Hello WA woodburner, lots of good things being said. Having been a Jotul dealer sales guy for years and years, and recently moving to a VC and Enviro with Country stoves business of my own (and P/Energy) I wonder if you may be a victim of steel stove ease to operate as well. I ran the Oslo (Jotul) for years, consider it to be the best cast stove I've burned, but it was sometimes difficult to get going. The bottom line was good good good dry firewood. Remember you are heating lots and lots of cast iron first, before the stove can give off heat. Steel stoves like the Enviro and Country are much easier to get going (up to temp typically in 15 minutes). Theres prob nothing wrong with the Winterport, all of Jotul's inserts were beautiful, but I will say again from sales and operating experience, I've never seen it to be the stove. The chimney drives the stove, some stoves run better with minimal draft, you mentioned the country yourself, they are great burning stoves, when Lennox bought them tho, they are very expensive now. If you have a full length liner installed, by chance, is the chimney a center house or end house chimney? And, is the chimney higher than the main envelope of the house? If not, the house may be trying to act as the chimney, again, competing draft. Good luck, the Jotul is a beautiful stove, I do agree with you tho, steel stoves are easier to run. I will tell you, P/E has the Alderleas, we just started carrying the cast line, its a cast stove that runs like steel (it has the steel line's innards). Oh yeah, no one is trying to insult you or your operation skills, its just we've seen it time and time again, wet wood. Good luck.
Enviro 1700 Kodiak FS
Enviro EF3 (Can you see I like Enviro/)
