Ideal Steel Season #2 Tips, Tricks, and Improvements.

On a 1 month old stove, I would have hoped it would last a bit longer with the shield in place.

 

That's when the cat runs the hottest.

 

I'm starting to think that these stoves really don't save on wood use. They really extend shoulder season. I'm finding myself making fires and running in cat only mode where I would normally let the furnace run. A tube stove would run me out or I'd have to make a fire and let it go out. Got it going with some soft maple and I'm running with a dark firebox right now.

 

I know.. I'm doing the same with Absolute Steel I'm burning. I filled it up last night, about 10PM before I turned in for the night, and set the draft at slightly under 1. Just went downstairs as it is grey 42'F and overcast here today. Lot's of coals 12 hours later, so I raked them together and loaded the box and am continuing to burn wood. It did occur to me that it might actually be cheaper at this point to save my wood and burn my oil for the little heat I need, but hey it's fun burning the wood!

 

Cheap, quick easy way to make sure your EPA hole is clean and clear of ash. It's a plain old straw. Blow through it verifying you have air on both sides and you are good to go.

 

Has anybody switched to more softwoods with this stove? It seems to burn softwoods like hardwoods so I'm thinking why not make the switch?

 

8

I am burning pine and ash half and half stove is doing great the ash is dry rotted in spots 15 OAT 79 in..... so wife is happy! length of burn 13 hours whereas on popular I got 20

 

Ordered our ideal steel the last day of the sale. We take delivery mid May. I'll probably read this entire thread 5 times by this fall...

Looking forward to seeing it in person.

 

Congrats! Look forward to a very warm home in the winter next year!

 

Yup, put ours on order too. Haven't heard back from them with a final invoice for us to pay, though. We asked for a mid-May delivery as well.

 

It sounds like Woodstock has a busy spring ahead.

 

I got about a cord of spruce I got free stacked for next year. Not sure if it will work for my 14-15hr reload times at work but hopefully it will work fine on days I am home. Won't know until next season.

 

They asked me to pay the final invoice literally minutes before dropping it on my trailer. If you are having it shipped, I would assume they won't invoice you until it is ready to leave the factory.

 

Congrats fortydegnorth on getting an IS. We like ours.
After you absorb this years' IS thread, the one from winter '14/'15 is here (about 105 pages to that one).:
Production Woodstock IS | Firewood Hoarders Club
I was just bragging to my DW yesterday night (~ 7:00 PM) that I restarted the IS off of burning embers from the previous night's overnight load (ash, w.oak and b.locust) without using a match.
Huge savings there - not using a match or newspaper to relight... heheh.
But then, it is "shoulder season" here now. No chance of getting burn cycles like that during the dead of winter where we are.

 

This is 12 hours later on a shoulder burn using my lesser woods. I kind of loosely filled it with smaller splits. Mostly pine.

When I first opened the air I got some flames. Given the mild temperatures today I can easily milk this out till bedtime.

 

Since the only dry wood I could get for my first year was pine and poplar (little oak here and there), I mostly burned soft woods all season. Although I don't have much to compare it to since I have not ever burned a full load of hard woods, I think it did great. I was still getting 9-15 hour burn times depending on how cold it was outside. Now that it's shoulder season in S. Indiana (although calling for lows in the 20's this weekend!), I'm sometimes just filling it once in 24 hours on soft woods. Great stove!

 

Well around 3pm today I got our the shovel, pail, and ash vacuum. Cleaned it all up inside and up top by the cat. Vacuumed the cat and will rinse it with some water and dry it in a few days. As soon as I was done I hopped on craigslist and bam! Oak score.

A wood hoarder never has a day off.



Got home and unloaded. 5 minutes later the beeper went off on my remote thermometer for the smoker. Bacon is done.



Not bad after a workday.

 

One beer left in the fridge that's about to get killed, about to watch Better Call Saul and bedtime.

Might be able to pick up more oak tomorrow

 

Mmmmmm BACON!!!

 

I was wondering if your gasket issue got solved? Last night I discovered I have the same gasket issue but over on the latch side. the top and bottom seem to make contact, the middle has 1/16-1/8" gap right behind the latch. It was midnight and I was beat, plus I had just loaded the stove down and it was starting to rip with the door open. I used a pair of cheapo utility scissors as a wedge on the latch to hold the door tight to the body and let it go for the evening. I'll have a better look at it tonight when I get home. I was hoping there might be an adjustment on the stove body latch side but it appears to be bolted directly to the face of the stove.