Morso 1b0 -- wood choices...

[tinker]

I've lived in homes with open fireplaces for nearly all my life.
We relocated to a ranch in spring, and we're running our Morso 1b0 stove for heat.
This year is my first time running a stove as my primary heat source, and it's working great so far.

As I'm getting the hang of properly running this stove, I'm also pretty conscious of my burn rate.
We've run a cord and a half of black walnut through the box, and I'm looking to re-stock the wood pile.
When is a hardwood just a hardwood, and/or are there species of woods that work better in wood stoves than others?

I'm seeing good prices on almond and juniper, thinking of giving something besides walnut a shot.
What are you burning and why?






Cheers
Tinker

 

[firefighterjake]

As a general rule of thumb . . . and this is going back to my 7th grade shop class back in the mid 1980s . . . hardwood tree species are deciduous -- meaning they have leafs and lose them . . . think oak, maple, black walnut, etc.

Softwood as a rule are evergreens -- they generally have needles and do not lose them all at once . . . think pine, hemlock, fir, etc.

That said . . . there are some evergreens that are harder or more dense than some hardwoods and some hardwood species that are softer or less dense than softwood. For example, around here poplar and baswood are two examples of "soft" hardwoods -- they will burn once seasoned . . . but they do not tend to produce as many BTUs or last as long as a denser hardwood such as locust, oak or sugar maple.

You've gotta burn what you got in the area and what is available to you . . . obviously Maine is quite a bit different than northern Nevada so I could suggest what species are more desirable here . . . but it may not really help you . . . perhaps some folks from your neck of the woods will come along and suggest some good tree species in terms of BTUs.

 

[Wood Duck]

I'd get a mix of wood types. I like to burn my best hardwoods - oak and hickory are the best I have - at night for longer burns. I find lighter woods like Red Maple, pine, or hemlock are great for daytime burns when reloading is not a problem. Any wood will work as long as it is nice and dry, which shouldn't be a problem in Nevada.

 

[bboulier]

The following site from the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory gives information on characteristics of a variety of woods (e.g., splittability, aroma, btu content, etc.): http://mb-soft.com/juca/print/firewood.html

 

[Rob From Wisconsin]

The best wood is free wood, that is properly seasoned.
You'll be surprised how many "veterans" on this site
totally heat w/ softer woods, because that's what is
readily available to them.

On another note,
Do you have any pictures of your Morso??
I believe that is the long, skinny unit that
has the interesting exhaust baffle??
How long are your burn times on this unit??

 

[tinker]

Thanks!


Here's a photo of our stove, as I placed it on the platform the day we got it.

Here are a couple shots from (someone else's 1B0) elsewhere on this site, showing the 'front' and 'back' of the unit.

Morso considers the narrow face with the door the front.
We're running ours broadside, as we like the design and prefer to show it's features off that way, also our place already had a ceiling box and exterior flue pipe installed in the perfect position for this orientation.


I've been running black walnut, and I just got another cord of it for the time being.
It starts easily, burns nicely and consistently, coals well, and in this stove I don't end up with yards and yards of ash.
This all and I like the way it smells outside while I'm out there working on the ranch.

I'll take the 'free softwood' comments/suggestions to heart.
I have plenty of sources for that kind of thing, and as we get into spring I'll be doing some facility development here to include a fuel wood shelter.
The linked page with wood species/burn characteristics is great! Big thanks for that little tid-bit!


This stove is really amazing.
We've had single-digit weather and plenty of snow already this winter, with weeks in the tens-low teens.
On one 4degF morning I decided to see just how well we could do with this stove, and got our 2Ksq/ft house up to 84degF inside with the Morso as the sole heat source.
I tend to maintain the house temp in the 65degF neighborhood, and that's cozy for us and easy with the stove.
More heat is just a twist of the door-vent away...
We use ceiling fans for air-change and circulation.

I can easily get 4-5 hours between maintenance, and typically re-load the firebox at around 10:00pm-11:00pm and forget it until 7:00am where there's always a warm box and sufficient coal-bed for a quick restart in the morning.
With the black walnut all I need to do is rake coals to the edge of the door line, place the knife-edge side of a split piece of wood into the coals (and others around it if that's what I want...) near the vent, and close the door with the vent open.
I get fire in a minute or so.

We've left the house for a day and returned to enough cinders in the box to get a fire going on a small bit of kindling.






Cheers
Tinker

 

[Big Al]

The best wood is free wood, that is properly seasoned.

You folks in Wisconson have got it made. We can't even buy properly seasoned wood, never mind getting it for free. ;-)

 

[Rob From Wisconsin]

The best wood is free wood, that is properly seasoned.

You folks in Wisconson have got it made. We can't even buy properly seasoned wood, never mind getting it for free. ;-)

Unfortunately, my wood is not totally free either - I've got pretty high property taxes on our 23 acres