Why can't a woodstove have a shaker / ash pan like a coal stove?

[SmokeyCity]

A coal stove does not require you to let the fire go out to empty the ash. A wood stove does.

I love how simple it is to empty ashes from my Hitzer coal stove. You shake and they drop into a pan with an airtight door in front of it.
You pull out the pan, shut the door, empty it and put it back in and shut the door again.
Seems to me that a wood stove could do the same thing - although the grate would have to be a finer and the mechanism would not be as simple to avoid putting hot coals in to the pan.

Emptying the ashes from a wood stove is the most annoying issue for me. You have to run a shop vac or make sure the stove is hot enough to be drawing up the dust that falls off your scoop or you have a room full of cold ash dust.

Anyone ever use a special shovel for wood stoves that sifts the ash from the good stuff ?

Seen them advertised but figured they must be a gimmick or eveyone would be using them /

 

[WellSeasoned]

I have an ash pan and I will empty it every 4 days or so. So I have plenty of time frames to do it safely. Even if there is a few hot coals, I'll scrap them to one side and scoop the cool ones and ash down into the grate, reverse sides and empty the pan into my ash pail that stays on a non combustible surface. Works good for me.

 

[SteveKG]

Some wood stoves do have them. My main heat stove has both a shaker and an ash bin below the shaker that is accessed by its own door. Very nice. In fact, when I empty ashes from the bin, I always have at least a tiny fire going because the draft will suck in much of any ash dust that comes from my careful shoveling of ash... And the ash area is large enough that I only have to shovel it out about every two weeks during heavy-burn season.

 

[Highbeam]

My heritage has a grate and a little lever that you move back and forth to open and close the grate. This, in theory, would allow ashes and smaller coals to fall into the sealed ash pan chamber for disposal. I say "in theory" because I don't use it. I only have to empty the ashes every few months and we are full time burners. I don't understand why folks make so much ash, maybe it's the hardwoods?

It is no problem at all to shovel out the firebox when a fire is going, you just shove the fire to one side, scoop, shove the fire to the other side and scoop. Bam, no ashes.

So we use a bucket and shovel.

 

[jharkin]

A coal stove has to have a shaker grate bacause of the way coal fires burn. The combustion air is fed into the coal bed from below. Without the shaker the grate would clog with ash and kill the fire.

There are a few woodstoves with Ash pans. The mentioned Hearthstone and Jotul do, as does almost all models of Vermont Castings and I believe the new Woodstock Progress has one as an option. Those are just the ones I am familiar with, I am sure there are others.

Even without a pan, with practice you should be able to empty it without getting ash anywhere. Rake the coals to the side as mentioned and then shovel out the ash carefully. The key is to go slow, and rather than just dump off the shovel in your pail lay the shovel down on the pail bottom and slowly tip it up so the ash slides off without making dust.

 

[peakbagger]

EPA wood stoves are very tightly controlled to get clean emmisions. The major method of control is controlling the air and adding a shaker grate ash pan adds a lot of complexity and potential for air leakage.

I also speculate that most stoves with secondaries are set up to have a hot coal bed to gasify the wood, havings a shaker grate and bottom air introduction could impact the gasification.

 

[geoxman]

my stove Consolidated Dutch west 288CCL has shaker grates and was designed to burn both coal and wood. With the cat in it is an EPA certified stove. I bought a ton of bit real cheap this year and I have had great results with burning coal in my stove. I have been switching back and forth from the two, but next year I might just spend $200 on four tons and be done with wood. good luck

 

[Backwoods Savage]

A coal stove does not require you to let the fire go out to empty the ash. A wood stove does.

I love how simple it is to empty ashes from my Hitzer coal stove. You shake and they drop into a pan with an airtight door in front of it.
You pull out the pan, shut the door, empty it and put it back in and shut the door again.
Seems to me that a wood stove could do the same thing - although the grate would have to be a finer and the mechanism would not be as simple to avoid putting hot coals in to the pan.

Emptying the ashes from a wood stove is the most annoying issue for me. You have to run a shop vac or make sure the stove is hot enough to be drawing up the dust that falls off your scoop or you have a room full of cold ash dust.

Anyone ever use a special shovel for wood stoves that sifts the ash from the good stuff ?

