opinions on ashpans?

I think a lot of it depends on the stove itself. Some stoves have very functional ash pans, and others have them attached, but they may be fairly useless. Some stoves w/o the ash pans are a little difficult to deal with since a few have small doors and don't have a lot of depth which means the stove must be cleaned out frequently. Others, such as the BKK, have large doors and will hold a cord worth of ashes, and even the manufacture recommends not spending the money on the optional ash pan since it doesn't hold enough and it's much easier to shovel the ashes with that stove anyway. So I guess the answer to your question is 'it depends'. Either way, get yourself a nice metal can to put your ashes in and a good shovel and I doubt you'll find it much of an issue shoveling them out.

BTW, congrats on the new stove!

Some people swear by them. My Lopi is sans pan, my Century has an ash drawer in the pedestal (not a pan beneath a grate sort of thing...I have to pull a little split firebrick from the floor to drop stuff down into it). In any case, I don't use the drawer on the Century, and I don't miss having a pan on the Lopi. When I need to remove ashes, I just shovel 'em out the door into a bucket from both stoves. That being said, I'm not a dedicated "24/7" burner. I burn softwood almost exclusively, and even in the dead of winter I'm generally lighting a morning fire in a relatively cool stove, so removing the ashes the way I do it is no problem for me, I have ample opportunities. When I do remove ashes, I like to leave about 1" of ash on the floor of the box. I've never had a stove with an ash pan, but I really can't see what the big deal is with them. I'm sure some folks who do see what the big deal is with them will be along shortly. Rick

Some people love them, some don't, and some don't think it matters.

I have one stove without an ashpan and the other stove has one. The stove that has one was just purchased used two weeks ago so I don't have any experience with it.

For me it's not a must have item.

My stove has one and not only do I not use it but I wish that it weren't there. The whole ash pan system introduces more potential leaky gaskets and latches to bump open not to mention additional cost to produce. I burned softwood 24/7 for 9 months last year and probably 8 this year. I've pushed more than 11 cords through this stove and never once had the desire to use an ashpan.

You show me an ashpan that holds more than 2 gallons of ashes, easy to use, and eliminates the fly ash mess from hand shoveling the firebox and I will use it. Today's ash pans are mostly tiny and cause more mess than if you had just used the shovel.

A regular hearth fixture at my home is an ash bucket with my stove tools in it.

Mine has one, I only use it for the big cleaning once a month, take the little broom and sweep it in the hole. Most of the time I just shovel a little out though so don't use it much.

Highbeam said:

My stove has one and not only do I not use it but I wish that it weren't there. The whole ash pan system introduces more potential leaky gaskets and latches to bump open not to mention additional cost to produce. I burned softwood 24/7 for 9 months last year and probably 8 this year. I've pushed more than 11 cords through this stove and never once had the desire to use an ashpan.

You show me an ashpan that holds more than 2 gallons of ashes, easy to use, and eliminates the fly ash mess from hand shoveling the firebox and I will use it. Today's ash pans are mostly tiny and cause more mess than if you had just used the shovel.

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Highbeam hit the nail on the head. Years and years ago I had two stoves that had ash pans. I hated them and swore that at some point I would do away with the stoves. Well, I did!! I would not buy one with an ash pan today.

Don't worry about it, just enjoy your stove.

I have the same stove as Highbeam and I wholeheartedly agree - ashpan not required! nor desired! shovel and run, my friend. Very little airborne ash if done properly.

Did we ever discern what the OP's stove choice is?

I don't have an opinion on to have or not to have one attached

BUT

just wanted to add that what I do have is a small galvonized trash can with a lid (Purchased at Ace Hardware) to put ashes in that I remove from my firebox. If you get a 'ash' can make sure you put it outside on a non-flammable surface far away from anything flammable. Coals will stay hot and able to ignite for a long time - like days at a time.

So, treat your ashes with caution and care. Keep safe and enjoy your stove. :coolsmile:

i have had several stoves with ashpan setups, and i do not like the open grate design . you make a mess as soon as you pull the pan, and it is hard to do with hot coals in the firebox. My stove has no pan currently, but the one i could add is very slick. a little trapdoor, to selectivly shovel ash and not coals down into the pan. Our show model pe has the pan, and it does work well... however, when you shut it down hot, you always see little afterburn flames coming from that spot in the firebox..

I like ash pans but if I did not have one I would not be that upset. As others have said it depends on the stove. The PE Summit has a huge ash pan and a great system, trap door, pretty slick. The Englander 2,000 sq ft has one but you need to remove a "plug" then shovel the ash down into the pan, not the best but for the money I paid for the stove it is OK. The Avalon Olympic has an ash pan, it is big enough, but unless you get all the ash away from the grate when you remove the ash pan you will get some on the floor. Shame on you Travis Industries for not being able to rectify that fault. It appears that they are going to get rid of the ash pan on the Olympic as many dealers do not carry it.

