Jotul F 400 Castine re-build

Brilliant.... Thanks a lot for your trouble, thats exactly all I need to know. Stove burns perfectly without it, but I suspect that some heat is just wasted. By the way, I am imperial, if I am making something I always use imperial. I am 6ft 5ins tall....and I weigh around 195 lbs. My Skoda estate will do 60mpg if driven under 60mph, but only 45mpg if I drive at 85 MPH however I buy fuel at pumps marked in Litres, speed limits are marked in MPH and gradients on roads are now marked in percentages, so most wouldn't know if it means steep or flat My cattle vary at the moment from 1 1/2 cwt to 11cwt but will be sold at auction weighed in kgs, however the auctioneer may be speaking in English or Welsh, if he or she is Welsh, because of the accent, I will not understand the price reached until I see the paperwork. This becomes particularly exciting when buying at auction !
My chainsaws however use a fuel / oil ratio of 40-1 , which I measure out as 100ml oil to 5 litres petrol. Any antibiotics or drenches I use on stock are measured in ml. My car uses 185 mm wide tyres however the bead dia is marked as 15 ins, last one used 185 x 14. BUT, it is 1900cc capacity. Confusing is it not.........and we pay people to run it like this. Tractor engine capacity usually quoted in cubic inches.
My rifle is chambered in .220 swift, however it uses a .224 inch dia bullet weighing around 45 grains. Powder available in lb or kilo tubs.
My wife ( who splits logs ! ) buys ingredients in grammes, but cooks in pounds and ounces. It will be good food.

So there we have it. The perfect recipe for accidents and mistakes. Sounds like you may be just as frustrated by it all. Thanks again for the input, baffle plate shortly in production.

I think that the satisfaction gained from putting logs from a tree you cut up and split into a fire or stove to keep oneself warm would be a truly international thing, however I am not aware of the international measurement of this.
Jim.

 

I'm glad to help out. It will be interesting to see how much the burn characteristics change with a baffle in place.

 

Thanks to your assistance, baffle plate is installed and up and running.
This has improved heat output to room considerably. Air wash works better... quite definitely. Reburn works much sooner than it did, and is altogether more vigorous, resulting in little or no smoke (other than first 15-20 mins) from chimney. Quite why this should be so, i'm not sure, but it is . Glass will now clear itself if sooty from die down etc.
It is abundantly clear to me that the upright baffle plate needs to be in position for this stove to function at its best and as intended.
My only problem with it now is that.....................................my living room is not going to be big enough.
Fans, where can I get quiet adjustable speed fans on a pedestal, a tall pedestal to blow hot air out of the door to rest of house... in the uk. To blow heat out ? I reckon they would look at me as though I was insane.." why don't you turn it down''.... I do not have the patience. I think they are used for ....hydroponics ! I cannot hear quieter pieces of music because of large black dog panting on settee.
Mind you, it's not cold here..yet.

 

It sounds like the plate is working out for you. It does slow up the smoke path and let more heat radiate out.

A lot of members use a fan on the floor to push cool settled air into the stove room and the warm air above exchanges out of the room.

Using lower BTU wood can help keep the heat output lower until cold weather settles in.

 

Interesting, fan on the floor pushing in would work more easily here, some of our guests might well walk into an overhead fan suspended from ceiling after another trip to the fridge for cooling refreshment.
Luckily, I have plenty of beech too (not proper Beech but southern beech/false beech). Not a lot of heat but plenty of flame , bit inclined to get out of control in last stove. I'd need to be careful with that initially. I usually sell it to those who won't take "no" for an answer . Trouble is , the ones with poor draught love it but mostly they only light up Sunday evenings and think a barrow full will last a month.
Dog thinks he must be getting old (4yrs) so has turned around and uses other end of sofa, problem there however as he cannot see what is going on through that eye which is not asleep and.......sometimes a.....CAT !
I give this stove a big thumbs up myself, no tool required to open door or break glass with, a great view of fire, 20'' logs, good ash arrangement which so far seems to work well producing denser / finer ash ( compared to shovelling out the lot, hot ) as a result much less dust in the room. This is a welcome bonus as I used a belt sander to get one bit of slate hearth down a bit (a lot) for one leg which I did not wish to cut down. As you may imagine, this produced small quantities of very fine grey dust which were conveniently carried away by it's cooling air.
I'm told that the thorough cleanup operation after may have been less than perfect.

