RE: Last load: 10 p.m., Coals (not large) at 6 a.m. -- 8 hours Jotul Oslo

[firefighterjake]

Yeah, I've been on a photographic kick lately and figured some of you Oslo users would like to see this . . . I had a fire going yesterday evening. Last reload was at 10 p.m. . . . full load of maple, ash, elm, etc. (well in reality I only load up to the top point of the fire bricks in the rear leaving a 2-3 inch gap). Babysat the stove for a half hour, letting the stove top temp climb before slowly dialing it back. Eventually I reached the point where I was able to kick the air all the way "closed" and had some fantastic secondaries -- looked a lot like the Bowels of Hell. I apologize, but I was tired and the camera was out in the car so no pics . . . I really should have though . . . this wood was obviously very dry as I even got up a few points to recheck the temps.

In any case, woke up at 5:30 a.m. and by the time I crawled downstairs and got to looking at the woodstove it was a little before 6 a.m. When I first came down there were some glowing coals . . . 10-15 minutes later I stirred up the ashes with my shovel and this is the result. Small coals true, but enough to get the fire going again if I wanted . . . however, today is slated to be on the warm side so I just opened up the air to burn them down a bit more.

 

[Shari]

FFJake,

Green with envy here!

Shari

 

[polaris]

Yup, that's my experience as well. In fact I can go up to 12 hr. with enough buried coals left to dig out and rekindle a fire, but 7 hours or so is about as long as it will produce any significant heat without reloading.

 

[edthedawg]

Jake,

yer gonna be so happy when you convert to soapstone, and that 6am coal bed is sitting inside a stove that's still too hot to touch

i gotta post some of the pic sequences I snapped recently too... just too much going on!

 

[potter]

Yup, that's my experience as well. In fact I can go up to 12 hr. with enough buried coals left to dig out and rekindle a fire, but 7 hours or so is about as long as it will produce any significant heat without reloading.

About the same here.

 

[grommal]

Yup, that's my experience as well. In fact I can go up to 12 hr. with enough buried coals left to dig out and rekindle a fire, but 7 hours or so is about as long as it will produce any significant heat without reloading.

Pretty similar. A very decent amount of heat for about 7 hours. Stovetop is 250+ for 8-9 hours, and has enough coals to just toss more small splits in and off it goes. Small coals hiding in the ash for another 3-4 hours, enough to rake around and restart using kindling plus small splits. Probably hours more and I'd still be able to rake the ash to find enough coals to start with paper and kindling, but no match, but that's not very useful.

That qualifies as "long enough" for me. I can feed it before I leave for work, feed it when I get home, and feed it before I go to bed, all without using additional matches, paper, or kindling. Which is exactly the minimum required burn time behavior I wanted, and why I chose the Oslo over the Castine in the Jotul line, despite really liking the looks of the Castine.

 

[logger]

I did one load around 9pm and had enough at 6am to fire her up.. loving the Oslo.

 

[Lanningjw]

[quote author="firefighterjake" date="1257883633"] -- looked a lot like the Bowels of Hell.

 

[mikepinto65]

I've been managing 8-10 hours for usable coals. I'll be extremely pleased to have coals after 8 hours once the temps drop to 20-30 degree averages...time will tell!