A burn time / ember question

I think you are going to find both stoves burn the same. It appears that Morso is doing a little CYA plus seeing the glass half empty whereas your Jotul rep sees it more half full.

I burn my Morso all night, every night. Guess I'm breaking the rules. :lol:

AngusMac said:

Hi Wendell,
does your Morso have enough embers the next day to re light a log?

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No, at least I've never even thought about trying. When I get downstairs in the morning I just open the door, run a poker through the ash to get it to drop down into the pan, pull the pan and step out the door to dump it, put it back in, pull the coals into a pile, lay down some kindling and then some smaller splits and then some bigger splits, give the glass a quick wipe with a wet paper towel to remove the little bit of white haze that formed over night, close the door so it is just cracked open, let the fire establish and close the door and adjust the air as soon as it is ready.

We have a Jotul 600 that we bought used ($1,700, Ebay item, located less than 100 miles from home) last January. As it turned out last February was the worst winter we've had after 35 years in this house. Prior to it we had and old (pre-EPA) Earth Stove that would burn anything we could fit in its monster firebox. Our wood was not well seasoned, less than a year down in some cases.

The Jotul is a wonder. Yes, it will burn overnight (closed damper) with no problem and yes, you can fire it right up in the morning without much fuss. My morning routine is somewhat similar to an earlier poster's, let me detail it here. First off I don't stay up all that late so the last time the stove sees wood is around 11:00 or so. Although the firebox accepts 24" splits (from the side door, the front doors are more or less worthless) we cut our wood closer to 18" long split to about 5~6" widths. In the mornings (usually around 6:30~7:00) I will stir the ashes so they drop down into the pan (which I empty every 2nd or 3rd day),push the remaining coals to the center of the box, slip in a couple of smaller splits - not kindling, just smaller pieces - open up the damper, and take care of other morning business. When I get back its lit up and I turn the damper down to about half way where it sits there and idles all day with a top-of-stove temperature of 450~500 F.

As best I can judge it our wood consumption rate went down by about 25% with the Jotul in comparison to the Earth Stove. We have year and a half old seasoned wood this year, 10 cords stacked and covered just waiting for the cool weather to arrive. Our wood is primarily White Oak and Maple with a good bit of Elm tossed in for our splitting pleasure. Our home is right at 2000 square feet on two levels, not well insulated at all and will poor air flow from lower level to upper but the stove does a good job of heating it all. We also have oil-fired baseboard hot water heat as backup and went through less than 100 gallons of fuel last winter.

AngusMac said:

I would be interested to know if theres Dutch elm disease in America ??

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Yup, there certainly is. In some parts the elm has been gone for a long time, in others it's just now dying in large numbers (from what I hear).

Our Elm in Iowa has been gone for over 20 years. :long: