Still adjusting to new Jotul 3 in my new to me house

[Englishteacher]

My new Jotul 3 has an interior double-walled chimney that goes straight up about 20 ft to a vaulted ceiling in my 1900 square ft., open-design house. I'm blowing through a lot of wood. I've got a ceiling fan running upstairs and even a return duct for our heat pump, whose fan I run sometimes, well located near the peak of the ceiling. Still, upstairs temps remain 74, downstairs 67. Can I hope for any better from this stove and my situation? I tend to burn it wide open to try to heat the whole place. Would burning lower and slower even things out at all, or is it just ultimately going to be the same heat going to the same spaces from the same wood no matter how I burn it?
I do burn it low over night in an attempt to get an all-night burn, which is rare. Next morning it is out with a coating of what I assume is creosote on the glass door. Those are the only circumstances where I ever have that appear. Would this be normal for that type of burn? Does it indicate any one thing or another I should address?
This site along with fiddling with my stove is one of the great small pleasures of winter.

 

[stoveguy13]

The 3cb is to small to expect it to heat 1900sqft and to get a over night burn jotul specs the stove for 1300 sqft and i would say it has a chance to handel that in MD not with long burn times i dont think you can do much better then you are. with out going to a larger stove

 

[webbie]

I concur with stoveguy, it would take a monster to keep that place warm with the 20ft ceiling. It is actually a testament to the stove that it can keep up to any degree.

 

[begreen]

Do you want the upstairs to be that warm? It sounds like there is a very good convection loop feeding the upstairs, probably via a large open stairwell. Creating some sort of a temporary block at the ceiling level to the staircase might be worth experimenting with. How is the first floor laid out and where is the stove located in relationship to the stairwell?

 

[wahoowad]

I don't see how you can run it 'wide open' without overheating it. I peg my stovetop thermometers when I forget and let a fresh load char on open air for too long.

If I reload between 9:30-10:30 PM, progressively damper it down until my primary air is 'closed' and I have good reburn (@30 minutes), I have adequate coals at 7 AM to reload and get it going again. Stove will be pretty warm but my large room with cathedral ceiling has cooled down to mid/upper 60's depending on outside temps.

Creosote on your glass in the mornings suggest (to me) that you are packing it full and dampering down to quick before going to bed. You need to damper down in one or two progressive steps so the load gets burning good. You'll know you dampered down right when your sustain your reburn for 5 minutes or more. Also sounds like you have less-than-fully seasoned wood. It sounds adequate to burn but not seasoned enough to burn on low all night.

I go through a lot of wood with mine too. I can run on coals a long time with reduced heat output but only get 2 to 3 hours of good heat before I like to reload. More like 1.5 with softer woods (cherry, soft maple) and longer with my oak and hickory. So I just make sure I have a lot of wood.

Also, I suspect I have an air leak from where my ash pan is sealed to the bottom of the firebox. I was getting faster burn times and more active flames when I had it fully dampered down. I have not gotten around to addressing it, instead I empty the ash less frequently from the firebox (I no longer empty the ash pan) and let the ash accumulation seal off whereever this air might be entering from. It has seemed to help and certainly lets the coals stay around longer.

 

[myzamboni]

Dont' burn it wide open and see how it responds. With that much pipe a damper might not be a bad idea. As said above the stove is only rated for ~1300 sq ft (and I assume that is with 8ft ceilings), so you really are a little undersized for the stove.

I've noticed my F3CB heats the space much better running the air 1/2 closed vs. wide open.

Also, what type of wood are you burning as I almost never have creosote on the glass (even after closing the air down for the night)?

