Learned an important lesson regarding "cold" ashes...

[j7art2]

Apparently 3-4 day old ashes sitting outside in the cold ash bin (sitting in the snow) can still be flammable when dumped into the trash. Dumped the bin, went to the store and came home to a literal dumpster fire.

Normally the ashes go into the garden or somewhere on the lawn, but I had ran a creosote sweeper in this batch and assumed I'd be more than fine being that they were so old. I'm glad it wasn't worse.

 

[peakbagger]

You dodged the proverbial bullet on that one.

 

[begreen]

I'm glad it was not much worse. Imagine if that container had been in the garage or under a porch. It's better to assume that the ashes will be hot for a couple weeks.

 

[twd000]

about ten years ago I burned down my shed with some cold ashes. I had smoked some meat on my Weber Smokey Mountain the day before. That morning I dumped the ashes bare-handed in my compost bin and assumed since the smoker was cool to the touch that the ashes were out. Went out for the day and came back to a shed fire. This was a hot dry windy day, but I was surprised that 12 hours after the fire went out, there was enough embers in that little scoop of ashes to reignite.

 

[Ashful]

Thanks for posting, it's good education for the forum, to always be mindful of this. Many of us have had related experience, some worse than others. I also melted a trash can like that once, about 25 years ago, similar circumstances.

 

[Rearscreen]

Yeah, I once dumped "cold" ashes across the street along side a small creek in a foot of snow. Next day I had an under snow fire, smoke rising here and there from under the snow. Good post though and a good reminder.

 

[begreen]

Our ashes go into a 10-gallon galvanized garbage can and sit there for at least a month.

 

[Garbanzo62]

Second begreen's approach. I picked up galvanized can at Tractor supply. They sit there and I'll dump them into the compost pile later.

 

[j7art2]

Our ashes go into a 10-gallon galvanized garbage can and sit there for at least a month.

That's what I use too... It was unfortunately half full already and frozen solid from the kids who dumped some snow in the bucket on the previous ash pan loads with their shovels which melted and refroze. They love watching the steam. When I dumped these in, I assumed between the ice already in there and sitting for 4 days, i'd be good. I guess I didn't take the hint that when I dumped them and the whole bucket of ash finally came lose that it was no longer frozen solid that there might be a reason for that beyond it being warmer out!

Luckily the company is going to simply mark it as a damaged can and replace it just like a cracked one.

On the bonus side, I've been asking for 10 years for them to bring me a recycling bin, and they're gonna finally do that too.

 

[Ashful]

Our ashes go into a 10-gallon galvanized garbage can and sit there for at least a month.

Do you have two cans, so you can rotate them? I empty the ash pans in my stove weekly, and the ashes have been sitting in the pan a week at that point, so my best-case is two weeks, before they're getting dumped on a pile of mixed topsoil, coffee grounds, and chicken turds.

Put otherwise, ash in the bottom of my galvanized and lidded trash can may be more than a month old, but the bit on top is never older than two weeks.

 

[begreen]

Doug fir makes so little ash that it takes a long time to fill half of a can. And the T6 has a fairly deep belly. I usually am only cleaning the ash out twice a season.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

I'm glad it was not much worse. Imagine if that container had been in the garage or under a porch. It's better to assume that the ashes will be hot for a couple weeks.

Wow, I just put one week old ashes in a garbage bag under my deck). Guess I’ll take a walk in a bit and put the bag a little more away from the house.

 

[trail guy Mike]

Every week or 2 in winter, on a relatively warm/sunny day, I let the fire burn "out" and get comfortable in front of the stove. I push all the ashes/embers to the left side and clear out the right half. I use a stainless steel "basket" to sift out the coals while the ashes fall thru. Tiny embers also go thru with the ash, in the front right of the firebox. To the right rear, I pile the viable coals for re-starting a fire.

Having separated out 99% of the heat-producing bits, I scoop the ashes into a retired (cheap) canning kettle. It holds 3-4 cleanouts worth of ashes.
(This is after scooping all the hot stuff into the now-vacant left half of the stove).
The ashes are hot, so still wearing my oven mitt(s), I carry the kettle into the attached greenhouse for some overnight heat out there.
A day later, there is no heat in the kettle.

I've also used a retired metal mailbox for hot ash/coal transfers. The mrs. may have gotten rid of that ..?

 

[TomMcDonald]

I put my ashes in the compost pile. Superheats the pile and kickstarts the process.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Every week or 2 in winter, on a relatively warm/sunny day, I let the fire burn "out" and get comfortable in front of the stove. I push all the ashes/embers to the left side and clear out the right half. I use a stainless steel "basket" to sift out the coals while the ashes fall thru. Tiny embers also go thru with the ash, in the front right of the firebox. To the right rear, I pile the viable coals for re-starting a fire.

Having separated out 99% of the heat-producing bits, I scoop the ashes into a retired (cheap) canning kettle. It holds 3-4 cleanouts worth of ashes.
(This is after scooping all the hot stuff into the now-vacant left half of the stove).
The ashes are hot, so still wearing my oven mitt(s), I carry the kettle into the attached greenhouse for some overnight heat out there.
A day later, there is no heat in the kettle.

