New Woodstock Ideal Steel Owner Experience

LocustBurner said:

GI'm burning some of my oldest Locust mixed with oak and a little hickory.
Loaded three layers last night @ 11pm and three splits at 6am.
...Just blessed to have the best firewood on the planet her in the SE.

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I hear that! I used to burn mainly BL since there was standing dead all over the place at my in-laws farm. Hickory and Oak too, but those things would never die, so I never burned em, not even one tree in the last 6 years or so of cutting. But BL was good enough. Wish I had some to try in the Ideal Steel, but we have been separated now for 2 years so no more cutting on the farm. I scrounged a big score of ash fall of '14 and that is all I have been burning besides Eco-bricks. I know ash is good stuff, but I'm pretty sure BL would still blow it out of the water, or stove .

With two stoves running for me, at least during most of the colder half of winter, I can really utilize the lower burns more. With other stoves that were barely overnight burners it was always a bit of a struggle loading last minute before going to bed, and then having to reload as soon as you get up. It is so nice now to load early in the evening, and also get up and just stir up the fire or open up the air a bit. Also skip one or two loads during the day too! I loaded a loose 2/3 - 3/4 full load of ash, not even big pieces, last night around 9pm I think. It's noon now the next day and all I did was open up the air 2 notches this morning. A large pile of coals still, a couple even full wood length still.

I have too much locust and 3 of them to take down yet. I try to save it for the really harsh weather. Once I empty my supplier of the locust I doubt I'll ever find anymore for free again. Most of the Amish and farmers around here burn wood too. Other varieties are available, but almost never free locust.

I'm looking at the long range weather and it looks like we'll have a little winter up here NW NJ and the northeast around the 21st, there is potential of a nor easter developing, I love seeing the snow but we've had some warm weather here recently and all the tree's are running sap which means if we get a wet heavy snow we could have tree damage.

It was pretty warm yesterday by me in NJ but without the sun shining my heat would have kept coming on. It was 46 when I woke up and topped out around 60 yesterday. I put in a single load for the day. About 3/4 of a box. Mostly pine and maple. Kept the furnace off all day and didn't run me out of my den running in cat made only.

Last weekend we felled a big ash (EAB kill, leaning towards the house). The whole time, I was sweating and getting eaten by mosquitos! IN MARCH! Had the AC on to get the house back under 80F this week. IN MARCH! As I was leaving the house today I looked at the lawn beside the driveway and realized the grass needs mowed. IN MARCH!!

This is some crazy weather. I'd get geared up for spring but I'm afraid it'll have a snap or two back to typical March/early April weather. Worst part of is is that we're a month short of logging/felling/brush clearing weather. We have to get a wet snow to beat all the underbrush down before we can get out there and work and then we have to stop when everything picks itself back up off the ground and tangles again. Usually that's not until late April or even May but it's already happening. The heavy snow to knock it down didn't come until the middle of February so I guess we're actually short 2-2.5 months of work time out there.

If this weather continues after we get our stove put in this summer, the 4 cords I have CSS will last about 10 years!