I fitted a Squirrel in a 1930''s Showmans Wagon. It was recommended by a Narrow Boat builder. The control from the air vent system is excellent, what ever fuel I am burning. I burn wood and
sometimes coal for overnight. In the Winter when it was -4 I had to open the door of the Wagon as I was too hot!!I can control it so efficiently that I can cook either in it or on it !! I absolutely love it !! Its pretty too !! I have bought the water boiler to go in it but its not fitted yet. I am now looking at another Morso for another project, I like the build quality and I am reluctant to go to another make after being so impressed with the Squirrel !!!
Stove expert replied:
Do bear in mind that once the boiler is added the room heat will be reduced! Good review
For many years in my kitchen/dining room I've had a free standing Aga Rembrandt open fireplace. It's a great unit for what it is, but I became increasingly curious to try out a closed stove
to see if the seemingly wild claims about their superior efficiency and output were true.
I've always loved the ambience of open fires, and always lived in houses that have them, but have never experienced living with a stove. I was unsure how the ambience would compare to my open fire, and didn't want to drop £2k on a new stove plus installation for something I only wanted to trial. So, I got a second hand Squirrel on ebay, with minor damage, for £165, repaired and installed it myself, at a cost of another £100 or so.
The fireplace was rated at around 3.5Kw and and 37% efficiency, the Squirrel at 4.5kWm and 75% or so. So I should be able to get slightly more heat from about half the amount of fuel.
I'd say that this is about right - I'm using far less fuel, and getting more heat from the unit than I did from the Rembrandt. Claims of stoves being 7 or 8 times as efficient as open fires are wildly misleading and are bound to lead to disappointment: 2/3 times as effective would be about right.
It seems that you don't get as intense a radiant heat from a stove as you do from an open fire, but you get a more gentle, gradual and consistent heat from it.
The squirrel looks great in our fireplace recess, and the retro chunky industrial sort of look suits the room perfectly. My only complaint with the aesthetics would be that the fire window could do with being bigger.
The stove is very easy to light, and my (unlined) chimney draws very well indeed. Been burning a mixture of dry wood and smokeless coal and can keep the stove in for 14 hours a day on a relatively small amount of fuel.
I find the stove does need a fair amount of adjustment for an optimal burn - when refuelling, the controls need adjusting to allow the wood to catch, then they need adjusting again after 10 mins or so.
I enjoy the controllability though, and it allows a high degree of temperature regulation - this weekend for example I kept the stove at around 120C (according to the flue pipe thermometer), which was sufficient to keep the house warm and prevent the central heating from coming on. On a colder day, I'd need to run the stove hotter (but consume fuel faster).
I've learnt that the final hour before going to bed requires no refuelling - I just open the vents fully to fiercely burn away all the ash and embers that have built up over the day. Not tried overnight burning, and don't think I will.
So the stove has passed its trial - I'm going to keep it, and maybe line my chimney in the summer. The extra heat, controllability, convenience, efficiency and tidiness are well worth the slight decrease in ambience. This unit seems like a well built workhorse.
The only issue that the stove has created is that the humidity of the house drops significantly when the unit has been on for a few hours - down below 30%, which is rather low , so I need to look at ways to introduce some humidity into the air (not a problem I ever thought I'd have!)
Stove expert replied:
nMorso have a known good quality in the industry. As stated a good workhorse. Control is easy and heat generated for the stove size very good. Airwash works well and as with all stoves the quality of fuel makes all the difference.
Bought the Morso Squirrel 1412, but chose the version with fluted sides as the Squirrel sides were a little too twee for our tastes. Lights really easy with both vents open and door slightly
ajar. Once you have a good flame going close door and allow to heat up then close vent. We use both logs and coal we tend to start with logs to get stove up to temperature then use anthracite coal to maintain heat. The heat this little stove puts out is unbelievable, we have recently made our downstairs open plan it heats 5.5metre by 5metre room, and to be honest the heat radiates around all rooms in the house. The central heating rarely kicks in. Two things could be improved though, the riddling knob to clear bottom tray regularly jams if you use coal. Secondly as supplied Morso do not supply adjustable feet to any of there stoves. Our surround base is slightly uneven so legs have to be packed up, it would have been simple at very little cost to put adjustable feet to all legs. All in all though an excellent stove
The Morso Squirrel is good at burning wood, and also very good at burning anthracite coal, Morso sell a Morso coal inserts which let you burn the anthracite coal better, you can fill up the
stove, and it will burn 10- 12 hours. Anthracite coal is clean burning no smoke it better than wood, its the best stove for the money.
