Jotul F 3 CB opinions

[Haywire Haywood]

Need to heat approx. 2,000 sq ft.

That stove is rated for up to 1300sq ft, and manufacturers are always generous with what their stoves are capable of. It should run you out of that little room you have it in though. We have an Oslo for our 1750 sq ft and it does a good job.

Jotul F 3 CB Woodstove

Ian

 

[Jtracy]

I agree totally!!! The logic did not make sense to me either...Think the owner tried to "squirrel" his way out of that one by saying what he did!

 

[HillRat]

Hi Janet,

Aha, the wood made a difference! That's good! This is only my fourth winter heating with wood, and I did not fully understand "seasoned" wood when I started and now that I've learned, I've helped a few people who are new to wood heat learn it for themselves.

I thought the damper was strange/wrong, too, but wanted to walk through the problem one step at a time. For these stoves to burn cleanly, the air regulation has to happen in the stove via its controls. Restricting the stack removes the advantages that the stove's "clean burn" design gives you.

I'm burning a mix of ash, oak, and cherry this winter. Ash grows on my property (here in Hunterdon County) and I have a lot of it. All of this wood is well seasoned. It was stored outside, split, under a light tarp covering only the top, since it was split between one and two years ago. You have to see the difference that 1 or more years of seasoning makes to appreciate it, especially with oak.

Actually, I think that's what you're seeing now!

Ed
P.S. You're in Somerset, huh? I worked right around the corner from that little strip mall on Cedar Grove for a bunch of years. Used to live in Somerset County, too, but fled to Hunterdon for some land and a little "elbow room."

 

[Jtracy]

That stove is rated for up to 1300sq ft, and manufacturers are always generous with what their stoves are capable of. It should run you out of that little room you have it in though. We have an Oslo for our 1750 sq ft and it does a good job.

Jotul F 3 CB Woodstove

Ian

How big are your rooms...or is your stove in one big room? Do you have more than 1 floor to your home? Ours is 2 floors with each room being approx. 13 x 13

 

[Jtracy]

That stove is rated for up to 1300sq ft, and manufacturers are always generous with what their stoves are capable of. It should run you out of that little room you have it in though. We have an Oslo for our 1750 sq ft and it does a good job.

Jotul F 3 CB Woodstove

Ian

Do you have an open floor plan? Ours is "boxy"....1st floor is 4 rooms approx. same size each (13 x 13)...

 

[sunfish]

Sounds like the red oak was part of the problem. These modern wood stoves are super efficient and put out a lot of heat, but they must have DRY, well Seasoned wood.

Question 1) How often do you need to put new pieces of wood into the stove to maintain 400 - 500 degrees....and what kind of wood are you burning?

Our Jotul is on the small side, for those temps, I'd need to add wood every 2-3 hours. But it would runs us out of our house. We add wood about every 6-7 hours, usually just 2 or 3 sticks.

 

[Jtracy]

Sunfish - you have the 118CB Black Bear (which uses only 1 piece of wood at a time),,,and you add 1 piece every 6-7 hours?! Your stove gives off more heat than the F3 CB.

We will need to re-monitor how often we put wood in with the new wood we will be purchasing...however, when we used the new wood tonight, we used 4-5 pieces in 2 1/2 hours (some were larger chunks cut in 1/2 b/c the larger 18" pieces won't fit in the stove.

Thoughts?

 

[Haywire Haywood]

Will you always be buying wood or will you cut your own after this winter?

Ian

 

[Jtracy]

Haywire - We would love to cut our own wood..but not sure where to find the trees that you can cut down..we don't have the trees on our property...we have discovered how much we love chopping wood though~ May look into purchasing a chain saw....

Sunfish - what model do you have?

For anyone who DOES have the F3 CB, how ofen DO you need to put new wood into your stove????

 

[sunfish]

Sunfish - you have the 118CB Black Bear (which uses only 1 piece of wood at a time),,,and you add 1 piece every 6-7 hours?! Your stove gives off more heat than the F3 CB.

We will need to re-monitor how often we put wood in with the new wood we will be purchasing...however, when we used the new wood tonight, we used 4-5 pieces in 2 1/2 hours (some were larger chunks cut in 1/2 b/c the larger 18" pieces won't fit in the stove.

Thoughts?

No mam, my stove (118CB) will hold 2 or 3 pieces, but at 20-24" long. We let it burn down to coals, then add one or two pieces.

Yes, the 118CB puts out more heat the a 3CB. I believe the 118 is rated for 1800 sq feet. We have to let it burn down good before reload, or our house will get too hot.

With you having to cut the 18" pieces in half, I expect you're not able to get as much wood in the stove, as you would if you had the proper length, 15-16".