 

[Englishteacher]

You're right, BeGreen, the stove sits on the first level in an open stairwell that is vaulted to the second floor ceiling. The rest of the main floor is a nice open plan with 8 ft. ceilings. Your thought about redirecting upstairs heat is interesting. We have an upstairs layout that is a little unusual. The stairway itself "floats" i.e it does not abut any wall but sits in the center of the stairwell with railings on both sides The right stairwell wall itself is an exterior one that vaults cathedral style all the way to the ceiling. The left stairwell wall begins at eight ft. off the main floor and continues straight up. It stops abruptly about 2.5 feet from the ceiling leaving an opening about 2.5 ftx10 ft. between wall and ceiling that is the wall to our master bedroom on the other side. The actual top of the stairwell is a small open, railed hallway leading to the doors of the 3 bedrooms up there. The peak of the upstairs cathedral ceiling actually sits about 3 feet into the master bedroom running parallel to the stairway below. Not how I would design it but that's how it came. Not so great for privacy, or noise and light invading from the stairwell but great for air circulation in both winter and summer. We have a ceiling fan in the bedroom right at the peak of the ceiling. Much of the heat from the stove goes right up the stairwell and rolls along the cathedral ceiling and right into our room due to that opening. Some times way too much. We plan to put some kind of openable/closable windows in that open space to create privacy,etc. Do you think putting those windows in might also help redirect the heat in any meaningful way? Sorry for all the detail but your sense of things is impressive and I 'd be grateful for your thoughts. I definitely understand that I can get only so much heat out of this Jotul 3. I'm just trying to use it as effectively as I can in this rather non-traditional layout.

Thanks to Wahoowad. I've suspected that my Jotul burned better with a bed of ash, but I've obsessively kept cleaning the ash drawer. That gridiron looked so good clean but I think it sucks air from somewhere no matter what, maybe this is one of this stove's ideosyncracies No more. Only a Wahoo would know such things. Go, Cavs.

My Zamboni, I too have found that the Jotul 3 seems to be at its most efficient at 1/2 air. I'll keep doing that.

Thanks to all for such helpful advice.

 

[begreen]

It sounds like the stove is not located in the best place for downstairs heating. Was this the only option? With the current setup, it seems the best location for a ceiling fan is at the peak above the stairwell. Is there one there? Closing off the opening above the master bedroom will help. Get some blue painters tape and temporarily tape some plastic over the opening to see how effective it will be.

Can you describe or better yet post a drawing of the first floor layout? I'm not sure if there is an easy way to get the heat from the stove into the first floor given the stove location, but I'm have a little hard time visualizing the whole picture.

 

[Englishteacher]

I wanted to avoid an exterior chimney, I understand they are evil. And the interior stove pipe looks pretty cool going straight up two floors, plus it has a great draft, and there weren't really any other practical options, either.

My main floor, although an open floor plan, is all eight ft. ceilings with the exception of the stairwell which is about 10x11 ft. square with that 20 foot high vaulted ceiling above. It's in this two story space that my "floating" stairway and wood stove sit kind of side by side with the stove pipe rising next to you as you climb the steps with the stove pipe continuing up to the ceiling through to the roof.

I do realize that a lot of the heat (maybe most) goes right up this almost square 10x11 two story box, The living room and the stairwell share all one floor space. There are no interior walls separating them at all. In this open floor plan the stove faces out into the living room from where it sits in the stairwell with the open "floating" stairway rising diagonally about 18 inches behind it.

I bought a little Eco fan to help blow some air into the living room from where the stove sits in the stairwell but it's fighting a tough battle with physics. From the front of the stove to where the 20 ft. stairwell ceiling ends and the 8 ft. living room one begins is about 4 ft.
I'm sure this is as clear as mud, but about the best I can do. I very much appreciate your thoughts and responses.

 

[begreen]

added some paragraph spacing to make it easier to read teach ;-).

The eco fan is not going to help at all here. A wood stove with a built-in convection blower system might. You are correct, the stove is placed well to heat the upstairs. A ceiling fan at the peak of the stairwell (in this case blowing downward) might help a bit, as perhaps closing off the MB opening at the peak of the ceiling will (see previous post).

But unless there's a place for a stove away from this central area I think you'll have to make the best of it. You could try placing a table or a box fan at the far corner of the living room, away from the staircase. Put it on the floor, turn it on low and point it toward the wood stove. But, as you noted, you're trying to overcome natural convection which in this setup seems to have the upper hand.