Installing a Jotul 8 in fireplace

[wheelhorse2347]

Good evening,

My spouse and I bought a nice 1977 split level with TWO fireplaces, one up and one down in a masonry chimney. The lower floor has a Lopi Freedom installed with a liner etc, but the upstairs one is a Heatform fireplace. Flue and fireplace passed our level 2 inspection, and we've been using it as such, but have been discussing installing an insert. We haven't found one within our price range that we like, but she saw a white Jotul 8 cat stove and likes the idea of installing it in the fireplace with an insulated liner and a block off plate.

Has anybody done this with the Jotul 8? Is this a pointless exercise? We use the Lopi to keep our basement warm and supplement the Propane, and would like something upstairs that is attractive yet can provide better heat than the open fireplace.

Thoughts? Picture I photoshopped is attached.

 

[wheelhorse2347]

Note: My masonry has the air passages , inlets on the side an outlets on the top between the vertical brick. Figure the heat coming off the stove would heat the firebox and some of the heat will get reclaimed through convection.

 

[stoveliker]

@Ashful will have useful things to say, I think.

Is that brick on an outside wall?

 

[wheelhorse2347]

Yeah, outside wall. Its a full chimney, 2 flues, with ash cleanup

 

[stoveliker]

You'll want to have some heat reflection then in the fireplace
Otherwise you'll heat up the brick, and a significant fraction of the heat will radiate outward for a stove that radiates a lot.
Or get a stove that has double walls thru which heat escapes by convection and have a blower to blow that air into the room.

 

[Ashful]

@stoveliker already nailed the key point I could contribute, that jamming a highly-radiant stove like an old cast Jotul back into a fireplace is going to put a large fraction of the heat into the masonry. If that masonry is exterior-exposed, it'll do a great job of heating your back yard!

Since the biggest temperature delta in the system is between stove body and masonry, that's where you'll want to install the reflector, to reflect heat from the stove back into the room and block the line of sight radiation path from stove to masonry.

I don't remember the particulars on the Jotul 8's, or all their various flavors, but finding a stove with minimal back-side clearances is good advice, as these are the stoves which generally radiate least off their back face. Likewise with stoves having alcove clearances, they'll generally radiate less off the top. Anything with a convective jacket will beat anything without.

As to the Jotul 8 particulars, ask someone who works on a lot of stoves (@bholler), or start searching old threads to find a few other Jotul 8 owners. I owned three Jotul 12 cat stoves, and they were beautiful stoves with excellent build quality, but their performance left a lot to be desired. Maybe the 8 was better than the 12, but do be aware that any old cast stove with cemented joints is going to require a completely disassembly and re-cementing of the joints, from time to time. One of our regulars with an Oslo (Nick?) just did his a few months back.

 

[wheelhorse2347]

Great info. Thank you!

One thing i need to do as well is check with my insurance company to make sure They don't charge differently between a woodstove and an insert. I'll find out what materials would be good to install as a heat reflector. The firebox in the fireplace is steel already, but I imagine something polished would help.

Otherwise, it sounds like I should probably go with an insert if I want to actually heat with it right?

 

[stoveliker]

Both stove and insert will need a blower when sitting in that hole. Normally I'd say go for a stove, but having the blower noise anyway an insert might be easier. Depends a bit on how big a space you have versus the dimensions of the stove.

 

[kborndale]

Blower and a block off plate.

 

[wheelhorse2347]

Fireplace is 30 wide at hearth, 25 tall and 22 deep, not super huge.

My spouses biggest thing is she wants to be able to enjoy the flames, and hates the black bezels that come with many inserts. Thought about possibly adding ceramic tile to the bezel if we go with an insert.

 

[stoveliker]

There are folks with an insert without the surround. @Caw is one. Trade off is that you see the liner connecting to the insert. But one could also argue that one gets more heat out of the "hole".

