Ashley owners ?

[Trktrd]

I'm beginning to think I have the only ASH1B in existence. Can't find any info on the internet, not even a picture. It is a well built great running stove and I am very pleased with it. Just curious if anyone here owns or has owned one. Also any help finding a manual for it would be great.

 

[bobforsaken]

My Father has an Ashley... Different model I think, though.

 

[PapaDave]

I have an Ashley. It's a 1985 Steptop @ 2.4 cu. ft.
AHH24B, I think. It's on the plate, but I don't feel like getting up to look. I asked here just after registering almost 3 years ago, and didn't get anybody saying they knew anything about it.
I can't find any info ANYWHERE about this thing, except that the Ashley Co. may have been bought by US Stove Co.

 

[Trktrd]

They seem to be really well built and efficient. You'd think more of them would still be around. Right now it's 10 degrees outside and 80 in my 1200 sq. ft. house. No complaints here !

 

[Coach B]

I just got an indoor stove in the last month and it seemed every time I told someone over 50 I was getting an indoor woodbuner the response was..."you getting an Ashley?" Must have been very popular in the 70s.

 

[SteveKG]

I never have had one, but when I moved up here to the mntns in the early 70s, and into a cabin, literally everyone I met either had or wanted an Ashley. Everyone. I couldn't afford one then. People would talk about them with a distant, almost religious look in their eyes. For those days, they were considered the best by many. As I said, I never had one myself. Looking at them now, I can see how they worked well compared with what a lot of other stoves did, but I also see there are much better stoves out there.

What I ended up getting back then [1974] was a Shenandoah, which is firebrick-lined and has a bi-metalic control on the air intake. It is about the size of the "barrel" sort of Ashley and is still my main stove heating my home after all these years. It was a lot less expensive than the Ashley. Top loader, huge ash bin at the bottom.I burn it every day, clean out ashes about once every two weeks.

 

[firefighterjake]

Folks here still consider Ashleys one of the best stoves ever made . . . of course these same folks are convinced that the air tight stoves are fantastic.

 

[Trktrd]

The guy I got it from thought it was the worst stove ever made. Said he couldn't control it at all, either no flame or pegging the cat therm needle. When I helped disconnect it and load it up it had so much build up in the chimney that the 6" pipe was reduced to about 3". After I cleaned about 5 pounds of soot, creosote, and a dead bird out of it, replaced all the gaskets, gave it a new paint job and installed new cats (he was running it without cats, didn't know what they were), this baby is a well oiled heating machine ! I hope he is as happy with his new pellet stove as I am with the Ashley.

 

[firefighterjake]

The guy I got it from thought it was the worst stove ever made. Said he couldn't control it at all, either no flame or pegging the cat therm needle. When I helped disconnect it and load it up it had so much build up in the chimney that the 6" pipe was reduced to about 3". After I cleaned about 5 pounds of soot, creosote, and a dead bird out of it, replaced all the gaskets, gave it a new paint job and installed new cats (he was running it without cats, didn't know what they were), this baby is a well oiled heating machine ! I hope he is as happy with his new pellet stove as I am with the Ashley.

Probably the guy was used to the pre-EPA Ashleys where you would load them up with green wood, close the air and the stove would smolder all night long . . . sounds like he didn't know how to run an EPA stove . . . and for him a pellet stove at this point would be better for all involved.

 

[Trktrd]

Agreed. FWIW he's now kicking himself in the butt for getting rid of the Ashley now that it is working properly. Those pellets can be a real pain in the wallet.

 

[firefighterjake]

Agreed. FWIW he's now kicking himself in the butt for getting rid of the Ashley now that it is working properly. Those pellets can be a real pain in the wallet.

His loss is your gain . . . my own take is that I have easy access to "free" wood from the family wood lot . . . many other folks can scrounge for free wood . . . I don't know of too many folks who have their own wood pellet mill or can find bags of free wood pellets beside the curb.

 

[Trktrd]

With very little work in my area and more than enough free firewood, running across this stove has been a real blessing. I've already re-couped the 160 bucks invested in electricity savings alone.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Around here most of the talk also used to be about Ashley stoves. We had one for 20 years or so. It kept us warm but was not a great stove. It took twice the amount of wood we now use but overall we were still happy with it and still have it! However, Monday we had a visitor and they would like to own that stove! It will be leaving our place sometime this week.

I hope your stove serves you well for at least as long as ours did. Oh, I also know of a couple folks who still heat with their old Ashley stoves like ours. I believe it was something like a C-60. It was before US Stove bought them out that this one was made.

 

[JeffRey30747]

I still have a an old C60 in my basement that I fire up on rare occasions such as when I'm working down there or like tonight when it is supposed to get down to about 10F in NW Georgia. It was bought new by my parents when they built a new house in 1977. I'm looking for a good deal on an EPA stove such as an ESW stove to go down there but until then, the old Ashley will still be in limited service. I also have an old King which is very similar in my shop building. It gets used a little more than the Ashley.

 

[Trktrd]

The only Ashleys I ever hear of are the old "smoke dragons". Mine is an EPA CAT stove and is very efficient. I guess they didn't make very many before they sold out to USA Stove.