Seen them advertised but figured they must be a gimmick or eveyone would be using them /

Emptying ashes from a wood stove without an ash pan is very simple and takes very little time. Right now we can go over a week between the ash emptying.

You do not have to run a shop vac nor do you need to make any mess with ashes. I've posted here many times how to do it so won't post again unless it is necessary but even as a very young boy I learned how to empty ashes without making dust or any mess. No special tool is necessary. No shop vac. No water, etc. Just a small ash shovel and your two hands can do it quickly and easily.

 

[ScotO]

my napoleon 1900 has an ash door and pan, but they are really inadequate especially if you use the stove as your primary heat source as we do......I think that is a major deficiency of all of these modern woodstoves, none of them have a great system to deal with the ashes. We have a procedure that works pretty good and I have it down to emptying the ashes once a week but I do not use the ash pan as it is really not user-friendly on my stove....either way, I love my wood heat and don't see myself going back until my body will no longer allow me to process firewood......

 

[firefighterjake]

My Oslo has a very functional ash pan . . . I do stir the ashes and coals with my fireplace shovel when I reload . . . this allows the ash to drop down into the pan while the large coals stay in the firebox.

It sounds like your stove does not have an ash pan . . . I have heard of folks using ash rakes and even modifying a fireplace shovel with holes in it to allow one to move the coals out of the way and then shoveling up the ash . . . no experience with these tools though.

 

[ScotO]

My Oslo has a very functional ash pan . . . I do stir the ashes and coals with my fireplace shovel when I reload . . . this allows the ash to drop down into the pan while the large coals stay in the firebox.

It sounds like your stove does not have an ash pan . . . I have heard of folks using ash rakes and even modifying a fireplace shovel with holes in it to allow one to move the coals out of the way and then shoveling up the ash . . . no experience with these tools though.

My stove has an ash pand and an ash door but they are awkward and not very effective in 24/7 use of the stove.....I thought about fabricating an ash shovel with slots or holes for that very function, it's been on my mind most of the fall.......just reading this post, I think I will make one today......thanks for boosting my ambition Jake!

 

[firefighterjake]

My Oslo has a very functional ash pan . . . I do stir the ashes and coals with my fireplace shovel when I reload . . . this allows the ash to drop down into the pan while the large coals stay in the firebox.

It sounds like your stove does not have an ash pan . . . I have heard of folks using ash rakes and even modifying a fireplace shovel with holes in it to allow one to move the coals out of the way and then shoveling up the ash . . . no experience with these tools though.

My stove has an ash pand and an ash door but they are awkward and not very effective in 24/7 use of the stove.....I thought about fabricating an ash shovel with slots or holes for that very function, it's been on my mind most of the fall.......just reading this post, I think I will make one today......thanks for boosting my ambition Jake!

If you do a search or start a new thread folks may be able to show you pics of their home made ash rakes or ash shovels . . .

 

[ColoCate]

Try this solution:

Because we have a passive solar, well insulated house, we bank the stove at night and let it go out overnight. And we seldom keep a morning fire going past 10a.m. So we don't have a great quantity of ashes, and those we do have are usually cool or cold by the time we clean out before starting again. But to reduce the volume of ash and increase safety, I got on Ebay and paid $13 including shipping for a nice heavy duty French Fry basket.

(BTW, thanks to the GOVERNMENT incentives last year, we were able to afford a new, efficient, and beautiful Osburn woodstove to replace our 25 year old Country Flame.)

Here's our procedure. Again, this is for a cold or slightly warm firebox:

Don't use the ash tray under the stove. Open the door, hold the fry basket inside or slightly above your ash bucket with one hand, and scoop out a shovel of ash/coals with the other. SLOWLY dump it in the basket. DO NOT SHAKE THE BASKET LIKE A BUNCH OF FRENCH FRIES unless you want a big poof of ash dust all over the place. If need be, GENTLY push the material around until the ashes fall through. Repeat with one more scoop, then CAREFULLY replace the coals back into the stove. Repeat from one side or the other across the stove interior until you have only coals in the stove and ashes in your bucket. It works well for us. We have half the volume we used to to dispose of, and even though the resulting ashes-only may be a little warm, they are not hot enough to cause problems.

The key words on Ebay would be "culinary fry basket coarse." Give it a try.

Cate in Gunnison, CO
(Enjoying a mild winter so far--only 4 below zero this morning!)