I think just shoveling it carefully out of the stove into a nice ash pan is good enough

Or you could spend some money and buy an ash vacuum, very expensive if you want one that can suck up even hot ashes. I think some might buy the Rigid 16 gallon and buy the vacuum bags, with a HEPA filter it works great on sucking up cold ashes with no blow back of dust.

My Jotul has a very functional ash pan, It could not be easier! I take the pan outside, dump it in a larger pan to cool, re-insert. Done!! I don't miss shoveling a bit. I can't imagine not taking advantage of this option, especially if it was already installed on my stove.

I have not used the ash pan that came with my stove in the past two years. I just open the side door and shovel the ash out into a big metal trash can. Works just fine for us.

I agree that the ash pan system on the T6 is not very well thought out but and its a big but in my mind the ash pan is a heat barrier. It keeps the floor under the stove from getting to hot and thats one reason you only need ember protection with the T6. I think thats a real plus. Probably saves more on floor protection than it costs. I have always used a good steel bucket with lid and never well almost never have any ash troubles.

My old VC had a large ash pan that worked wonderfully. When doing 24/7 burning, I could remove the pan once per week, and dump the ashes outside in less than 1 minute. Then I'd put the pan back in and rake the coals to a pile, which dropped some more ashes into the pan. Then a second 1-minute ash removal. I never took all of the ashes out while it was burning because I wanted the insulation layer, but I was able to keep the ash level nice and controlled this way with only a couple of minutes of attention once per week, and zero dust stirred up in the house from shoveling the ash outside of the stove. In 23 years what that stove I never had an ash pan door gasket leak. The gasket was replaced at the 10 year mark when the stove was torn down for an overall gasket replacement and recemeting job.

Because of this experience, a good ash removal system was an absolute must on my shopping list for a new stove this spring. I was only able to burn my new Jotul Oslo a few nightly burns before the weather warmed up, but I expect to do my ash management the same way going forward.

Our present stove does not have an ashpan. Naturally, having used one over the years with a few different stoves we were concerned. Would we like it or hate it? After using this stove for 2 winters, we love it. We wondered; would it be difficult to remove the ashes without a pan? Not difficult at all. Just want until the coal stage, move the coals to the front, let them burn down a bit then remove the ashes from the back. Move the coals to the back and remove the ashes from the front. It actually is very easy. (Here I'll open it up for the guys to get me!) It is so easy that I have never done it! My wife takes care of the ashes once or twice a week and has no problem at all.

My Englander has a worthless ash drawer that I never use. Its so much simpler, faster, and cleaner for me to use an ash shovel and bucket.

Had an ashpan on my old stove and I thought it was totaly worthless. My new stove doesn't have one. I'm sure that there are some good setups out there but none that I've seen.

I don't have one and don't feel any need of one- at least with my stove.

I used mine three times. Too much a pain in the butt. Also if the trap door to the pan is not 100% sealed you burn extra wood do the draft.
I would not go out of my way to buy a stove with one.

1st - depends on your stove and wood. If you have a high-quality stove and well-seasoned wood, you should only need to clean out your stove once a day, max.

If I'm burning Quercus in the T-6, I'll clean the ash every 4 days or so.

The T-6 comes with an ash pan.

Ash pans are there to get Suzy Homemaker to buy the stove.

If Suzy has no woodburning experience and thinks Martha Stewart is a roll model, then she will not be able to imagine what on earth she would do to get the ash out if there wasn't a neat little pan to neatly pull out and neatly walk to the outside can. What? Use a shovel? That sounds messy!

The T-6 comes with a square hole about 2 inches square through which you push ash to the pan.

I can't, for the life of me, imagine why on earth I'd take the time and mess to 1st push the ash into the hole and then close the hole and then pull the ash pan and then dump the ash pan and then reinsert the ash pan when I could simply . . .

. . . Use my hoe tool to push all hot coals to back. Use shovel to remove from ash directly into 2 gallon metal can. Use hoe tool to spread coals (add wood if needed) and take can outside to dump in big ash can.

Amount of ash that hits my floor doing this - zero. Some dust gets in air, but not enough to even think about.

If, of course, you have a stove in which you can't burn the wood down all the way, having an ash pan to push hot coals into might be useful.


But the ash pan is for Suzy homemaker. If you like ash pans, please indicate whether you are female and whether you like Martha Stewart.

It's an unfortunate but true statement that many stoves are purchased not because they are good burners, but because they look good in the showroom and have "features" that are not related to burning wood.