messy hearth

I keep a small broom and dustpan near the kindling bucket.

Go git yerself somethin' like this and use it every other day or so. Rick

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Rubbermaid-Dustpan-Lobby-Broom-Set-1-Kt/15681005

When my wife gets home from work I'll ask her how she keeps it clean.

Later:
Frank

The only time I get a bit messy is when I pull out the ash pan on my Oslo and it's a little too full of ashes and they spill off. I put a cookie sheet under my stove when I doing the ash pan cleaning - helps a lot. Easier to dump the cookie sheet contents than trying to sweep the hearth.

Nothing mysterious about how I do it - I use a damp rag and wipe up the ashes and dirt from the tile, and vacuum the carpet. I get a mess too and have to keep after it to prevent it from spreading.

Wood Duck said:

Nothing mysterious about how I do it - I use a damp rag and wipe up the ashes and dirt from the tile, and vacuum the carpet. I get a mess too and have to keep after it to prevent it from spreading.

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+1.

I get more mess from bringing wood in and loading. I keep a (fire resistant) rug in front of the door, and then roll it up and shake outside.
The rest gets swept up with a dustpan and brush.

At the beginning of the year I try to keep it clean and by the end of the first month I just don't care anymore and resort to sweeping up wood chips off the hearth once a week. I will say that since I put in my wood door my mess in the house has been reduced by more than half. It is so nice to be able to set the wood in right onto the hearth.

small shop vac works wonders after I spill from ash pan, also I dont let vac touch stove sill but come close

I use a ryobi dustbuster (it has a little filter that you can take out, I take that out after dustbusting and knock the ash dust out of it) followed by a damp rag after refilling the woodbox and stove every night. I've washed (rinsed really) the filter in the dustbuster before too-I'm not sure you're supposed to, but it worked.

I will often lay 2 sheets of newspaper down on the hearth when I am reloading. Catches a lot of the wood chips and any ash that might find it's way out. After reload, roll up paper and toss it in.

li_jotul550 said:

I will often lay 2 sheets of newspaper down on the hearth when I am reloading. Catches a lot of the wood chips and any ash that might find it's way out. After reload, roll up paper and toss it in.

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What a cool idea, so simple.

I'm cutting down a lot of splits that are too long. So add sawdust to the dirt, pieces of bark and other junk, and maybe some grass clippings if the splits were near the bottom of a stack. Takes me about a minute with a broom and dustpan. The messiest part is that our little dog likes to take pieces of bark and chew them up all over the living room.

When I want my heat to be all clean and easy.. I just turn up the thermostat. lol

We do try to keep up with the mess, but with 2 big dogs and 3 cats in the house, plus living in the woods.. well.. sometimes a clean hearth is low on my priority list. And champagne carpet was a mistake. We do vacuum every day, many days twice. If it has been several hours since the last time the stove door was opened, I will vacuum the hearth. But normally it just gets wiped down with a damp rag every day or so.

Thanks for the welcome! Glad I could finally teach something on this forum, been learning for months

I bought a dustbuster and keep it right beside the stove for the purpose of sweeping up the wood chips and ashes since I'm not supposed to sweep up that kind of stuff in my rainbow. I would hate to ruin my $2,500 vacuum!!

Be one with the dirt and dust and ash and little bits of coal. Won't bother you so much.
It's gonna' happen no matter what you do, unless of course what you do is get rid of the insert. :ahhh:
I clean it all up when I think it's getting too bad (this varies), but realize the next time I reload or bring wood in,.... it's baa-ack.
Oh, and like jeff, our youngest dog loves to grab pieces of kindling, small splits, and pieces of bark and turn them into mulch ALLLLL over the house.
No matter how diligent I am, my wife is less so, so we sweep at least once/day too. Nice having vinyl/linoleum floors. :coolsmile:

I was told ash has an oily residue therefor the water won't trap it and it will blow right out the back.

Dakotas Dad said:

We do try to keep up with the mess, but with 2 big dogs and 3 cats in the house, plus living in the woods.. well.. sometimes a clean hearth is low on my priority list. And champagne carpet was a mistake.

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In a similar situation, a friend took a jar of his native soil to the carpet store and picked the closest match.

I sweep my hearth regularly, Heidi prefers the vacuum (no embers allowed).

I just keep a little broom and dust pan for cleaning up after carrying wood in or cleaning ashes off the floor pad.

MrWhoopee said:

Dakotas Dad said:

We do try to keep up with the mess, but with 2 big dogs and 3 cats in the house, plus living in the woods.. well.. sometimes a clean hearth is low on my priority list. And champagne carpet was a mistake.

Click to expand...

In a similar situation, a friend took a jar of his native soil to the carpet store and picked the closest match.

I sweep my hearth regularly, Heidi prefers the vacuum (no embers allowed).

Click to expand...

The native soil here is "clay with rocks".. would make ugly carpet for sure. lol

I do believe we will eventually switch to hardwood floors, but there are issues to deal with there also..

also, I am quite surprised that the Rainbow would spit out the ash.. We had one for a long time, and I have thought a few times about how handy the water bath/filter would be if an ember got in the vac.. We had to get rid of our rainbow after building and moving into this house. Couldn't put the "debris" into the septic, and dumping in the woods in the winter turned it into a ice/dirt/fur Frisbee that would get "retrieved" and chewed up on the porch.. lol

What a mess that was.