Just had our squirrel installed 3 weeks ago, previously had a very inefficient open fire in the living room of our 3 bedroomed stone cottage. The stove is wonderful the house is warm & the living
room no longer draughty. We have gas central heating which hasn't been used since we got the stove. Its easy & quick to light. So pleased with it as are our dogs !!
We've had our Morso for over a year now and its the best investment we have made. Excellent little stove which lights first time, burns well and keeps our 3 bed house toasty. We have gas heating
and it hardly gets used now, so saving a fortune in gas. Build quality of morso is fabulous. We have had no problems at all with it and would recommend.
We've only owned the stove for about a week but already the central heating is refusing to come on! Overall we are hugely impressed but the stove does take some time to learn how to use effectively
:1. Don't expect a roaring fire on your first attempt. It took us 3 or 4 smaller fires to build a decent bed of ash.2. You need to get the fire really hot before you start chucking larger logs on - build it up gradually. If you add a log too soon, it will merely smoulder and blacken the glass.3. We are using kiln dried ash logs but have found that if they are split to about 6 x 6 cm they ignite sooner and burn much better. 4. We are using an ecofan to help circulate the warm air round our large lounge (26' x 13' x 8.5')In conclusion, the fire is easy to start (with a good ash bed), burns wood brilliantly, once you've experimented, and heats a large lounge more than adequately (with door to the room fully open!). In fact, I can't sit within 6 feet of the thing!! Hugely happy with our purchase and would thoroughly recommend.
We inherited the Morso with the house. It is in the kitchen - 20 foot by 16 but vaulted, so a big area for such a small stove to warm. This was our first experience of a woodburner so it has
taken a while to get used to it. It is Ok but smokes a fair bit on starting until the chimney gets warm. The airwash system is primitive and doesn't really work that well, but you really do need well-seasoned hardwood logs (we don't use solid fuels). One year isn't really enough - two years will be better. It really makes a difference. The main thing that has helped is a stove-top fan. We were sceptical at first but they really work and the Squirrel performs better than its size suggest it can. In summary, it's a nice stove, but I think you can buy better (and cheaper). We are now fitting a Little Wenlock and the Intrepid II in two more downstairs rooms so with all 3 hope to avoid the need to use the outrageously expensive oil-fired CH!
I purchased this stove after carefully reading all the reviews on this site. I have not had a woodburner, so was sailing blind. I looked around at many makes of stove but Morso felt much better
built, extra pennies well spent in the long run. Everything is solid, fire very easy to light.(not had one failed attempt!)Easy to clean/empty. Stays in all night with just a good handful of anthracite lumps. Have changed to hardwood now and its still fabulous. Very easy to control too. There is not one bad point about it. I would recommend this stove and I would buy another. The airwash, glass does get sooty very quickly and I do clean it every few days, but as I said I'm new to this, so it's probably operator error. I have a 10 x 12 lounge and it heats it very quickly from cold and soon I'm opening the door to another room. This stove lives at a smallish cottage and with all the down stairs doors open it makes it comfortable, without other heat forms. Looks good too! I trawled the internet and got a good deal to boot! Roll on snow....
Stove expert replied:
Sounds like this is heating the whole downstairs which can be bad for one stove and the money invested.
Fantastic stove, really belted out the heat when required and yet was easy to tone down and keep ticking over.
Lovely looking too, and really solid.
Ash pan a bit flimsy, but that is really
nit picking, a very minor gripe. In fairness it did take over 10 years to start rusting out!
Really good value - great build quality, very controllable, sensible price. So good we bought another one when we moved!
