The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Jotul F 602: Small stove for a small house

Jotul F 602 clearancesAs you've all probably figured out by now, we opted for the Jotul F 602 wood stove.  Although the princess seemed tiny as we drove her home, staggering down the hallway with her 160 pound weight seemed to swell her ego and she looked larger the closer she got to her alcove.

I'm very glad we opted for one of the smallest stoves out there, because the required clearances for even the tiny Jotul F 602 are pretty extreme --- 21 inches on each side, 13.5 inches off the back (18 inches if you use single walled stove pipe), and then an 18 inch hearth off the front.  Assuming you send the stove pipe straight up rather than out the back, that's a 21 square foot area taken up by our little darling.

Luckily, there are ways to safely lessen your clearances --- a heat shield on the back of the wood stove, heat shields on the walls, and double walled stove pipe.  We didn't opt to use every one of these features, but if we had, we could have lowered the princess's Strider sniffing the princessfootprint to 11 square feet.  The heat shields on the walls felt like enough for us since they can be homemade and will cut down the huge side clearances to a mere 13 inches.

We probably won't slide her into her new home until around Thanksgiving since we still need to finish the inside of the alcove, but the princess already has a place of honor in our living room.  Both cats have even hopped inside and proclaimed her worthy.  (This is Strider, who is such a shy cat he even hides his face in photos.)

Our homemade chicken waterer makes a great gift for the backyard chicken-keeper on your list.


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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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Great things come in small packages. Hope it keeps you warm all winter. You might want to consider getting a fan to blow the heat further throughout the trailer.
Comment by Sheila Sun Nov 21 22:49:24 2010
We're actually wiring the alcove to have an outlet right beside it to make it easy to suspend a fan at the opening. Mark loves his fans!
Comment by anna Mon Nov 22 12:14:36 2010
Interesting. A few months ago, my daughter picked up a kitten at the pound who looks a lot like Strider. During his stay at the pound, the staff had named him Stryder.
Comment by Randall Mon Nov 22 13:08:28 2010
That is extremely odd! We named Strider after the character in the Fellowship of the Ring since he walked half a mile and found a way across a flooded creek to show up in our barn. I suspect that since the books got turned into movies, the name is more in the popular consciousness than normal right now.
Comment by anna Mon Nov 22 19:29:16 2010
I found this post by a link in your current frost post. Very timely since I have started looking into the possibility of getting a small wood stove to offset the heating price. While we will likely get a slightly larger stove, you've given some good info on reducing the footprint. Space is always an issue, isn't it?
Comment by Greg S Tue Oct 4 09:30:35 2011
You might be interested in a couple of posts I made while I was in the research phases: Smallest wood stoves and Choosing an efficient wood stove. Sizing the stove to fit the square footage of your house is essential!
Comment by anna Tue Oct 4 12:57:08 2011

Thanks for the article however just wanted to pick you up on the clearances your have detailed. The 21 inches either side is only for required if the walls are if the walls are combustible otherwise only 10 inches are required either side.

See the Jotul site for full spec's

Comment by rob Thu Oct 15 08:15:43 2015





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