I should have cleaned out the ashes this morning

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LLigetfa

Minister of Fire
Nov 9, 2008
7,360
NW Ontario
Ususally I keep an eye on the forecast and take advantage of an opportunity to clean out the ashes when I see a cold spell impending. Well... last night I let the wife man the stove and this morning I slept in. Needless to say, the stove was cold without an ember to be saved. It was damn cold out and the full ash pail was sitting outside. I looked at how much ash there was, how cold it was outside, and procrastinated. Three mistakes, by my count, four if I count not having an empty ash pail at the ready.

As the title said, I shoulda... The radio is saying it's supposed to go down to -32°C tonight with highs of -22°C and lows of -33°C for tomorrow. This afternoon I emptied the ash pail and left it near the door. The wood box is now full and It's my turn to man the stove tonight. I will certainly have coals in the morning, even if I were to sleep in but then I will have to do hot ash removal come morning.
 
Sounds like you had best keep some extra blankets handy. That is cold in anybody's book. We are to get colder but the Great Lakes help to moderate the temps a bit. Also, as I expected, this storm was highly over rated. Although it is still snowing, I don't think we have got 2" yet and the snow pattern is already breaking up which means we won't get much more. Near the lakes they will though.
 
Yeah, sometimes you just gotta do 'em hot. I built a coal trap/basket that sits inside my ash bucket. I dump the ash/coals into the basket, give it a few shakes and let the ash drop down. The coals then get returned to the stove. To make it work I had to upgrade my ash bucket to a full blown ash trashcan. Turns out the medium size galvanized trash cans cost as much as a smaller bucket size can. Then I made the basket out of some junk mesh grating/sheetmetal. Works.

Good luck with those cold temps!
 
wahoowad said:
Yeah, sometimes you just gotta do 'em hot. I built a coal trap/basket that sits inside my ash bucket. I dump the ash/coals into the basket, give it a few shakes and let the ash drop down. The coals then get returned to the stove. To make it work I had to upgrade my ash bucket to a full blown ash trashcan. Turns out the medium size galvanized trash cans cost as much as a smaller bucket size can. Then I made the basket out of some junk mesh grating/sheetmetal. Works.

Good luck with those cold temps!

Curious if you could share a picture of the device and your method of not having a "thermonuclear" ash cloud throughout the house with this technique? Even when gently using the "KolKeeper" in the rear corner of my slightly warm firebox, there still escapes a small amount of very fine ash.
 
Backwoods Savage said:
Sounds like you had best keep some extra blankets handy. That is cold in anybody's book. We are to get colder but the Great Lakes help to moderate the temps a bit. Also, as I expected, this storm was highly over rated. Although it is still snowing, I don't think we have got 2" yet and the snow pattern is already breaking up which means we won't get much more. Near the lakes they will though.
Was not over rated here, blizzard yesterday all sorts of roads closed and below 0 today, time to dig out I guess.
 
No need for extra blankets... the gas furnace kicks in if the temp drops. Gas is cheap now and the furnace provides humidity as well.

As for hot ash removal, I made a combination ash hoe/coal rake to separate the ash from the coals. I shove everything to the back with the hoe and then rake the coals forward. The coals give off so much heat that if I shovel them into the bucket, the convection currents rising up carries fine ash dust into the air. I place the ash pail close to the stove door opening in the hopes the draft sucks the dust up the flue but that depends on how hot the flue is at the time. I will often open a nearby window to pressurize the room a bit but when it's -30 out it gets a tad cool aound the ankles.

I'm thinking of making a lid for the ash pail to try to keep the dust down. I'm also considering making something like the Ash Trap. I was Looking at the Ash Trap before they went out of business but the shape and size of it and the way the lid stuck way out wouldn't work well with my stove. THe lid would have had to be modified to be removable. They were designed more for the old open hearth fireplaces.

Looking at the Ash Dragon, the lid sticks out past the lip of the scoop so that won't work for me either. I'd have to modify the lid by adding a second hinge so that it Z-folds.

Anyway... kicking myself for missing an opportunity to remove cold ashes. Invariably some hot ash got airborne and settled on the wife's Chip and Dale furniture. She's starting to grumble already.

It didn't get quite as cold as they called for but I did have enough coals to resurrect the fire. I slept in again so I didn't manage to get the house warm enough, fast enough to satisfy the wife so she bumped up the thermostat on the gas furnace.
 
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