Hello and IS ordered

Doing my research on a new stove brought me here!!! I live in the city but am a country boy at heart. My wife and I decided on a new Ideal Steel. We went with the works and am getting:
Charcoal Grey box with moss green accents
Ash pan!!!
Tree of Life andirons
Tree and syrup buckets for side burners (in moss green)
We will have them design a Celtic cross for the side medallion and center burner.

I am replacing a Lopi- model unknown. It was given to us for free and full of rust. After a few years the top angle iron that holds the fire brick baffles have warped and rusted off. The door is also loose. We decided to get a new one for the fuel efficiency. We have already had a few fires after rigging up the firebricks on top again and fiddling with the door (it took some mapp gas and a pair of channel locks.) I will be looking forward to sleeping all night instead of getting up during to feed the fire so it doesn't go out (even when she is shut down).

We should take delivery of our new stove in December.
My chainsaw is the Stihl 460 or 440 magnum.
My splitter is a 8.5 lb splitting maul and 12 lb sledge.
We have access to a farm about 40 minutes away where we are allowed to cut down all the dead ash.

Have a great day.

 

Welcome to the site Coach, Your research should serve you well

 

Welcome to FHC. Want to see a lot of pics of these stoves!

 

Hey Coach, welcome aboard.
Unwritten rule......we require pics, or it didn't happen.
How's your firewood supply, and what do you burn?
You picked a great stove. Had one in my sights, but it wasn't to be.
Quite a few new installs and pending installs of that stove here.

 

No pics of the IS yet, but maybe when I install it when it arrives in December. I am burning mostly ash. I normally cut it down from dead standing on a farm about 40 minutes from me. Been doing that the past couple of years. I will need to get a couple of years ahead it sounds like, instead of cutting once a month and chopping as I need it. Since I live in the city, I don't have much room for a few cords seasoning for a year or two. I think we burn around 4-6 cords of wood a year. Looking to reduce that with the new stove.
Thanks for the welcome.

 

Yeah, we'll wait.
You should find the new stove prefers dry wood. Ash is good, dead standing Ash is gooder. Evidently, I missed the last line in your first post about burning Ash.
Some of these guys/gals get pretty creative when stacking wood.
Once I got my old stove fixed and burning better, I no longer had to get up in the middle of the night for reloads.
Now that I have my new stove, I'm hoping for long burns and less usage. I can already tell the new stove burns much cleaner than the old one.
We moved up here from the downriver area and lived in the Detroit area most of my life. Get out while you can.

 

Buy yourself a cheap moisture meter, some dead Ash will be fine when you cut some will not.

 

Welcome to the forum, Coach. Nice design ideas, looking forward to seeing pics! (My son wanted the Jerusalem cross on our production model side medallion, but my wife and daughter won out with the Fleur de lis design.)

 

Welcome to the site, Coach. My IS is waiting for install in 5 days. Yours will be another good-looking efficient heater. Will post pics and hope that you do too.

 

Thanks for the welcome, all.

Papadave:
I've been hunting up near Atlanta, the family has some pics of Elk just outside the hunting trailer!
I am nearer Ann Arbor than Detroit, but our city is a small village and only a few minutes drive to the country.

Raybonz:
I am really looking forward to fuel efficiency! It takes a lot of time to process the wood especially getting it! Time is precious with a full time job two small children, a second part-time job and part time school (seminary). The Mrs. works part time as well. The new stove efficiency is the driving factor on buying new instead of having a welder come in to fix our current stove.

 

[QUOTE="papadave, post: 165744, member: 37"We moved up here from the downriver area and lived in the Detroit area most of my life. Get out while you can.[/QUOTE]
Hard to put a price on peace of mind. What I can tell you is that unhealthy stress is directly responsible for many of the diseases we have. Need to get a balance on what makes your life comfortable without living in a stressful environment.
No one should live like rats in a cage.

 

Coach, not to get too sidetracked, but I have a brother who lives in AA.
Darn near ran into a small herd of Elk crossing M32 last year when we were heading toward Gaylord about 5 miles out of town. I don't think they were headed to Gaylord.
Larry, my wife and I have said for many years that stress presents itself in many ways. Just a few examples.

 

Where do you live, Coach? I'm outside of Milan.

 

Hey Coach, welcome. Great choice on a WS stove, myself and a few posters on this thread are also IS owners. You have come to the right place to share info on this stove. We have a couple of lengthy threads currently running right now, you may want to catch a read on those before you take delivery. Any other questions, ask away.

 

Coach, here's a few to keep you busy for a minute or two ....................http://firewoodhoardersclub.com/forums/index.php?search/169617/&q=woodstock IS&o=date&c[node]=12

 

Welcome to the club coach! Great place to be, with some really nice folks who love to talk about wood and fires.

Ash sounds like a great choice for your situation with limited storage. Standing dead ash should be plenty dry in a year, especially if it gets some sun. Try to stack N/S if you can, I've found that my south facing stacks dry the quickest.

I've been looking at getting a modern cat stove, and I really like the IS too. Sounds like you chose a pretty cool design combo. For me, the Lopi Cape Cod is probably edging it out slightly on looks and emissions, but I like the price of the IS a whole lot better.

 

Uh, wrong AA Ray.

 

Yessir, that's a cardinal sin around here, and you don't want to get banned. Seriously, welcome Coach and you're gonna love how long the new stoves burn on a load of wood. Like papadave said, there are ways to store more wood. But with the new stove you won't have to store as much.