Ashes flying around

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mjdkjj

Member
Jan 5, 2012
9
Central Canada
Good morning to all. I am a newbie on this site, so hello to all. I spent the last few days searching over this awesome site to see if I could find answers to my small problem. I recently installed a Bis Nova fireplace into my home after removing the old metal firebox and chimney. The new stove is in the center of my house so the chimney goes up indoors most of the way. I have a chimney of 12 ft in height and it extends 1 ft higher than the peak of the house. The chimney goes straight up, no bends or offsets. The main issue that we have is that every time you open the door of the stove we get a large swirl of ashes that gets dumped into the air in the house. This is causing a huge mess problem in the house. There is a layer of ash over everything all the time and it is very frustrating. I have not hooked up the outside air kit yet cause I have an older home that is not real tight so I thought I did not need it. Has any one seen this problem before?
Thanks for any and all advice!
 
How are you opening the door? Try opening the primary air, wait a few seconds, open door slowly and let the air inside the stove stabilze, then all the way open.
 
Wow fast reply!.
We open the door very slowly but we still get the same affect. It is worse if you open it fast but it always seems to spread ash around anytime the door is opened.
 
I'm not familiar with your stove but with my Fireview, I have to open the damper all the way, wait a second or two, and then open the door. I have found too that the dust accumulates more now that we are running the stove all the time. The drier air keeps the dust a flying, moisture will keep the dust down. So keep that in mind too.


fv
 
Is the blower running when you open it up?

pen
 
Welcome to the forum!

As everyone is asking, do you open the primary air for 5-10 seconds first? Then crack the door open and let it stabilize for another 4-10 seconds and then open it up (literally count to 5-10). It sounds like the door is opening too quickly and it is creating a vaccuum that is pulling ash out.

Pen also asked a good question: is the blower running?

Andrew
 
Hello all.
I can't believe how fast you folks respond!. Thanks. I will try to answer all the questions. Yes the blower is running. This model does not have a one/off switch. The fan comes on at certain temperatures and shuts off it's self also. It is a pain to turn fan off. Have to reach through hole in fireplace and unplug the stove. We almost always have the air supply wide open. When it is choked off the fire really starves. I know my wood is not properly cured as this is my first year of cutting. Next years wood will be better. I think from what I am reading I am not opening slowly enough yet I guess. Seems like this is normal to a certain degree. Would you all have ash flying around when you put a log in the stove and disturb the ash pile? We have to put logs in very carefully so as not to disturb the ashes cause if we do they immediately float into the room.
 
I'm going to blame your blower here. The fast air moving over top of that unit are making a low pressure area in front of the open door and sucking stuff out on you.

If it's a pain to unplug, just for poo's and giggles, I'd go to the panel box, flip the breaker, and try loading it and see what happens.

If you find it is the blower, and shutting it off is not an option maybe we can help you come up w/ some other way to work around it.

pen
 
Ok. I will try tonight when I get home from work. I can shut the blower off, it is just a pain. If it turns out to be that I will instal a switch in line within easy reach. Thanks for the advice.
Mike
 
Swedishchef said:
Welcome to the forum!

As everyone is asking, do you open the primary air for 5-10 seconds first? Then crack the door open and let it stabilize for another 4-10 seconds and then open it up (literally count to 5-10). It sounds like the door is opening too quickly and it is creating a vaccuum that is pulling ash out.

Pen also asked a good question: is the blower running?

Andrew
Click to expand...


Good answer.
 
mjdkjj said:
Ok. I will try tonight when I get home from work. I can shut the blower off, it is just a pain. If it turns out to be that I will instal a switch in line within easy reach. Thanks for the advice.
Mike
Click to expand...
If you are burning Aspen/Poplar then all bets are off. That crap make so much fluffy ash that keeping it out of the house is an exercise in futility.

I installed a switch within easy reach. Also, when opening the door, try the following:
Crack open the door about 1/4" and wait a bit for the draft to increase.
Slam it closed and then open it again about 1/2".
Slam it closed again and then open it slowly.

The open/close/open/close/open will shake the ashes off of the door, the door gasket, and the door lip.

Also, make sure you aren't spreading ashes while you are removing them from the stove.
 
