Jotul F400 questions

[olliek]

Good morning good folks - longtime lurker and second time poster here.

We had our Jotul F400 for a while now and used it occasionnally. I am using the borderline outside temparatures right now, to figure out some operational stuff and whilst doing it I have a couple of questions:

1) Castine specific: Inside the box there is a horizontal line and what I assume is Scandinavian writing for maxium firewood. I looked in the manual but nowhere in it says how high and low you should have logs in the stove. Does anyone have more information?

2) I have tried yesterday to put two logs in before I went to bed and see how easy it is to restart the fire. Worked pretty well, so no problem here. Now I had turned the airflow down at night (not all the way down but a good 2/3 to 3/4) to maximise burning time. coming down this morning the stove glass was all black. Now I know if you burn too low you produce more creosete and my general understanding is that this is not good. Am I approaching it wrong? Do I need to do something different overnight?

3)Heat distribution in the house (meaning first floor) - bear wit me please I will try and explain the set up as good as I can - I have a 250 year old Cape. The set up I believe is fairly traditional for this type of house, meaning a central chimney stack with three fireplaces. We have the Jotul in what used to be the kitchen and two rooms off that forming 2 sides of a rectangle (hope you are still with me) - the remaining side of the rectangle is the entrance door/hallway and stairs leading up. Off from what used to be the kitchen is today's kitchen.
Now i was hoping to use the wood stove to do the majority of the heating downstairs. room with the stove is smaller compared to the left which is the living room which is fairly sizable. I have bought door fans (as an interim measure) and intend to put in some wall fans on the floor for next year. Given the information that you have do you think it is realistic to heat downstairs wth what i have? Do you need more information. My wife keeps talking about buying a second stove for the other side (non living room side (which is a library/play room for the kids)? If I didn't make sense I apologize!

Thanks for bearing with me and for your knowledgeable answers!

Ollie

 

[fossil]

Ollie, I'm going to edit your thread title to include the specific stove. This'll also give the post a bump back to the top to give folks a chance to respond. Rick

 

[adrpga498]

Master of Disaster, I'm sure your f400 will supplement your heat up to about 80% of what your needs may be. Mine will keep my house, (BI_LeveL ) comfortable about 65+ in the farthest (from the stove room) upstairs room. The stove room which is on the 1st floor stays between 70* & 78* when going 24 /7. My oil forced hot air furnace will kick on around 5am or if the upstairs drops below62* which ever comes first. When I reload at 6 am the stove will keep house warm to moring the coldest nights.
As far as how high to load the stove with wood, I load mine to the top, maybe 1" from the bottom of the baffle. Hope some of this info helps. Oh yes almost forgot, don't turn down the air untill stove top reaches 450_500* mine likes to cruise at abouot 550. I turn it down 50% after it reaches 500 the last reduction is to about 25% open maybe 10 minutes after the 1st reduction. Best of luck to you. Great stove by the way.

 

[olliek]

Hey - thanks! Still a lot to learn, so if I reload for the night I might want to do that before it drops below 500* or wait til it reheats... Incidently do you have a magnet thermometer on your Castine and if so where? I have mine (I admit for aesthetic purposes ) on the side of the stove.

Yes I love it. I was about to buy a Vermont Casting one when the stove guy showed me the Jotul. I get 75 in the stove room right now and about 62 in the furthest corner of the adjoining room, but haven't operated 24/7 yet. the door fans add a couple of degrees at the moment. I keep thinking once I operate it 24/7 the heat distribution will be more evenly spread. I hope I am not thinking wrong, then again maybe I should give up on thinking.

My house is relatively poorly insulated. I put the storm windows on at least that should help a bit. One baby step at a time.

 

[Wade A.]

Ditto what ADRPGA said about when to turn the air down. I've also noticed that my stove glass blackens most typically when I'm burning less than dry wood. Like so many questions on this forum, the answer that usually garners the most information is another question: How dry is your wood?

As for your 3d question, I'm not really sure I follow all of the details about your configuration, but I'll just offer a couple of universal truths about heat distribution:

1. Push cold air, not hot air. In other words, when you are trying to get heat to circulate to a colder part of your house, the intuitive thought is to aim a fan from the hotter room to the colder one. Instead, put a fan on the floor of the colder room, to push the colder air, creating a convection loop that will draw the hot air in. Reason being, cold air is denser and easier to move than hot air.

2. The only sure way to find out, given all the variables that we can't begin to cover here, is to crank up the stove on a cold night and see what she'll do. Let us know.

 

[adrpga498]

I have a thermometer on the stove top. Yes , you will get a more even heat after you go 24/7. All walls furniture radiate heat etc. I usually reduse 1/2 way at 500*. It may spike up to about 600 the it will settle in at around 5-550. I rather reduce heat a little too late then too early. That way I'm not gonna snuff out the secoundaires and have less efficient burns.

 

[olliek]

And again thanks. I split some logs the other day and measured (albeit with a very cheap meter) ca 15% and if I remember correctly all well below 20. That being said I had a couple of logs that were damper - hearing the hiss when opened the door.

 

[olliek]

Also - what do you think about the idea about putting a smaller stove into the library? Would it appove overall heat distribution?
I tried to draw a layout of the room on visio but failed miserably, I am at work after all. I will try again with a very simple graphic.

 

[olliek]

Not sure if that helps, especially as on conversion to a picture file all the text got blurry. Not sure how this will look once posted. should it be garbage - apologies!

Now should it work - the room in the middle with 2 blurry lines is the stove room dining room. The room at the bottom (biggest room) is the living room. the room top right is the library, the room top left is the kitchen. in-between two small rooms: office & pantry.