Cleaning wood stove and keeping the dust down...

I don't have an ash pan (wish I did) so I get some dust in the room, my wife complains all winter about it. I use a rake I got at a hearth shop to move the coals and ash around, its long and if you used a tool like the rake maybe you could keep the door partly closed when you do it.

I stir the ashes and coals some every time I reload and don't get much dust in the house. I think the draft helps keep it in the firebox. I got an ash vac for xmas a couple years ago and it is great. I can suck up the ash that falls out if I do a front door reload and I don't have to worry about any hot bits I may inadvertently suck in. About once a week I lightly dust the stove. Dumping the ash pan every few days, before it is overflowing, is a must. My biggest clean up problem is all the bark chips that fall every where!

let your wife do it,because she doesn't make dust

First, make sure you open the bypass damper before you do this. On my stoves, with the bypass damper open, there's enough draft on a warm chimney that all dust gets sucked INTO the stove, rather than escaping.

For one reason or another, the BK's seem to draft more poorly than my stoves. I say this, because every person who has talked to me about running a BK (I'm looking at buying a pair) has talked about the smoke that escapes from the door when you open, whereas mine draft so well in bypass that I can open the top-load door without smoke spillage on a fresh load of wood. So, this may just be more of an issue with your stove and chimney setup. One thing many do is hold their ash vac hose in the stove as they shovel or rake ash, such that any airborne ash is sucked into the vac.

Aside from that, it's all technique, and moving slowly!

Ash vacuum does a good job of cleaning and minimizing ash dust.

Joful said:

For one reason or another, the BK's seem to draft more poorly than my stoves. I say this, because every person who has talked to me about running a BK (I'm looking at buying a pair) has talked about the smoke that escapes from the door when you open

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not true in all cases, I run a smaller then recommended flue and have zero spillage under any circumstances.

Dieselhead said:

not true in all cases, I run a smaller then recommended flue and have zero spillage under any circumstances.

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Yeah, I figured someone would chime into the contrary. Every situation is different, yet the fact remains there are a LOT of "smoke spills from my BK when I open the door" posts on this forum. I'm not knocking them, and in fact am negotiating to buy two BK's right now myself, just pointing out what I've read.

Try cleaning with the stove & stack a little hotter. The BK from what I have read, doesn't run as hot a flue, but you can try a little sooner than you typically do, it may be warm enough to suck the dust up with the draft, rather than the dust flying out of the box into the room.
I think most with a stove, have some extra dust around the house, comes with the territory I guess.
Tell the lil woman once she does the spring cleaning, everything will look that much cleaner and better.

I use a 10x20 piece of sheet metal and cover the bottom portion of the door opening and lower the smoke flap. It means working a little tighter but saves the ash cloud. You should also consider wearing a mask. That fine ash gets deep into your lungs.

Niko said:

The door is fully open when im pushing the ash and charcaols around.

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Don't open the door as far, or push the ash back in the box before you open the door very far. Try to keep any "stirring up" further back in the box so that dust is closer to the bypass instead of up near the door.

There are vacs made for fireplaces/wood burners, they are expensive, and still not sure if they can be used with hot coals.

When I clean my princess free stander I just scoop the ash out into a bucket, I find that taking smaller scoops makes the ash easier to manage (less dust) I also leave a little bit of ash inside the fire box as insulation / protection for the bottom brick (my female roommate can be a little rough loading the stove lol ) When I do a full clean out I first empty the whole firebox out, wait until the stove gets cool to the touch, I then sweep the chimney from the top down, make sure the cap is clear. I put the smoke pipe out from the connector on the stove and vacuum out the top, I exercise the bypass damper (to knock off the extra ash / creosote from the clean then re-vacuum around the bypass damper seal and in front of the cat, if your vacuum cant fit a small paint brush will work. I take the fire plate off (infront of cat, inside the firebox) I gently vacuum the front of the cat. Put it all back together and back in business, takes me about 30min from start to finish. I'm unsure about removing the cat, I think the cat has a thin gasket wrapped around it and when you remove it, it disintegrates.

I stick the whole metal bucket into the stove at an angle then shovel the ash into the bucket, I have found that helps to keep the ash flying around. Helps to have welding gloves on while holding a hot metal bucket while doing this. I cut holes into my scoop so I can sort out the larger pieces of hot coals for a good restart.