Do you hate your Ash Pan + Poll

I use the ash pan and dump it every few days. I don't see any problem using it the way Jotul intended.

I LOVE the ash pan on my Jotul Oslo. I don't see what could possibly be easier. Every ~3-4 days when burning 24/7 I will empty the pan. Pretty simple really:
1. rake coals to front of stove and stir ashes around through grates
2. reload wood
3. open ash door
4. give pan a quick shimmy back and forth to level the ash while still in the stove
5. pull out drawer, see if any fell out back and shovel if so
6. close door
7. dump ashes in can outside
8. replace pan

I don't see why anyone would want to mess around inside a hot stove shoveling ashes out through the door. The pan lets me continue with the purpose of the wood stove: BURN WOOD with NO break for removing the ash.

ac

When i was little my grandmother fired up the kirby she bought to clean ash and had a flame-thrower on her hands lol ! Yup those where the days

Pete

Do you hate your ash pan poll made me curious so I started a poll but could not figure out how to attach it to the other thread.

I like my ash pan, but this is my first stove, so have nothing to compare it to. Its a simple process really. When ash pan gets full, dump it. Repeat weekly

Firebrick over the 30's....

Although I never thought to cook in it??

The one on my Napoleon 1900p is useless IMO. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and tied to use of the first couple of months that I had it, but have since left the hole in the floor of the stove packed full of ash. I find it MUCH easier to use a shovel and scoop the ash out once a week, from there it goes in a pit out in the back yard where it gets watered down.

Hey Mods Is there a way to attach the poll to this thread ? It was merged without the poll.

Thanks
Pete

I replied earlier but wish to clarify... It's not that I hate MY ash pan it's that I dislike ash pans in general. The BK's ash pan design is leaps ahead of the absolute mickey mouse crap that the heritage had. If the capacity of an ash pan was equal to or larger than a regular bucket then we would have a benefit. As it is, a couple inches of ash way down in the bottom of the BK firebox will fill a standard ash bucket so the basic utility of the standard built in ash-pan is defeated. The BK ash pan is 2-3x bigger than the heritage but still would be easily overflowed since you fill it blindly from a chute and have no way of knowing when it is full, you do know that at some point you will overflow.

Does any stove offer an ash pan that at least has the capacity to hold the ashes from one firebox in need of an emptying?

it seems to me from the posts here (this may already be obvious to those with a lot of experience with different stoves) that the better experiences with ash pans often involve stoves that have a grate (ashes can be swept thru). Is this the case? My stove (Osburn) has a little plug in the bottom of the firebox that can be lifted out with the poker. The ash pan is a pretty good size, I suppose, and has a lid that can flip over to cover it when it's removed to keep ashes from blowing out. It's not like it's a bad design I guess, but it's just that I can shovel the ash into a steel bucket in half the time, and not have to monkey with the small metal plug in a hot stove, or put it back in when done, etc. I wonder if I'd be more of a fan if there was a steel grate to sweep the ash through, no plug to remove / replace, etc...?

I shovel ash and do not use the ash pan. I am still able to "BURN WOOD with NO break for removing the ash."

Thanks BG

Pete

Thanks for the insight. +1 on safer. My shop vac 6.5 HP monster would probably suck out everything including half the firebrick - just before bursting into flames. I've always used just the brush but I think I'll keep an eye on these ash vacs - they had a whack of them stacked up to kick off the burning season - I smell a sale later this fall...

I dunno, when I am reloading my stove is usually too hot inside to spend a bunch of time with a shovel poking things around. I like just opening the door, filling with wood and dealing with the ashes separately.

Dealing with the ashes while the stove is running full bore keeps the draft nice and high and sucks the stray ashes into the stove rather than floating around the room.

So easy.

ac

I emptied the ash pan from my PH for the first time yesterday. All in all I found it to be a very good experience. Faster than shoveling and I'm sure there was less dust/mess in the house.

Process was 'dirt' simple - Raked the coals about so the ash from the day's burn fell through the grate (would have done that anyway), then open the ash door, slip the ash pan cover in over the pan; then remove the pan (with cover on it) and close as pan door. I then took the covered pan out back and dumped into my outside ash can. Returning to stove replacement was trivial - open ash door, slide pan (with lid) into stove, then pull lid out leaving pan in place. All done. At no time was the actual pan uncovered outside of the stove while in the house. Even a klutz like me is unlikely to spill and dump ashes into the air with this system. By time I returned the coals were hot and ready for a reload (even though I didn't really need it at that point).

I think I am going to like this... Much faster than shoveling and the grate made it easy to sort out coals from ash. Only down side is that I do have to actually take the ashes out of the house right away instead of shoveling into a bucket I leave on the hearth - will have to work up a solution to that on. Now to figure out how to know when the pan is full without opening the door to check. Hmmm...

Never had a problem with it. First thing in the morning, shovel out some ash, rake coals forward, throw in some wood.

I am not a fan of using the one in the 30-NC.
The pan does exactly what it's supposed to - holds ash.
Getting ash in there and sealing the little drop hole is an entirely different story though. Especially when you have 10 lbs of 2-3" pallet nails within the ashes....

i like the one in my jotul, its a grate, i hate the one in the PE Summit, its a little square 2 x 2 if that. not real easy to operate...

cass

Exactly. Any problem getting that little drop hole plugged again scares me - don't want the stove sucking air there if I fubar getting that plug back in tight. With my luck I'd leave a gap (after wrestling with it in the midst of some hot coals) and then build up a big fire over top and then realize I can't control the air. I'm probably being extra paranoid about all this, the plug isn't that hard to re-seat, but a shovel and steel pail takes care of any worries around that just fine.

And - I just re-read the manual from my stove - the instructions for using the pan state that you should only remove ashes when the stove and ash are cold. So apparently the ash pan is off limits pretty much from Sept through May.

Use the ash pans in the PH and the Firelight exclusively - both are well designed (both are "grate" types), easy to use, effective and create less dust in the house. The Jotul has about 4 days of 24/7 capacity and the PH at least 5 days.

What's not to like? It moves a lot of ash by opening the door, pulling it out and dumping in the metal can outside. Can't say I ever tryed using a little shovel and can next to the stove, 20 shovel fulls later you have it cleaned out. Could it be bigger, yes, but it would look ugly under the stove. Should the ash not get behind the pan, yes. Because we aren't 24 / 7 I keep the ash level down and the stove clean. So maybe that's why it workes for me. I'm sure there not all the same so what are the issues?















.

Why do you want a bucket of ash in the house? The touch it once and it's gone nature of the ash pan is my favorite part!

ac

It took me a while to understand your question, as both my current stoves accumulate ash inside the firebox ONLY when the pan is full. My Dutchwest and Jotul Oslo both have grates that allow the ash to drop into the pan. I never rake or shovel ashes out of the firebox itself; just gathering the coals together for a morning restart will keep the nooks and crannies clean. Burning 24/7 I need to empty my Oslo pan every third or fourth day, the Dutchwest every second or third day.

I declined to consider stoves that require you to rake the ashes into some opening to then fall into the ash pan. In such a design I suspect it would be easier just to shovel the things out directly into a pail and skip the ash pan step.