How much ash have you made this season?

smokedragon · Mar 13, 2014

As some of you may know by now, I have been trolling here since November. I finally joined, and have really enjoyed posting and reading on hearth.com

I have decided to upgrade my old smoke dragon in the off season to a new EPA certified stove. My reasoning is that I believe I will get more heat in my home and burn less wood in comparison to my current setup. I have also decided to go from an insert to a free standing stove, which will present its own set of work for me on my hearth.

I store my ash in a steel bucket that I bought at a home improvement store. When that gets full, I schlep it out to a 20 gallon metal trash can. I have TWO of these large cans. Once the second can gets full of ashes, I dump the first (this ensures that the ashes are stone cold). I typically fill both cans, and then about 1/2 of a can again.

This season, I am on track to fill three 20 gallon trash cans with ash.

So here is the question:

How much ash do you generate?

Is this a lot?

gzecc · Mar 13, 2014

Seems like a lot to me. This winter has increased my ash, but that does sound excessive. Do you burn down the coals? What species of wood do you burn primarily?

Bigg_Redd · Mar 13, 2014

smokedragon said:
How much ash do you generate?

This year I've burned mostly marginally ready bigleaf maple so I made lots of ash. Next year it'll be ready to burn Doug Fir which will produce very little ash.

smokeater · Mar 13, 2014

Strictly depends on the type of wood you burn.

razerface · Mar 13, 2014

i filled 1 metal trash can up. Started burning in november 24/7

Bluezx636 · Mar 13, 2014

I would say I'm right around 25 gallons of ash right now. By the time I'm done burning in a few weeks, 30 gallons for the season.

begreen · Mar 13, 2014

2.5 ten gallon small garbage cans full

hankjrfan · Mar 13, 2014

Straight from the stove to the gravel driveway, so it's hard to tell. But the more the merrier, it helps keep the weeds down.

adrpga498 · Mar 13, 2014

I filled 2 large 20 gallon trash cans so far. With another month to burn my total ash will be about 2.5 cans. Where do you folks depose of your ash ? Mine is mixed in mulch pile area.

KindredSpiritzz · Mar 13, 2014

i bet i filled around 12 5 gal buckets this winter and i only burned thru the 1st week in march. Course thats a wood furnace too.

bassJAM · Mar 13, 2014

I've filled two and half 20-gallon trash cans. The grate on the bottom of my stove is about 1.5" wide, so there's a lot of small coals that fall to the bottom which makes it look like I have more ash than I really do.

Typically I spread the ashes in my yard and dump a little on the compost pile. I have just dumped it in the woods too when I'm in a hurry.

Ashful · Mar 13, 2014

I don't keep track, but based on my very foggy memory of how many times I filled and emptied my ash can this year, I would roughly guesstimate that I get 8 - 10 gallons of ash per cord burned, depending on species.

smokedragon · Mar 13, 2014

hankjrfan said:
Straight from the stove to the gravel driveway, so it's hard to tell. But the more the merrier, it helps keep the weeds down

I have been told to try that......so it really does work?

gzecc said:
Seems like a lot to me. This winter has increased my ash, but that does sound excessive. Do you burn down the coals? What species of wood do you burn primarily?

There are no coals in my ash bucket. Coals remain in the stove. Anything that comes out of the stove, (usually little bigger than a BB) goes into a pan on top of the stove and spread out so it can finish burning. I don't let any heat go into my ash bucket.

I burn a lot of oak, some yellow pine, some maple, some gum......I mostly scrounge, so whatever I find.

I have to run my old stove hard to heat my home (hence why when I shut it down this season, it will be done and replaced with a newer stove).

Joful said:
I don't keep track, but based on my very foggy memory of how many times I filled and emptied my ash can this year, I would roughly guesstimate that I get 8 - 10 gallons of ash per cord burned, depending on species.

I am guessing that is fairly close for me as well.

I was wondering about that because many here burn EPA stoves........

My old smoke dragon has given me 50 gallons of ash in 4 cords of wood. Doesn't sound like EPA stoves cut down a whole lot on the ash.

hankjrfan · Mar 13, 2014

Oh yeah, it'll definitely work in the spot you threw it for a good long while, as long as it's nice and thick. Bonus residual if you throw it on smoldering hehhh. I put it over the septic clean-out spot too for the same reason. 1)makes it easy to find the exact location should the need arise 2)makes it easy to dig since it's so loose

It's not the end all of weed control, but it'll beat it back for a good while. And if it's deep enough you'll have a dead spot there for years.

razerface · Mar 13, 2014

i burn huge piles of trees outside. I take the dozer and spread out the piles of ashes. Weeds grow like crazy wherever I spread them!

