Of all the different stoves, what are some of the most common ways they have to clean ashes out?

[Rob From Wisconsin]

No ash pan on my stove. I scoop out all the ash and coals and place them carefully in the bucket as Backwood Savage describes. It works pretty well - my wife is very picky about dust and she generally can't tell when I've emptied the ashes. I sift the ash from the coal outside. Ashed get spread across the property (it is a lot easier when we have snow so i don't worry about fires) and coals go in the garden. I guess I could out the coals back in the stove but charcoal is supposed to be great for the soil. I haven't really added enough to the garden to know yet.

Coals in the garden?
I've done that too, but noticed that they don't break down too quickly.
Is that a good or bad thing????

 

[embers aplenty]

I was very careful with an ash bucket and shovel for years but still seemed to get some ash dust at best. A few years back I started leaving the coal bucket outside on the walkway. I use to use a full size flat point shovel with my ole smoke dragon. I'd scoop up a shovel full while holding it pretty far up in stove, gently shake it off a bit and carefully walk outside to dump it in the bucket. Worked really well for me.

My new little Quad has a ash pan but I quit fooling with it and never looked back after reading some on this great forum. Too small and agravating anyway. Burn times seemed to get better after I let it fill up.

I kind of do the same method as before accept I use a metal stove style dust pan instead of a shovel. In the evening when I come home and the flames have long diminished, I first clean the glass with water, towels, and ash which is quick and easy. I then use a small car sweeping broom and gently sweep the ash back from the front. Sometimes I rake a few coals to the sides sometimes I don't, as their are normally plenty. I then reach in with the dust pan and get 1 good scoop "some times another 1/2 scoop if needed", shake gently, carefully walk outside, dump, then come back in turn the dust pan over and rake the remaining coals back up front. I usually put 3 small splits North to S and a few longer ones East to W on top, leave the door cracked a bit. Open up the start up and primary air and in a minute or two, away she goes. It's been holding over for 12 hours pretty easily which for a 1.5 cu. ft. fire box isn't to bad.

Now granted I wouldn't recommend toting a shovel full of coals and ashes across your living room if you have nice looking carpet and a fairly long hike ahead of you. I have older wood floors and only about 10 steps to the great outdoors so I guess I'll keep doing it. :lol:

By the way did I mention that Super Cedars rule for starting new fires. Thanks to this forum and only a 1/4 of a Super Cedar at a time, for me kindling is a thing of the past.

 

[nate379]

You take ash out of the stove every night?

I use pail and bucket with my stove when it's full. The ash bucket is about 5 gal pail in size and to empty the stove it usually around 3/4 to full. It takes me maybe 15-20 mins and it's good for around a month or so.

Sure it makes a little bit of dust mostly on the TV stand which is only a few feet from the stove, but I time the stove cleaning when the whole house is getting cleaned.

 

[Wood Duck]

No ash pan on my stove. I scoop out all the ash and coals and place them carefully in the bucket as Backwood Savage describes. It works pretty well - my wife is very picky about dust and she generally can't tell when I've emptied the ashes. I sift the ash from the coal outside. Ashed get spread across the property (it is a lot easier when we have snow so i don't worry about fires) and coals go in the garden. I guess I could out the coals back in the stove but charcoal is supposed to be great for the soil. I haven't really added enough to the garden to know yet.

Coals in the garden?
I've done that too, but noticed that they don't break down too quickly.
Is that a good or bad thing????

Yes, charcoal or 'biochar' is supposed to be great for the soil. I try to crush the large coals before I dig them into the soil, but I agree that they don't break down fast. The carbon is supposed to stay in the soil for 1000 years or something like that.

 

[firefighterjake]

My Summers heat 50-sfp12lc has a maybe 2" or 3" square piece of steel with a loop of round stock welded on top so you can pick it up with a poker. I guess youre supposed to scrape all the ashes into this tiny hole so they fall into an ash pan that is about the same dimensions as a 9x13 cookie baking pan. There has to be better features on other stoves and with bigger ash pans. I dont even know if I want to attempt to clean ashes out of my stove with coals/fire in it, but once I get a fire going I dont like to let it completely go out

Are there any stoves that are easy to clean ashes out and if so what models?

Jotul Oslo . . . very functional and useful ash pan. I dump it about every Wednesday and either Saturday or Sunday once burning 24/7 . . . holds a fair amount of ash, most coals stay in the firebox . . . no real complaints other than the fact that some ash drops down behind the actual ash pan which can build up over time so that the pan doesn't fit in nice. This is easily fixed by shoveling out the bit of ash when I dump the pan though.

 

[embers aplenty]

You take ash out of the stove every night?

I use pail and bucket with my stove when it's full. The ash bucket is about 5 gal pail in size and to empty the stove it usually around 3/4 to full. It takes me maybe 15-20 mins and it's good for around a month or so.

Sure it makes a little bit of dust mostly on the TV stand which is only a few feet from the stove, but I time the stove cleaning when the whole house is getting cleaned.

Hi Nate, Yea I do take out about a dustpan scoop of ashes each night before reviving my fire. I could probably go 2 days at the most but with a 1.5 firebox after only a day sometimes the ashes are about to roll out over the lip. Back in the shoulder season when only burning a few sticks a night I could go longer. The Blaze King you have I'm sure is a fairly big stove and can go a long time. With my old smoke dragon I could go several days. Seems like the 1 dustpan scoop a night works good for my small Quad.

No what you mean, there will still be some ash dust no matter what we do. Boy I sure wouldn't trade it for a $350 a month heat pump bill. I'd be freezing, broke and would still have dust to deal with. Ha ha. On that account I can just say " better them then me" :lol:

 

[WarmInIowa]

I do the slow and steady method with a shovel and into a bucket as well. First I rake the large coals aside, then use the shovel to carefully take out the ash. My shovel has openings in it so I can shake it to let the ash fall through if I want, then dump any coals onto the "coals pile" on one side of the stove. The holes aren't too big, so if I move it carefully with a load of ash, none fall through. It works well when I want to take the time to sift.