Oh, and yes, more insulation in the attic would help a bunch.

Hope this helps.

 

[Haywire Haywood]

Haywire - We would love to cut our own wood..but not sure where to find the trees that you can cut down..

You'll learn to spot tree service trucks, storm damage, etc from blocks away. "Hey mister... can I clean up that down tree for ya? No charge, we heat with wood and could use a couple loads for next year."

Ian

 

[Jtracy]

Sunfish...my apologies, I did not see the sq. ft. that yours burns..wow, I am impresed!...I love your stove - very cute...and obviously efficient!

When we asked the vendor, before we bought the stove, approx. how many pieces of wood we would need to burn a night, he said, "5"...this is way off from the truth of what we put in that stove.

 

[sunfish]

Sunfish...my apologies, I did not see the sq. ft. that yours burns..wow, I am impresed!...I love your stove - very cute...and obviously efficient!

When we asked the vendor, before we bought the stove, approx. how many pieces of wood we would need to burn a night, he said, "5"...this is way off from the truth of what we put in that stove.

Thanks, we like the Black Bear a lot.

I would think the #3 would burn for 6-7 hours on 5 pieces (15"-16" long) of well seasoned hard wood (white oak in my fav). At the end of the burn, the stove would be putting out little heat, but a good bead of coals to rekindle a fire.

There is a pretty good learning curve to heating with a wood stove. It does get easier.

 

[banjobart]

First you buy the chainsaw (50cc or more Stihl or Husky) then cut and split a small mountain of wood. Then you go buy a stove. Control your own wood. It does have to be bone dry, a year or two, to burn like the ####ens. I have a similar Jotul and it heats just fine, like a sauna. But I have been cutting and splitting wood for 40 years. I have never paid a penny for wood, it is free everywhere if you look around and ask. I guess that I have always owned a pickup, too, but you can use a trailer purchased from TSC to haul firewood and tow it with anything bigger than a Geo Metro. I would never pay money for firewood. I would rather pay the power company.

 

[vincem77]

Jtracy, in this picture it does not appear you have the door latch closed. Is this how you run the stove?

 

[myzamboni]

Yes, latch that door!!! Leave the pipe damper open and use only the slide control on the stove.

Also, don't be a wood snob. Get whatever wood you can and let it season all spring/summer. The F3CB does not like unseasoned wood

 

[Haywire Haywood]

Get whatever wood you can and let it season all spring/summer.

... and winter and spring/summer again. Try to get on a 2 year cycle.

Ian

 

[myzamboni]

... and winter and spring/summer again. Try to get on a 2 year cycle.

Ian

True. I burn mostly softwoods and with my climate I only need ~6 months

 

[skmag357]

This is my second seaon with my Jotul F 3 CB. I have 1400 sq ft colonial with the stove in a 180 sq ft addition on the front of the house. My stove is semi recessed in my fireplace so i am not utlizing the full amount of the heat. I too use a large amount of wood and reload the fire every 30 mins or so. This season i have mostly been burning year old red oak and some maple. When I keep the stove going, the addition gets into the upper 80s, lower 70s in the adjorning kitchen and mid 60s in living room. The heat does go upstairs a bit but never gets above 65 degrees even though we are burning all day. My stove does stay in the 500 degree range pretty easy once its started. I too restart the fire with the ash door open and the fire gets ripping pretty quick. I typically load the stove up to the max around 11 pm and still have plenty of hot coals to get the fire started a 615 in the morning. I typically empty the ash tray every other day. I am guessing that I have burned about 2.5 cords of wood since early November. I ran out early this week and had to run over to my dads place to steal some of the wood I had stock piled there. I wish the stove would burn hotter and put out more heat.

 

[Intheswamp]

skmag357, with it being in your new addition I'm taking it that the fireplace is on an exterior wall. You do realize that the F3CB is past it's limits for your application as for as square footage ratings go, correct?

If you don't have one a block-off plate will help.

An idea that I've wondered about is heat shields for the interior of the fireplace. If the fireplace is on an exterior wall then it is acting like a large heatsink and conducting some of the heat through the brick and mortar to the great outdoors. Heat shields on the inner surfaces of the fireplace might stop a good bit of the radiant heat from being absorbed by the fireplace. The block-off plate could be sloped towards the fireplace opening (low in the back, high in the front) to direct the heat rising from the heat shields back outward into the room.

From what I can tell the F3CB burns best in a cycle. Most folks state a burn a cycle time of around 2-4 hours. Your 30 minute reload just doesn't seem right. Your overnight burn of 7 hours seems great, though! ???

How does your burn cycles go?

Just some thoughts.
Ed