Now here's how i ended up with this GEM. When i was a kid i remember my dad and uncle bringing home what looked like a giant stone box called a "wood stove". something to heat the house in the winter without spending a lot of bills. It was pretty cool looking and we could light a fire in it without getting in trouble. It had a glass window that you could see fire and well it was a giant heater. This thing would get our basement to at least 90 degrees. During the winter the basement wasn't the place to be. Nothing like walking in from the freezing winter playing outside to sweating your ass off in minutes. Now i also remember my dad cooking on it and in it. He would throw onions and garlic wrapped in aluminum foil in it and sometimes i remember cooking an egg on the top of it. After remembering all that i was destined to get one. I needed it, had to have it.
I'm a research junkie. you can find ANYTHING on Google. "best small wood stove" or "box stove" boom..... the Jotul comes up. Small compact stove that pump some serious heat. After months of craigslist searching i finally found one for sale in Glastonbury and it had a price tag of $450 dollars. Well there goes that theory. Just kidding, talked the guy down to $200 bucks cash hahaha what a sucker... MC and I went and picked it up and it sat in the garage up until now. Still my research went on... well i knew the wood stove needed a liner, ughtt there goes another $300 dollars...oh i needed some replacement parts for the stove ughhh there goes another $100 bucks. I'm sure you all get the picture, this shit is adding up fast and i haven't even used it yet. Wheres the pay off?
Yesterday, 10/13/2014 after god knows how much money i spent, lets say $800 it was installed. I was covered in ashes, blood everywhere and my right arm has still zero feeling. I broke about 20 drill bits because i swear to god the stainless steel was just not having it. I dropped my F'n drill ALL the way down the chimney for the oil burner and luckily, thank god, it was in the clean out in my basement. I was scared shit-less on that one. As i'm on the roof, standing there, shaking my head, i'm like, I'm not going to burn my house down with this wood stove i'm putting in.... i'm going to burn my house down because i got my damn drill stuck in the chimney where the boiler is.
So when i first bought it, got it home, measured it, i quickly realized this thing isn't going to fit in our chimney. like off by 2 inches. So great, now i need to find smaller legs or cut these ones. Well i found smaller legs but now the screws don't fit and there a totally different green. Why is everything i thought was going to work out perfectly all coming to shit on the day i'm installing it?!!! Anyways, run to home depot, get new screws, continue the installation. Claire and i somehow got this thing inside, right up to the chimney and BAM... problem #436789 happens. The damn Tee connection was to big and it was going to put the stove in the middle of the living room. At this point, i was like a quit, its 8:15 PM this isn't happening tonight. Then i remember the guy that sold me the stove gave me a 90 degree elbow. So i ran into the garage, fit that on and put the stove in place. it was done! all hooked up, ready to light a fire! Claire ran and got some logs, and paper. I got the light and started. The draft was so big that it kept the fire from lighting. How depressing! all god damn day, at the finish line and i have no idea what im doing! i can't even light a fire ! Well that's just how the stove works. I ended up pushing the wood further back and got it to light. Finally ! a fire in the Jotul.
started the fire at 9PM, took a shower that resulted in just black ash water, sat down and watched boardwalk empire. within that time, i put 3 logs on, got the stove semi hot and bam.... time for bed. The house was around 61 degrees when i started and ended up at 66 within an hour. it was impressive, a slow burning wood stove that pumped out alot of heat. i was impressed with myself again, and happy to make Claire happy with being able to have a house warmer than 66 degrees. This winter she will be one happy camper that's for sure!
Here's my last shitty kicker to end the blog. Last night we are laying in bed, she goes.... well it was still only 66 degrees that's not warm enough i'm still cold. I go well we only had it light for an hour and barely got it to heat up. When you have it on for lets say a couple hours there would be a big difference. I said ill show you tomorrow when i get home ill light a fire and will get it going all night. Wake up this morning....Weather for the week is all in the mid 70's. Mid 60's at night. NO NEED FOR A DAMN STOVE NOW !!!! WTF !
She need's a cleaning but it's really a GEM. What's really cool about this stove is that it has this Norwegian pray on it that says " I build me a flame late one night. When day is done, God will my flame never die out" I love this thing. Its 35 years old and still has parts available for it still today. Now that's a keeper. also...for insurance purposes.... It IS UL approved. #Winnnnnnninggg
Thanks for checking out my terrible grammar in this weird ass blog of my life
Dave
Oh yeah....i had to cut out a massive section of the metal fireplace dampner to get the rest of the liner into the house.....that was fun too NOT !
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