Firewood buyer needs advice....

[Alycidon]

57 minutes ago, SbTVF said:

 

You learn something new every day! Never had any issues with big pieces in my Charnwood c4 though I have to say.

 

I get called out regularly to diagnose and rectify poor stove performance.  Usually its wet wood,  some times oversized logs which I demonstrate but splitting them down further and burning them in the customers stove, sometimes its both.  Its not often that its a stove fault.

 

The issue here is the the OP is a novice as at some point we have all been, he has bounced stove options around Green Living Forum ( to which I no longer contribute) he settled on a Morso 1412 which is a very robust stove and will serve him well providing he keeps the water out.  Oversize logs will lead to poor performance and low temps,  thus water vapour in the logs condenses in the flue liner and runs back into the stove where it sets up rust. The rust will kill the stove in 4 - 7 years which is a shame as a Morso will if looked after last 30 years plus.    Think he was planning to buy the stove on line rather than from his local Morso dealer which has issues as most are grey imports with no warranty cover.  Assuming he went that way he will have had no assistance at all from the stove seller as he would if he paid a bit more and used his local Morso dealer. who knows the area and teh local log suppliers.    According to GLF he posts he has now bought some KD logs on line.    In fact Morso themselves have a promotion on their KD Birch at present at £140 delivered for a crate,  and its very very dry.  

 

Hopefully he should now be sorted and enjoying his stove.

 

A

[Superdon]

Thanks all, not had much time this last couple of days with the stove install. I'll carry on trying to ID the logs over the next couple of weeks as I restack them and burn them.

 

Alicydon. Yes, had the 1412 installed the last couple of days. Bought it from a local dealer in the end who beat the best online price I could find, a great deal in the end and much less than the RRP. So i get the cheaper price and the full warranty (already registered with Morso UK). Also got some Morso fore tools chucked in the deal. 

 

As for the wood, I went with a local ish supplier in the end and I am really pleased so far. I did look at the crates from Morso too.

 

Thanks for your advice on using the stove. Going to have a couple of small kindling fires tomorrow and then a bigger fire in the evening. Plastering isn't being done until the weekend, so don't have to wait for that to dry yet. 

[Steven P]

Start with a few kindling fires? I suppose I am impatient - I had small fires in before the stove went in on the concrete slab and then went full on fire when the stove was installed

 

Its a good learning experience seeing how your stove and chimney work togther, enjoy it!

 

As for the wood types... don't get too hung up about it unless you are offered different types for similar prices.

 

Axes - I have a £10 hand axe / hatchet from B$Q for kindling - never been sharpened in 5 years but will split a dry log well enough (maybe its learning where to hit a log to get it to split the best you don't need the best for making kindling), and then for bigger stuff a free axe that we confiscated from a couple of vandal / thief types. This will happily split 12" - 18" diameter logs . I tried a maul but never got on with it. Point is, oftentechnique is going to do just as well for you as an expensive axe will

[aesmith]

Good stuff.  We have a Morso 1410 in one of the living rooms, and had a Morso 1430 in our last house.  Both great stoves, I think I prefer the basic 1410 and we're considering getting another one for the other room to replace what's there.  Our stove(s) definitely work better with several smaller logs, rather than fewer big ones.    All our wood is hand split, and I just use a normal felling axe rather than a special splitting one.  You need a decent chopping block as well.

[Woodworks]

On 1/25/2018 at 21:49, Alycidon said:

oversize lumps in a stove will cause a lack of turbulance within the stove and the stove going out.     With a wedge shaped log aim for no more than 200mm at the wide end. 

That big? I thought one of the schemes required no split dimension greater than 150mm/6"

 

Might have been Woodsure but I see they now charge to find out what the spec is https://shop.bsigroup.com/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000030244613

 

We aim for nothing bigger than 6" but not sure where I picked that up from.

Edited January 27, 2018 by Woodworks

[Gary Prentice]

BSI have always charged. ( a lot)

[Woodworks]

28 minutes ago, Gary Prentice said:

BSI have always charged. ( a lot)

One of the schemes used to let you know what the criteria was. Think we got lots of info at the Confor show one year. Moisture content, length in relation to advertised size and split dimensions required all freely available at the time. Never worried as we complied with most of it but I did take in the bit about nothing split larger than 6" as I was not fussy about this element at the time.

 

We never signed up as being a small supplier the cost of being accredited was far more than any extra we might have been able to charge. 

[Alycidon]

1 hour ago, Gary Prentice said:

BSI have always charged. ( a lot)

I aim for a wedge zero at the pointed edge and no more than 200mm at the wide end,   so that gives an average diameter of no more than 100mm,      given a round piece of timber 150mm dia I would split 2 ways,  200mm round 4 ways in my small processor.   

 

A

Edited January 27, 2018 by Alycidon

[mixedangased]

On 20/01/2018 at 21:39, ash_smith123 said:

The “loose cubic metre” that is quoted on the imported national companies websites are completely wrong. 

We bought a couple of pallets off a few of them years ago to find out what they equates to and they are all Massively optimistic! One quoted 3.6 loose cubic metres and we got 1.6/1.7 out of it. I also emailed them all to tell them, obviously fell on deaf ears! 

Yep the small crate you are lucky to get 1.2 cube loose out of !