 

[wheelhorse2347]

@Caw , do you have any photos? That's the one thing she's resistant on when it comes to inserts. Id even considered fabricating a "bezel" custom made to fill the gap between firebox and hearth without extending beyond the face, but I need to check NFPA 211 and see if its at all required

 

[Caw]

@Caw , do you have any photos? That's the one thing she's resistant on when it comes to inserts. Id even considered fabricating a "bezel" custom made to fill the gap between firebox and hearth without extending beyond the face, but I need to check NFPA 211 and see if its at all required

Hey there. Apologies, this time of year I'm not on the forums daily like 24/7 burning season. I'll post some pics here for you. One option you can do with my setup is get some 8" black stove pipe and wrap it around the 6" liner to make it look nicer. I just have been lazy, wife asking for it though so I'll likely do it this summer.

 

[wheelhorse2347]

@Caw , that looks great actually, did you trim off any of the flange on the insert to have it look so off the shelf? I think this would keep her happy. She wants a different color than black, so Ill look into that down the road. Great idea with the larger stove pipe too!

 

[Ashful]

Vermont Castings have a lot of pretty enamel colors, but their performance and reliability have been so spotty that I'd steer clear of them. Blaze King was doing some enamel colors in 2015, but I'm not sure if they're still doing it today. Likewise with Jotul, going back to the 1990's, but not sure what options they've kept up, on which models.

 

[EbS-P]

I have both a jotul and an insert in the fireplace. The insert is better at heating. The jotul looks better. See my profile pic.

Thoughts 25 inches height is low. Will the 8 fit? New options will inserts.

 

[wheelhorse2347]

I have both a jotul and an insert in the fireplace. The insert is better at heating. The jotul looks better. See my profile pic.

Thoughts 25 inches height is low. Will the 8 fit? New options will inserts.

The lintel is 25, but it is much taller inside, so the upper part of the 8 would be obscured by the top. I showed her the one Caw shared, and she likes the look! I think it can only be achieved by using a square sided insert, rather than a bay style.

Ultimately, id LOVE a VC montpelier or a Lopi nexgen flush but theyre way out of our budget for now. Especially since I now see the winter did a NUMBER on my crown. Ill be getting that rebuilt in spring.

 

[Bobbob]

Here is a pic of our Buck 81 insert which has no surround and stovepipe wrapping the liner. We also have a block off plate and it heats our home from the basement very well.

 

[Caw]

@Caw , that looks great actually, did you trim off any of the flange on the insert to have it look so off the shelf? I think this would keep her happy. She wants a different color than black, so Ill look into that down the road. Great idea with the larger stove pipe too!

The stove is completely original, all I did was remove the surround. My stove is a 2019 model Osburn 1600 and the surround just rests on the hearth attached to the top of the convection jacket with one screw. Pretty simple I just thought it was kind of ugly and pointless. All it did was block more of the view of the fireplace and any, albeit probably small, amount of bonus heat I could be getting. Just kind of fake looking. I'll see if I still have a picture with it attached somewhere.

 

[begreen]

Good evening,

My spouse and I bought a nice 1977 split level with TWO fireplaces, one up and one down in a masonry chimney. The lower floor has a Lopi Freedom installed with a liner etc, but the upstairs one is a Heatform fireplace. Flue and fireplace passed our level 2 inspection, and we've been using it as such, but have been discussing installing an insert. We haven't found one within our price range that we like, but she saw a white Jotul 8 cat stove and likes the idea of installing it in the fireplace with an insulated liner and a block off plate.

Has anybody done this with the Jotul 8? Is this a pointless exercise? We use the Lopi to keep our basement warm and supplement the Propane, and would like something upstairs that is attractive yet can provide better heat than the open fireplace.

Thoughts? Picture I photoshopped is attached.

View attachment 325913

The stove will be much more effective as a heater if it rear vents and is installed sitting out on the hearth. Note that there are better choices for stoves than the old Jotul cat. It likely needs a rebuild given its age unless it sat unused for many years.