WhatStove?

Review of Jotul F 100

Worst. Stove. Ever.

Michele Sullivan 11 years ago

I am EXTREMELY UNHAPPY with my new F100 wood stove. I bought it without reading reviews because I had heard nothing but good things about this company-and now I wish I had bought ANYTHING other than this stove.

I have heated with wood for 30 years and I have NEVER encountered a stove that is so temperamental. It does not draw worth a d**n. This makes it unbelievably difficult to get a good fire going, and very hard to keep it going - and almost every time I open the door -even if the damper if fully open - the smoke backs up. Yesterday I fed this thing a big pile of dry kindling to even get it started, and still had to wait several hours and keep messing with it before it warmed up enough to begin spinning the Ecofan on top. Even if I have the draft wide open and the door cracked it does not draw. Yesterday I had to actually burn with the door open in order to get any kind of good fire going.

My Jotul dealer installed this and has no explanation of why it performs so poorly. He said he contacted Jotul and was told it was a problem with the user and poor-quality wood.

Again-I have heated with wood for 30 years, in all kinds of weather, with wood wet and dry, green and cured, and never had a problem like this. I can only put it down to some weird design flaw.

I've now looked at online reviews and it seems this is a VERY common complaint with this model. I am thinking about returning it and getting something that actually functions.

I would love to box it up and ship it right back to Jotul and get my nearly £1,000 back- I view the purchase as a waste of money.

I would advise anyone looking for a small stove to avoid the f100. If you're going to get it, make sure you have a mountain of finely split BONE-DRY kindling and that you can sit in front of the stove and babysit it to get any kind of halfway decent performance.

UNLIKE! Why doesn't the company redesign this thing so it performs?

Stove expert replied: Smoke coming back into the room needs to be investigated further as the draw is obviously too poor to lift the gases away from the stove. Contact a flue specialist to rectify this and you may find the perfomance improves.

Overall rating:

2 flames

Build Quality 5 flames (avg 4.7)
Quality of finish 5 flames (avg 4.8)
Value for money 1 flames (avg 4.1)
Ease of use 1 flames (avg 4.2)
Ease of lighting 1 flames (avg 4)
Firebox size 1 flames (avg 4)
How well does the airwash work 1 flames (avg 4.3)
Controllability 1 flames (avg 4.3)
Handle operation 4 flames (avg 4.7)
How likely are you to buy it again? 1 flames (avg 4.2)
What is your overall satisfaction? 1 flames (avg 4)