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We have had a Jotul woodstove for 2 years and I have had it!!! It smokes up our house EVERY SINGLE START. I feel certain our friends wonder why we always smell like smoke. We have tried ALL of the advice given and we are not knew to woodstoves. Our wood is seasoned, dried, we have a tall stove pipe and I have tried numerous times to preheat the flu. NOTHING WORKS!! I am so frustrated because we paid a ton for this stove and it is a waste of money and we cannot get it back. AND to make matters worse, it burns at most 3 hours, not the 6 hours we were told. I think I am going to roll it off the bluff, consider it a loss and start over with another brand. Maybe a Vermont Castings. Anyone else have trouble with their Jotul?
WOW... we had a Jotul in our cabin in northern WI.
Unfortunately the cabin fell on top of it and we sold the land and never
recovered the Jotul.
It was a fantastic stove and have always regretted not diggin it out.
We had NO problem with it and it heated the cabin in sub zero weather more than fine!
We usually had to open windows.
I have a jotul cb f3. It is the best investment I ever made aside from my house and my white lab. My best burn time was 12 hours with a big chunck of black locust on a big bed of embers that just fit in the stove. my average burn is 6 to 8 hours if using oak and locust mixed. it is rated for 1300 sq. ft. and my house is 1500. It keeps my house between 70 to 80 f. with two windows open in the room the stove is in. My house is very well insulated. I only had one kick back problem in the two years I have had the stove and it was due to the hat on top of my chimney got clogged in the mesh screen from soil build up. This just happened about two weeks ago. I think it clogged because I milk this thing for those long burns and I have a real high chimney made of steel with a T in the pipe. My pipe up top doesn't get very hot on slow burns. The hat is from my fire place and has a spark arrester type screen in it. I was told to make the holes bigger in the screen just so a bird cannot fit in it and not smaller. Also I should clean the chimney two times a year because of the bend in the pipe. The T make for a very easy cleaning (about 20 minutes total clean up). Is your pipe coming out the top or back of the stove? Mine is in the back. I had to add a damper plate in my pipe because my draft is so good. Your stove should be the same as mine, so I would say your problem is in your chimney or draft and not your stove. I don't think jotul can make a lemon if they make a stove with a cast. It would be cheaper to fix your chimney problem before wasting money on another stove. Since it sounds like your problem will still be there if you ever got a new stove. Let me know what happens!
Good luck! Jim
"People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results." Albert Einstein
We've had a Jotul #8 for many years and love it!! Just recently we had a problem with it smoking. We found out the gasket around the top needed to be replaced. We replaced that and it worked great again, until yesterday. I heard glass braking and the glass on the door cracked from top to bottom. I called a local glass dealer this morning and it can be replaced for $80. Considering how many years we have had the Jotul and only had to replace the door gasket once, I'd say the Jotul is a Great stove!
My Jotul fireplace insert has been in place for nearly three months, and I have only had a smoke problem on starting one time. What happened is that the room wasn't very warm, and there was a high pressure system outdoors with a stiff breeze blowing. This fairly unusual combination of factors cause a downdraft, which was apparent when I opened the door to the fireplace and felt the air coming in from above.
Since I had never before experienced a problem, I went ahead and lit the fire anyway. Smoke soon started coming out into the room, but it only lasted about a minute or two. Then I tossed in a few crumpled sheets of newspaper to quickly get some flames, and the chimney started warming up. That let the normal updraft get going, and no more smoke.
One key I've found is that you always want the airflow lever to be all the way open for at least the first half hour.
I sympathize with you. This is our first season with the Jotul Oslo.Oslo is bigger than yours,but if your wood has any quality at all you should get more than 3 hour burn. I would say it is your chimney that is the problem. These new EPA non cat stoves require a strong draft.
They just don't do that well on an outside type masonary chimney.
We have heated entirely with wood forever & it took awhile to learn to run the Jotul so it doesn't smoke. If you are starting with stove fire out.,put in 3 or 4 split pieces & put your kindling on top of wood.Wad up some newspaper & light & quickly close the door. Since I expect your draft isn't the best,try & just unlatch front door & ash door.Don't walk off & leave open,tho!!!You have to have wood in & arranged from start. You can't be poking with poker & rearranging like you can with another type stove. I have been known to open door VERY slowly & careful & quickly adding another stick or 2 of wood in very cold weather & like if I'd have to go somewhere.I find when fire gets burned down to certain stage I can reload on a few coals with minimum smoke. I like the Jotul much,much better than the Vermont Castings we used for 20 years.
Why don't you ask about this over on the Wood Heat yahoo group. There are some people there dedicated to woodburning.I know when we first used this thing I about bawled. I said I'm going to get this to work! Iris
