Any tips on Morso 1BO? & coals management Q

[Tender]

Hi Everyone - I'm new to the forums. This is the first year I'm running a vintage (~1976) Morso 1B. Here's the good news: I've got a great load of seasoned hardwood, I'm going through about 10-12 pieces of wood a day, and I'm able to start the fire in the morning from last night's coals. But I'm wondering if anyone has any tips or advice for me. I'm especially wondering if there's a better way for me to manage the hardwood coals and clean out.

I've been playing around with how much wood, when. It seems like it really helps to fill the stove and run it hot in the morning and at night. During the day, I've tried putting in one more full load and then topping it up and it doesn't seem to be as good as adding a couple of logs a couple of times, but the difference is minimal.

The manual says "the 1B will hold coals overnight for easy fire-building the next morning if the draft control is closed completely." That's kind of the opposite of what I'm doing, and would mean not putting in that last big load before going to sleep. I have to admit I haven't tried it...what do you guys think?

Also, the coals. I've had to clean out the stove every two weeks or so, and I've just let the coals burn out and down completely, as the lip isn't very big to hold them in. But when the stove is going for days on end, sometimes large hardwood coals pile up hot and I'm not sure if there's something I should be doing to keep a nicer, smaller bed. Any and all advice is appreciated.

 

[begreen]

The fire is going to go through several stages. The first is ignition/warmup, the second stage will be intense outgassing of the wood in which secondary combustion will occur. The old Morso has a simple form of this. The next stage is heavy coaling where the wood is fully charred and no longer emitting wood gases, and the last stage is coal burn down. For an overnight fire load the stove up and take it through stage 1, then turn down the air to where the wood is burning but not raging like a blowtorch, then as the fire slows dow and approaches stage 3, close down the air.

When there is a large coal bed that you want to burn down just open up the air to accelerate the burn down. If you need some more heat while burning the coals down put a 2" piece of wood on the hot coals.

 

[Tender]

This is so helpful -- thanks for your clear explanation and for answering the questions I didn't even ask, but could have.

I want to make sure I understand what you're saying about the mystifying "outgassing" that I read about in the manual (this was going to be my next post) and I was wondering if you had thoughts on my stovepipe set up, when you have time.

I have an 8" stovepipe with a damper, which I was able to buy off the shelf, instead of the 5" pipe the manual recommends. Do you think it's worth getting a 5" stovepipe made? I've been turning the damper a little bit when I think the wood is done outgassing (which I think I misunderstood) but maybe this isn't the best approach. It seems to regulate the fire better, but it may just be a cruder tool than the air inlet that I haven't mastered yet. Do you think it would be better to leave the damper all the way open even with this larger stovepipe and use the air inlet in the front exclusively? And with my setup, do you think I should worry about backdraft if I leave the damper all the way open and close the air inlet completely when I approach stage 3? The dreaded carbon monoxide issue had me worried, especially when I saw how the gasses flow out of the stove arch into the room.

I re-read the manual over the weekend and was left bewildered by this mysterious "outgassing," as I've had no clue how to recognize it until you talked about it. Sometimes there's some smoke when the logs ignite, and first I thought that was it, but it seemed from the way the manual talked about it (and the way you have), that the outgassing is more than that. It sounds like you're saying that the outgassing happens until there's a char on the outside of the log, and I should keep the air inlet fully open until that happens. Have I got that right?

Thanks again for your help and guidance. I also really appreciate the advice about how to deal with the coals. That's a great solution that makes total sense. I hadn't thought about adding a small piece of wood while the coals burn down, to add a little heat and still get to ash. Ingenious.

 

[begreen]

Backdraft could be a serious situation and 8" pipe is very large for this stove. Can you describe the entire flue system, from stove to chimney cap, in detail? Include any turns, and full details on the chimney.

 

[Tender]

Oh dear, I see I wrote 8" but I meant to say 6". I'm sorry I didn't catch that before posting and thanks for following up on this. I've attached some photos of my setup. The Morso was moved here to take the place of a Godin coal stove, and the stove pipe was taken from that setup and altered slightly to fit the new run. The stove vents into a straight run interior brick chimney with stainless liner and standard issue $30 galvanized chimney cap (I can't take a photo of the chimney from the outside now since it's dark outside). The first photo shows one view of the pipe and the clean out on the chimney (and my soapstone bed warmers which are great). The straight run of pipe measures 29". I've also included a photo to show how much I'm closing the damper that seems to give me a better running stove, not sure why or whether I'm still not doing something optimally here in terms of burning but I've tried it both ways now and this seems to make the wood burn better and makes the stove hotter. That made me question whether my pipe was too large but it's only an inch in diameter larger than they recommend (of course, that's a diameter so overall there's a lot more area). I should also mention that the pictures show some foreshortening of things, so eagle eye forum members may be worried, but my cat's bed on top of the washer and the pieces of wood on the floor really are over 3' from the stove...

 

[begreen]

6" flue is fine, no need to change that.

 

[Tender]

Thanks for taking a look. That's good news.