Ashful · Mar 13, 2014

smokedragon said:
Anything that comes out of the stove, (usually little bigger than a BB) goes into a pan on top of the stove and spread out so it can finish burning.

No concerns with CO, or air quality? I think I'd be afraid to do this, not from a fire safety aspect, but from an air quality aspect.

smokedragon said:
Doesn't sound like EPA stoves cut down a whole lot on the ash.

I suspect not. The amount of ash generated is probably almost entirely a function of the wood, not the appliance.

Backwoods Savage · Mar 13, 2014

We keep the ashes in blue barrels. Don't remember the capacity but think it is 35 gallons. We're working on the second one.

All ashes will be spread on the vegetable gardens after snow melt.

firefighterjake · Mar 13, 2014

I honestly have no idea of how much ash I have generated . . . I know I tend to dump my ash pan twice a week into a 5-gallon covered metal pail outside away from combustibles . . . and when it is full I usually spread the ashes on the gravel driveway to melt the ice and snow and provide traction.

Flatbedford · Mar 13, 2014

I think we make about 20 gallons in a season. I have been dumping my ash on snow and ice since January so there is no record for this year.

Shmudda · Mar 13, 2014

Bluezx636 said:
I would say I'm right around 25 gallons of ash right now. By the time I'm done burning in a few weeks, 30 gallons for the season.

This is where I am at now too. Very normal for me. After winter they all get thrown in the garden.

Craig

smokedragon · Mar 14, 2014

Joful said:
No concerns with CO, or air quality? I think I'd be afraid to do this, not from a fire safety aspect, but from an air quality aspect.

To clean our current stove we put a pan IN the stove, and scoop the ashes into the pan. We then put that ash pan on top of the stove, stir it around every time we check the stove (carefully), when all coals are gone, it goes outside into the ash can.

We did it the same way as kids, and it gets no ash in the air/house. But it gets the heat out of those red hot coals.

The key here is that if you have a good draft you get a lot less ash in the house when cleaning the stove, and if you carefully rake the ashes as the coals burn you get no ash.

As for smoke it doesn't cause a problem, as long as you are only getting tiny coals (basically embers). Anything bigger than a BB (and that is MAX size) doesn't go in my ash pan.

Of course we are weird cause we have a slotted shovel and a solid shovel......cleaning my stove is a process for me.

gzecc · Mar 14, 2014

smokedragon said:
To clean our current stove we put a pan IN the stove, and scoop the ashes into the pan. We then put that ash pan on top of the stove, stir it around every time we check the stove (carefully), when all coals are gone, it goes outside into the ash can.

We did it the same way as kids, and it gets no ash in the air/house. But it gets the heat out of those red hot coals.

The key here is that if you have a good draft you get a lot less ash in the house when cleaning the stove, and if you carefully rake the ashes as the coals burn you get no ash.

As for smoke it doesn't cause a problem, as long as you are only getting tiny coals (basically embers). Anything bigger than a BB (and that is MAX size) doesn't go in my ash pan.

Of course we are weird cause we have a slotted shovel and a solid shovel......cleaning my stove is a process for me.

How often do you clean out the ashes. Do you leave any in when your done?

smokedragon · Mar 14, 2014

gzecc said:
How often do you clean out the ashes. Do you leave any in when your done?

Once a day, sometimes twice a day. The stove has about a 1/2" lip at the front, so they can't pile up very high or they come out of the stove.

Can't wait to get a new stove.......

Wood Duck · Mar 14, 2014

I generate a lot more volume of combined ash and charcoal than your 60 gallons. I bet I have dumped 100 gallons of ash and charcoal, with perhaps half of it being charcoal. I have a small stove and we use it all the time when it is cold, so if there is a day when the stove burns out and gets reasonably cool, I'll empty it even if there is a bunch of charcoal mixed with the ash. I'd rather lose some potential heat by dumping some charcoal than deal with less-than-maximum wood capacity on a cold night. Besides, charcoal is good for the garden soil, so I don't mind dumping some in the garden.

Flatbedford · Mar 14, 2014

Wood Duck said:
I'd rather lose some potential heat by dumping some charcoal than deal with less-than-maximum wood capacity on a cold night.

Me too!

How much ash have you made this season?

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