Any recomendation on Ash Vacumes?
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I used a small shop vac with the drywall filter since I installed the stove. Last weekend, after listening to my wife complain about the dust, I went and bought a Cougar. The wife actually said, "it probably won't make a difference".
Boy was she wrong. I have cleaned my stove 3 times since I purchased the vac, and guess what, no dust. I will never use a shop vac again to clean my stove.
Boy was she wrong. I have cleaned my stove 3 times since I purchased the vac, and guess what, no dust. I will never use a shop vac again to clean my stove.
I use a shop vac with the finest hepa filter available, yellow bags, I think 22.95 at Wal-Mart. They work great. Have not had a problem yet.
liquidsilverr6
New Member
I use a shop vac with about 20 ft of hose and just put the vaccuum outside! I don't have to hear the vac and don't worry about dust
j00fek
Feeling the Heat
i got a shop vac @ sears on sale during xmas w/fine dust filter.
only thing with this setup is you have to bang out the filter every once and a while to keep it unclogged
either way 45$ is better than 250$ in these times
only thing with this setup is you have to bang out the filter every once and a while to keep it unclogged
either way 45$ is better than 250$ in these times
Burn1
New Member
liquidsilverr6 said:I use a shop vac with about 20 ft of hose and just put the vaccuum outside! I don't have to hear the vac and don't worry about dust
I use a Loveless ash vac, got it on eBay. I like it except for the noise. This thing is loud!
I like the vac outside with 20' of hose idea!
in-control
New Member
I reviewed all of the options a few months ago before we got our stove and decided to go with a 6 gal. shop vac, $39 @ lowes on sale, with drywall/cold ash collection bag. I clean out the stove, not ash pan, every 3/4 days and have burnt ~1ton and the collection bag is 1/2 full. The bags cost ~$10/bag of 2. I put the shopvac next to may pellets in my garage and it is targeted soly for the pellet stove and garage duty.
Couple of observations:
* You have to go to >5gal to get a collection bag
* Ash gets everywhere so the less you handle it the better
* Shop vac's are sold by everyone so you can always find one on sale
* Shop vac supplies are available in most stores so getting bags is easy
* Dump your ash try ash in a metal can with a top
* If I get sick of the bags I can always change to filters
* By the time my stove fans have shut off, 30-45min, all the ash is cool to touch
Happy burning and enjoy!
Couple of observations:
* You have to go to >5gal to get a collection bag
* Ash gets everywhere so the less you handle it the better
* Shop vac's are sold by everyone so you can always find one on sale
* Shop vac supplies are available in most stores so getting bags is easy
* Dump your ash try ash in a metal can with a top
* If I get sick of the bags I can always change to filters
* By the time my stove fans have shut off, 30-45min, all the ash is cool to touch
Happy burning and enjoy!
Augmister
Minister of Fire
I have a Eureka upright and have two hepa filters for it. One for stove and one for everything else.
Just bought a 14 gallon Rigid that I will outfit with a hepa and drywall bag. That sucker is 6HP and will be great for my 3' vent pipe too! Die dust die!
Just bought a 14 gallon Rigid that I will outfit with a hepa and drywall bag. That sucker is 6HP and will be great for my 3' vent pipe too! Die dust die!
eschills
Member
Augustine said:
I bought the 16 gallon Rigid shop vac, and the filter that comes with it seems to be sufficient. No ash from return. Can use 3 or 4 times before cleaning filter. 6hp is very powerful and does work great on the vent pipe.
WOODNUT358
Member
I was over my brothers this past Sunday,and he cleaned his stove using a Rigid small shop vac.He bought it at home depot,and uses the pleated filter that came with vac.There was no evidence of any dust whatsoever escaping. I do the same with my 6gal.from Sears.Just shut the stove down for an hour,and the stove is cooled down.I scrape and vac the entire stove,and dump ashes in a galvanized pail.Hell,I don't even dump the ash bin out anymore,I just vacuum it out.
Harman XXV
Harman XXV
richardpuerto
New Member
After doing some research on the forums, I ended up getting a portable 4 gallon 5hp Ridgid wet/dry vac from HomeDepot that also came standard with a 3 layer fine dust filter plus I went ahead and also got the fine dust vac bag making it double fine dust filtration and I dont have to clean the filter nor the canister. Just throw out the bag when it get full. The vac was $79.99 and the bags were $11.99 for a pak of 2 bags. The bag should take a long while to fill up. Only drawback is you definitely have to let the ash cool before vacuuming. Worked like a charm with no mess or escaped ash dust.
I was using a shop vac with a dry wall filter but last week Menards had ash vacs on sale for less then 50.00 so i bought one. It seems to work fine plus has a aluminum hose instead of plastic.
WHAT?!?!?!? I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER MY LOVELESS ASH VAC!! 
Great vac, just VERY loud. Buy some ear protection, and you'll be extremely happy with your purchase.
!! Great vac, just VERY loud. Buy some ear protection, and you'll be extremely happy with your purchase.
I won`t argue the merits of a dedicated ash vac but the primary goal IS to clean out ashes from within the stove without blowing dust into the room. Obviously the ash should be cold and contain no hot embers and if you have hot embers remaining after the stove cool down period (45-60 minutes) you probably have a combustion or overfeed problem that needs to be addressed.
For the past 3 years I been using a 25 yr old shop vac with a simple $2-$3 PVC Tee fitting inserted in the exhaust port. I use it for both the Harman and Englander. It works as good as anything else and the cost has been zero.
I must admit it takes 10-15 min to remove the reuseable cloth bags shake em out after each stove cleaning and blow out or rinse the small filters in the PVC Tee but all vacs has to be maintained one way or another.
Here`s a pic: scroll around for others.
http://www.pbase.com/johnd1/image/100614117
For the past 3 years I been using a 25 yr old shop vac with a simple $2-$3 PVC Tee fitting inserted in the exhaust port. I use it for both the Harman and Englander. It works as good as anything else and the cost has been zero.
I must admit it takes 10-15 min to remove the reuseable cloth bags shake em out after each stove cleaning and blow out or rinse the small filters in the PVC Tee but all vacs has to be maintained one way or another.
Here`s a pic: scroll around for others.
http://www.pbase.com/johnd1/image/100614117
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