it in 1/8" layers and let it dry. Then they say within 30 days gradually heat to 500º. But when I popped off those old loose corners that cement was applied 1/4"-3/8" thick at the factory. My guess is they make the stove and the last thing they do is tack those corners with stove cement. By the time it is shipped from Sweden and gets to a store to the US it has had a long enough time to cure on its own even though it was plenty thick. I was taking a chance and had my chisel and hammer ready to knock it off if it didn't work. But I banged on it with a hammer this morning after it was cooled down and cleaned. It was rock hard. When I get the exhaust tape and apply it I'll probably not do it so thick as I did in the corners. The corners have all sorts of angles to hold on to whereas the crack is on a flat smooth surface. So I'll apply the first layer with fiberglass tape impregnated with stove cement let it dry and then add thinner layers throughout the day. If it still a bit wet I'll still fire it up. I'll still start with a small fire in the evening and let it cure under heat and see what happens.

Last I knew most of the Jotul stoves are assembled here in Maine . . . how much comes over already assembled and how much needs to be assembled is something I do not know.

 

[begreen]

I think that's only been for the past 2-3 years? At least that's when I read about it on Jotul's site. But there is a downeast article saying some were earlier and that the Oslo is still from Norway. The casting I believe is still done there with the assembly in Gorham.
https://downeast.com/all-stove-up-jotul-maine/

 

[firefighterjake]

I think that's only been for the past 2-3 years?

True.

 

[XmasTreefarmer]

According to the directions they say apply it in 1/8" layers and let it dry. Then they say within 30 days gradually heat to 500º. But when I popped off those old loose corners that cement was applied 1/4"-3/8" thick at the factory. My guess is they make the stove and the last thing they do is tack those corners with stove cement. By the time it is shipped from Norway or wherever and gets to a store to the US it has had a long enough time to cure on its own even though it was plenty thick. I was taking a chance and had my chisel and hammer ready to knock it off if it didn't work. But I banged on it with a hammer this morning after it was cooled down and cleaned. It was rock hard. When I get the exhaust tape and apply it I'll probably not do it so thick as I did in the corners. The corners have all sorts of angles to hold on to whereas the crack is on a flat smooth surface. So I'll apply the first layer with fiberglass tape impregnated with stove cement let it dry and then add thinner layers throughout the day. If it still a bit wet I'll still fire it up. I'll still start with a small fire in the evening and let it cure under heat and see what happens.

Thanks JotulMan. I had no idea that the different products had such different directions on how to apply, how long to let dry, and the completing the cure by firing up the stove.

Sounds like your re-cementing of all of the panels went well and you have a great plan for the crack with the layers of stove cement and the fiberglass tape. When you are done she'll be ready for another 20 years of service!

 

[Jotul Man]

Ashpan over-firing vs design defect on Jotul 500 causing the bottom to crack?


I recently joined this group. I have been burning wood in various stoves for the past 40+ years. I bought a new Jotul F 500 in Sept 1999 a few months after I bought my present house.

It was my first high efficiency stove. I installed it myself using an existing fireplace. The hearth of the fireplace extended far enough that using the short legs I could get 90% of the stove exposed outside of the fireplace. Hence I am using it as a free standing stove without any blowers. I used all stainless products including a special stainless adapter that is oval shaped and can turn up at a 90 upward into the chimney flue.

I then installed full length 6” stainless flue inside a masonry chimney 15’ tall with a stainless cap.

Last Nov. I heard a very loud pop coming from my stove about 3 hours after starting a fire. It was not running very hot as the weather was mild. I quickly left my Netflix movie and checked the stove. From the sound of it I was expecting a cracked window or cracked stove. But I found nothing after spending 30 minutes looking for a crack in the outer walls. I kept looking and finally after washing the inside of the stove I came across 2 hairline cracks in the bottom of the fire chamber. Part # 8 in the schematic. I noticed the cracks are identical shaped on each side. Whether these cracks happened when I heard it last Nov. or have been there for years I do not know.

When I Googled it I found going back a decade people having issues with bottom plate cracks on the F 500. I noticed these other cracks were all shaped identical to mine.


https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/cracked-jotul-oslo-safe-to-keep-using.133374/

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/jotul-oslo-with-a-cracked-bottom-can-it-be-fixed.115237/


Some people claimed they were using the ashpan to fire the stove and other said they did not. I haven’t fired this stove using the ashpan in 19 years. When I inspected the inside of my stove it does not show signs of any overheating. It has the original bricks. My regular maintenance has been replacing the door and ashpan gaskets and cleaning the chimney.

After finding the finding and cleaning the cracks I drew lines along the cracks making it easier to see on the photos. I then spent some time studying the design of the bottom and how the bottom plate attaches near the back panel that runs behind the bricks. I noticed the cracks are convex in a very distinct curve going from the corner where the bricks are held in place. The curve of the cracks meet at the corners where the grate fits into the bottom.


Looking closely where the cracks appear in the back of the stove is where I believe is the design defect. Along the bottom plate the bricks are held in place by a retainer wall that is part of the casting. This wall at a 90º angle increases the strength of the rear bottom plate but Jotul did not cast this wall to wrap around the rear corners where the back panel attaches to the bottom. I put a detailed photo of what I think is the problem. I ran this by a friend who is a heats with wood and is a mechanical engineer. He agreed with me about it being a design flaw.

For the moment I put in a temporary fix. How well it holds up remains to be seen.

I ground the surface of the back half of the bottom plate exposing it to the clean shiny cast iron. I took 1/16” black fiberglass and impregnated it with Rutland stove cement (not refractory cement as that is a whole different animal). I then wet the surface and laid down thin layer of stove cement on the bottom plate. I then covered the bottom with the fiberglass and then covered the fiberglass with more stove cement sealing in all the fibers with cement. I ran the fiberglass around the corners and also up the small retaining wall that holds the bricks. I also closed the back right and left corners that Jotul had left open. My hope is this will hold for at least this year. I do not know the differences how cast iron and stove cement contract and expand. But I needed something now.
I know this runs contrary to what some believe on this site. In fact I expect that my belief of it being a design flaw will be considered blasphemy by some. But I believe I laid out the flaw as I see it.

I do not let ashes to pile up behind my ashpan and my gaskets are always in good shape and I do not fire it from the ashpan. I empty my ashpan almost daily as I heat a 1500 Sq. Ft. house that has 14’ cathedral ceiling. About 60% of this area is floor to ceiling glass facing south over a river. I use low E glass. I only need to fire the stove during the day when there is no sun. So on any given winter no matter how cold it gets I have enough solar gain to heat the house during a sunny day. I would guess I only use wood heat in the daytime about 1/4 of the winter days. So this stove cools down and gets re-fired a lot in about 4+ months in this part of N.C. Over 19 years you can imagine how many fires I have started in this stove. Like I said I have been heating with wood for 40+ years. I am no newbie to wood heat and wood stoves. I would notice if I had a leak in the ashpan door. If you have a leak in the door or elsewhere your primary air lever would not be responsive when you turn the air down completely. When shutting the air down I can see the difference in the flame at the base of the front window. Also if you listen carefully you can hear the change in air moving into the chamber where the lever rotates in the front of then stove.