Blower is major part of the problem for sure. I also open my door just a little about 1 or 2 inchs for a little bit and then open all the way this helps me a lot. Good Luck.
 
If you have a drafty house and you went a little crazy with a caulking gun, you may have raised the neutral pressure plane in the home. The pressure deficit may then be a factor.

My wife will sometimes leave a window open upstairs creating a pressure deficit. I have a window near the stove, and I sometimes open it prior to opening the stove if I suspect a deficit.

My wife is the worst offender. She never opens the window next to the stove. She doesn't turn off the fan and she flings the stove door open so fast that the vortex created sucks ashes right out of the stove. One time, I oiled the hinges and she damn near tore the door off its hinges.
 
Just for the record I am burning poplar as I have 15 acres of it on my property thus making it free. I know it is garbage to burn and this may explain the ash problem. I also get 3 gallon pail of ash every 3 to 4 days that I need to shovel out. This of course causes a huge mess but that is life of a wood stove it seems!
 
mjdkjj said:
Just for the record I am burning poplar...
Click to expand...
LOL boy, did I peg that or what? I've burned it in the past but the wife has since banned it cuz of the ashes. It's not so much the volume of it but rather that it is light and fluffy. It seems to have a static cling to it and will cling to inside surface of the door and sit like burned tissue paper on the ledge of the door.

Like I said, all bets are off. You can reduce the fly ash but never totally eliminate it.
 
LLigetfa said:
My wife is the worst offender. She never opens the window next to the stove. She doesn't turn off the fan and she flings the stove door open so fast that the vortex created sucks ashes right out of the stove. One time, I oiled the hinges and she damn near tore the door off its hinges.
Click to expand...


:lol: :lol: too funny!
My husband says it is my fault that kitchen cabinet doors are falling off their hinges!
:-S
 
When shovling out the ashes, the best way ive heard used was from a wise old burner...rather than dump the ashes from the shovel into the pail, place the shovel on the bottom or on the pile, and "slide" them off the shovel. Works great and keeps even fluffy poplar ash from going mushroom cloud into the room.
 
Get an ash vac for cleaning out the ashes. Much cleaner.
 
WOW ! you must be going thru some wood for that amount of ashes. Yeah it is available but that is a lot of work.
 
Yes it very crappy wood but remember "it is free". Once I run out of poplar I will try some 'good' wood. I don't think I am going through that much wood it is just that my stove does not seem to get hot enough to burn properly and turns everything into ash. My wife is very faithful in keeping it stoked up but because of the quality of the wood I guess there is not much we can do. What do every one think of Tamarack. It is fairly cheap to buy in my area. Is this a good wood to buy?
 
Old timers say not to burn Tamarak, that it will burn out the firebrick but it is fine in a modern stove. Burns real hot. Tamarak is really good for fenceposts.

I still remember felling a large Tamarak to use for a clothesline pole. Carried that heavy sucker out of the bush on my shoulder. Uprighting it to drop it into a 6 foot hole gave new respect for the folks that built Stonehenge.
 
Early this season I burned a lot of junk I had also, now I am into the good stuff. Free is a good word. But, you probably are not getting much heat out of it. Good Luck-- Happy Burning.
 
pen said:
I'm going to blame your blower here. The fast air moving over top of that unit are making a low pressure area in front of the open door and sucking stuff out on you.

If it's a pain to unplug, just for poo's and giggles, I'd go to the panel box, flip the breaker, and try loading it and see what happens.

If you find it is the blower, and shutting it off is not an option maybe we can help you come up w/ some other way to work around it.

pen
Click to expand...

Pen is right. The dynamics of air movement (gas) as you describe it will create a negative pressure (low pressure) in front of your stove which in turn sucks the ash from the stove. I use a tripod fan pointed at my stove top to push the air around. If I don't shut it off and I open the door, I can smell smoke almost immediately. It pulls it right out.

Perhaps rigging a switch for the fan would be an option?

Tamarrack is great wood. I have some mixed in with white birch: it has almost as many BTUs per pound as the white birch. I find white birch is a pretty decent wood compared to any softwood. Of course it's not rock maple or black locust but it certainly does the trick if it's free!

Andrew
 
Thankfully our Manitoba winter is quite mild this year so heat is not really an issue.
Thanks to all for your help today.
 
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