I've also used a retired metal mailbox for hot ash/coal transfers. The mrs. may have gotten rid of that ..?

I put them in a metal pail outside as well. I’m 99.999 percent after a week, they’d be out, especially with the tight fit of the lid, but I guess it only takes a small bit of embers to light off some paper in a garbage bin.

 

[j7art2]

Do you have two cans, so you can rotate them? I empty the ash pans in my stove weekly, and the ashes have been sitting in the pan a week at that point, so my best-case is two weeks, before they're getting dumped on a pile of mixed topsoil, coffee grounds, and chicken turds.

Put otherwise, ash in the bottom of my galvanized and lidded trash can may be more than a month old, but the bit on top is never older than two weeks.

Nope, just one, just add to it til it's full then dump generally. Maybe a second can is in order!

 

[PA452]

Yeah, I once dumped "cold" ashes across the street along side a small creek in a foot of snow. Next day I had an under snow fire, smoke rising here and there from under the snow. Good post though and a good reminder.

Wouldn't have guessed that would be an issue. Interesting.

 

[GrumpyDad]

My stove can burn down to tiny ashes and still be too warm to touch for many hours. That's what I love about cast iron.
Any and all ashes going into the burn pile.
Ive shoveled out ashes 24 hours out of a fireplace that are still giving off tiny amounts of orange here and there. Id bet in my stove they would do that for 36-48 hours.
I have my stove off (im not there now) since Sunday evening. Legend has it, it's still sitting at 350 degrees.

 

[ABMax24]

I did something similar Friday night. Stove was cold (it was above freezing outside) so I threw some financial documents in the stove intending to burn them the next time the stove was lit, this was about 5:30pm. Went about our business for the night and went to bed. My daughter awoke at midnight so the wife got up, after a while she came back into our bedroom in a panic saying the house stinks of smoke. Flying out of bed I go, down 2 flights of stairs to the basement, the papers had managed to find a warm coal and thick white smoke is billowing out of every stove pipe joint and the bottom of the stove through the air intake. Keeping in mind its warm out so there's no draft. Every basement window gets opened, every ventilation fan in the house turned on for the next hour, and there's me trying to actually light the stove to get a draft going so the smoke has somewhere to go.

Shoulda just thrown the papers in the woodbox to save for the next fire.

 

[GrumpyDad]

I did something similar Friday night. Stove was cold (it was above freezing outside) so I threw some financial documents in the stove intending to burn them the next time the stove was lit, this was about 5:30pm. Went about our business for the night and went to bed. My daughter awoke at midnight so the wife got up, after a while she came back into our bedroom in a panic saying the house stinks of smoke. Flying out of bed I go, down 2 flights of stairs to the basement, the papers had managed to find a warm coal and thick white smoke is billowing out of every stove pipe joint and the bottom of the stove through the air intake. Keeping in mind its warm out so there's no draft. Every basement window gets opened, every ventilation fan in the house turned on for the next hour, and there's me trying to actually light the stove to get a draft going so the smoke has somewhere to go.

Shoulda just thrown the papers in the woodbox to save for the next fire.

And extra coffee was in order that next day.

 

[ABMax24]

And extra coffee was in order that next day.

I went with adrenaline instead of caffeine, spent the next day sledding.

 

[Beer Belly]

Apparently 3-4 day old ashes sitting outside in the cold ash bin (sitting in the snow) can still be flammable when dumped into the trash. Dumped the bin, went to the store and came home to a literal dumpster fire.

Normally the ashes go into the garden or somewhere on the lawn, but I had ran a creosote sweeper in this batch and assumed I'd be more than fine being that they were so old. I'm glad it wasn't worse.

View attachment 309299

Could you imagine if the garbage truck had picked that up prior to ignition

 

[Osage]

I went with adrenaline instead of caffeine, spent the next day sledding.

View attachment 309453

Showing us this photo is totally uncalled for! 😡

 

[Ashful]

Could you imagine if the garbage truck had picked that up prior to ignition

Seen it happen. They call it a "hot load", apparently happens frequently enough that they have SOP for it. The case I saw, the driver and worker ejected or somehow unloaded most of the truck onto a section of street away from houses, until they could be sure the burning stuff was no longer in the truck.

Also saw the results of a friend's neighbor's house burn down about three years ago, from dumping ashes on the rocks under his creek-side deck. He'd been doing it for years, decades even, but one night they awoke to their house on fire, many hours after dumping ashes. The trouble was that, since the fire started outside the structure, they were already fully-engulfed before the first smoke alarm inside the house detected any problem. They just barely made it out themselves, no time to grab even a single possession. The house burned to the foundation, since it was so far gone before the first 911 call even went out, total loss.

 

[gthomas785]

A few years ago my grandpa's neighbor's house burned down due to careless handling of ashes from an OWB. The boiler was more than 50 feet from the house but a wind picked up some embers and they lodged in the eaves and the whole place was gone in under an hour.

So.. all my ashes for the season go straight into a 31 gallon galvanized trash can outside. Then over the summer (starting several weeks after my last fire) I scatter them in the yard/woods.