Jotul F600 Too Big?

[akgentile]

Hi,

We are new to woodstoves and have a few questions. We recently purchased an early 1800s farmhouse in New Hampshire, and are in the process of completely redoing approximately 1600 square feet. The house is now open concept downstairs, two bedrooms upstairs, new spray foam insulation. We will be heating our house 100% with woodstove.

We were looking at the Jotul Oslo, however found a good deal on a lightly used F600. Do you think this would be overkill in our space?

Thanks for your help!!

 

[DAKSY]

You can always make a BIG stove burn LESS.
You CANNOT make a smaller stove burn MORE.
I'd go for the F600...

 

[jotul?]

DAKSY is right. I have an F600 in 1700 sq. ft. And it will crank the whole house up to 72 or I can burn a two hour fire to knock the chill off.

 

[jotul8e2]

Given the climate there it sounds like a good choice IF it is the non-cat model. They made a cat version that was not very successful that shows up on the used market from time to time.

It is a rather large stove for a 6" flue and it will perform better with a clean flue run with few bends.

You will absolutely have to have truly seasoned firewood or you are going to be very, very disappointed with the results. This is hard to buy (ads and promises notwithstanding).

 

[Nick Mystic]

Our home is around 3200 sq. ft. with 1800 sq. ft. on the main level where our F600 is located and another 1400 sq. ft. on the lower level where our Woodstock Classic is located. As others have said, it's not a problem to control the heat output by building smaller fires. The F600 is a great stove and should meet your heating needs. Make sure you set it up so you can load through the side door since loading through the front is a rather messy proposition with the low ash lip. I keep my front doors locked and only open them when the stove is cold to clean the glass from time to time. Most of the time I just put on an old shirt when my glass gets hazy and clean it through the side door. Good luck with whatever choice you make.

 

[branchburner]

Welcome to the forums. I have a similar size house, though poorly insulated and drafty. In deciding to give my Harman the boot this year, I was also looking at the Oslo, but decided on an F600 for several reasons: looks better, side door opens on the right (better for my setup), and most importantly the deeper, bigger firebox. The F600 will let me load 16 inch wood through the front door, or 24 inch wood from the side, for longer burns.

That said, if your house is well insulated, you may find the house getting pretty warm with a bigger stove. If you like winter temps in the 80s, as I do, that is a plus rather than a minus.

Inspect the baffles and blanket above the burn tubes to make sure they are in good shape... the cast iron baffles on the used stove I bought were quite warped.

 

[akgentile]

Thank you all, we really appreciate the input! I'm sure we'll be back with more questions...

 

[stovelark]

Hi AK- sounds like the right stove for your setup and climate anyway. The Firelight is a beauty too.

 

[Mahoney86]

My hunting camp is an old early 1900s house about 1600 sq ft and we have an f600 there. This is in temp zones similar, if not colder then where you are and it keeps the upstairs super warm, downstairs can be a little chilly unless you are close to the stove. I always keep a big fire going. I was concerned with how big the stove was also, but glad I made the decision to go bigger and even still wish it was bigger. Instead I need to work on insulation and air movement