RE: I was waiting to see one of these types of fires . . .

I pay $49 extra a year.

Thats what I pay is $50 surge charge. Which is cheap on the mind and I'll recover that in my first bill of electricity.

Its mostly about kids, plus there are far more electric stoves. Kids will do the darndest things around an open flame.

Not sure if its all insurance companies or just mine, which is sort of local to PA - Erie Insurance. My home owners didn't go up when we installed the stove, I called before we even started looking just to be sure. They required it to be installed by a "certified" company, proof of "professional" chimney sweep annually as well as proof of 2 fire chimney sticks, a lot of scanning and emailing receipts but no extra premiums

I put my ashes in a metal bucket. When it's full, I dump it in a bin I made out of concrete blocks and metal. Its like a compost bin. At the end of the season, I shovel it all out and throw it in the ditch. I built the bin after catching a field on fire with 4 day old ashes.

I would rather pay the $50.00, than have to pay a "professional" chimmney sweep. What are "chimney sticks"?

Those Chimfex sticks you are suppose to strike and throw in your stove if you are having a fire to put it out. Never needed them but have them. My chimney sweep was $99 and they inspect everything, they were here about 2 hours and were very nice about explaining what they found (not much) checked the wood I was burning, etc, very thorough. There are a lot of hands on things I'm willing to do, getting on my VERY steep roof having no idea what I'm looking for or doing, isn't one of them so I'm happy to pay a professional, gives my local guys some business too

Yep, if I had a steep roof then a chimney sweep would be in order. My roof is only a 4/12 pitch, real easy to walk on. I am able to sweep my chimney from the clean out bottom up, which I do about every other week. (Old non EPA wood furnace). Get up on my roof once a year to get a good look.

I am going to look into getting some chimney sticks, sounds like cheap insurance. I do get a fire extinguisher in the furnace room, no sure how that would do in a chimney fire.

Ok, this may be a dumb question but can you sweep from the firebox up? These are the only bends in my pipe, goes straight up from here, through 2nd floor, out the roof, up.

Sounds like they were thorough, how often do chimney sweeps check people's wood? That seems like a really good idea.

As for wood stoves in rental houses, I've known landlords who make sure their old houses are well insured, and would be quite happy to see them burn to the ground so they can collect the insurance. It's not that the wish for it, it's just that they know they will be well compensated if there is a fire.
There are worse things that can happen. For instance if your tenants set up a grow op and ruins your house then leaves, you likely won't be covered by your insurance.

Ashes go in a metal bucket with a ceramic tile for a lid that sits about 5' from the house on concrete. Last time I sweep the chimney from bottom up with the soot eater I shoveled out the ashes first into the bucket and then after I finished sweeping I threw what I got from sweeping into the bucket too... Bad idea. The few embers in the ash started up the creosote I had swept out of the chimney. Needless to say the bucket got moved to the driveway further from the house and was glad there was a cold rain that day.

Here in DE no extra charge for the stove, but perhaps it was already built in because of the fireplace that had no chimney.