 

Just an update if anyone is interested. After a couple of months of careful consideration of how this stove performs under my conditions I am well satisfied with it. I do not have any problems with lighting up whatsoever, but I do prefer bottom up method. I try to produce a path underneath any larger splits to get draught under and up back plate asap. This reliably lights up reburn in around six minutes. I use a little more smalls to get going initially, after which it will pick up very quickly indeed reaching a point of no visible smoke whatsoever in around 10 mins.
The only niggle I have with it is at the other end of the scale completely, and that is having reached the "cruise" period, final adjustment of air in I find too coarse. This is it seems to me, a result of the air slider having fully oblong holes which are closed simultaneously. If one became fully closed a little before the other, this could have resulted in a much better control of cruise air supply. It could be that I have good dry wood which burns readily compared to Jotuls "average" customer.......and as a result the "average" customer has this slide more widely open than I need. I seem to need it just not quite fully closed, and this point is not that easy to achieve, or it may well be that I am attempting to get rather less heat from it than it is capable of producing.

 

On the inspection cover, right inside the firebox that allows primary air in, does it have two smaller holes or one larger hole? The reason I as is that the EU version has a larger slot to let more air in and the US cover has two smaller holes that decrease the air flow in.

 

Hi Jon. I'm not clear as to if you are talking about the inspection cover itself, or the slider revealed underneath. The "doghouse" shaped cover itself haas a deliberate gap above the humped bit and a slot along the bottom. For interest I am currently running with a gasket to block this, but the full length slot is open along bottom.
I think the function of this is to aid penetration of burn under base of load ? I rather take the view that better brains than me designed it this way (at this early stage). The actual slider operated by front lever has one oblong hole perhaps 1'' wide and 1 1/2'' long, and a further extension of this but solid. when slider is closed, the two oblong holes in stove base are gradually covered, but both become fully closed at the same point. As I never need full air, or close to it, a small addition to the end, so one full closed before both MIGHT be helpful.

 

So the rounded inspection cover has a slot, that is the EU cover.

I have another small thread where I was looking to see what the bolt going down through the cover does. I did some reading and it looks like it keeps the slide plate down in position.

Jotul Castine - boost air on the doghouse?

There is a picture on that thread that shows the holes on the US cover if you want to see the difference. An Internet search gives a bit of information and actual stove users comparing the two different covers along with burn characteristics.

Yes, I also understand the holes in the stove base where the slider plate is.

 

That's a nice secondary design. Have you fired it up yet? I wonder how it works?

 

Hi Steve. I ended up pulling the interior side plates a while back and re-sealed the refractory where they meet up. It ran much better and the secondaries run well now.

 

My you folks are busy at it !.... Jon, you will be pleased to hear that the baffle plate you sent brilliant photos and measurements of is at this very moment (I imagine) glowing a dull red providing heat for the dog & myself. I was interested to see the other thread photo's showing air house holes- mine are not like that, slots.....but they do serve a function. My bolt downwards from this cover extends into (but does not contact) the cast in slot in slider, presumably preventing it from losing its location on the adjusting rod in the event of over enthusiastic shut down, or perhaps delivery or portage into position.......I don't see enough draught to suck it off, but perhaps in a chimney fire !
I'm glad to find others who wish to know this things innermost secrets.......quite a Beauty in my opinion.
A balmy 28 deg c on the sofa here.......Wish I'd had it when the girls used to come back from the pub !
Jim.

 

When you think about it, stove parts wear out, gaskets fail, ash builds up in passageways, etc. Stoves require maintenance. No one is going to tell you what parts and when to check them out. Getting familiar with the inner workings is part of the necessity of running a stove and keeping it in safe operation.

 

That is my understanding of the bolt that I have read elsewhere.

 

Just a bit more information for anyone considering an F400. After another month and a half's more familiarisation I have a good understanding of its capabilities. I do not find that I get ANY smoke out to room whatsoever IF I pause a second as I open door, no matter what state the fire is at. With half decent wood, my stove reaches a sort of second cruise level, and can burn good and clean with slider closed completely, no visible flame from fire itself, but good flames from secondary air plate above (somewhat like a large gas grill). slider can be left in this position while refilling provided fire has not got too low, and will soon resume as before. This seems to be what was intended by designer and is entirely satisfactory. In my opinion, if you find differently, you most likely have poor quality/wet wood or a pretty poor chimney arrangement/blockage.....possibly all of these.
I am rather particular about my stoves, and this one was quite a find for me. It burns real well here, with a less than perfect 30ft chimney with no liner (but it is clean and clear) . I am entirely satisfied.
Lots of good info on these pages. Thanks for the assistance.

 

After running my new F-400 for a couple of months I can say that I am having the same results as you are. One thing I noticed that if I use larger splits or round logs I can get longer burn times.

 

I've got a so-so chimney setup: two 90's and then to an outside 8" pipe that's 18-20'? I've been running the Euro intake plate for years now. Burns well wide open. I'll back it down to 50% maybe 75% overnight. Love the stove! Wish the chimney setup was better, but it's a weekend house.

 

Before I end up with a roll of wrong diameter rope, can someone give me the most suitable dia for replacement door glass rope on my F400, looks like perhaps 1/4'' to me.

 

This is a very impressive thread. Great photos with explanations. Is this stove in use now? I'd love to see pics of it's installation.