Ash Cleanout intervals

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In my summers heat ssw02 (big firebox) I can't seem to get it all the way down to ashes on every burn or even every other burn. I don't use the ash bin just shovel into my bucket. I usually shovel the ashes out of the bottom of the firebox leaving the hot coals once every 3 or 4 days. I don't let the ashes or coals get above the "doghouse" I also burn mostly ash with very little red oak and maple.

Total so far this season burning basically non stop for a little over 2 months I had about 8 gallons worth of of ashes and unburnt coals.
 
Seems to depend on wood for me too. About once a week. I burn around the clock. I don't use ash pan either.
 
Chas0218 said:
In my summers heat ssw02 (big firebox) I can't seem to get it all the way down to ashes on every burn or even every other burn. s.
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I have the same stove ,never any unburned coals. Im going about 3 weeks now without cleaning out ashes ,between 1 and 2 inches still. I do have very good draft and a new tall chimney ,not sure if that makes a difference.
 
Seasoned Oak said:
I have the same stove ,never any unburned coals. Im going about 3 weeks now without cleaning out ashes ,between 1 and 2 inches still. I do have very good draft and a new tall chimney ,not sure if that makes a difference.
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I don't think I let it burn down enough between loads. This weekend I ran it but let the stove get below 100 degrees for a couple hours and had a lot less coaling. I am also leaving the air damper a little more open not fully shut down and it seems to burn down a little better before reloading.
 
i have the smaller version of the madison, a trick i do if i get coals that need to be burned down is to pile them in the front of the stove by the doghouse air and then open the air intake up fully. this gives off some decent heat and burns them down enough for me to reload quicker when it's really cold out.
 
I have 1 cord of oak through the stove this year and have not cleaned out yet. Been burning 24hrs a day a couple weeks before thanksgiving. Belly of the stove is maybe halfway full, about 3”.
 
edyit said:
i have the smaller version of the madison, a trick i do if i get coals that need to be burned down is to pile them in the front of the stove by the doghouse air and then open the air intake up fully. this gives off some decent heat and burns them down enough for me to reload quicker when it's really cold out.
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Thanks for the tip up ill give it a shot.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
 
I shovel out the ashes after every (next day cold) fire. Gives me more room to fill the box with newspaper and kindling and doesn't make clouds as I toss it in.
 
Seasoned Oak said:
I have the same stove ,never any unburned coals. Im going about 3 weeks now without cleaning out ashes ,between 1 and 2 inches still. I do have very good draft and a new tall chimney ,not sure if that makes a difference.
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How many square feet are you heating?
 
Cleaned out the ash yesterday. First time this season. It could have gone for a few more weeks.
 
I am on an every 2 weeks schedule when burning 24-7. When we are having warmer days, i tend to clean it out more often so I can get a little bit of airflow when getting the fire going. If i let it get too full, ash will go all over the place when i pull the drawer out. I like that i can lift the whole pan all the way out, cover it, and dump it into the bucket outside.

I leave a little bit on the inside for insulation, really only clean that out when it is going to be warm for a while.
 
I empty the ash pan in the Castine once every 3 days during the middle of winter. Once a week during the shoulder season.

I'm looking forward to much greater intervals once our new F600 arrives.
 
Sodbuster said:
How many square feet are you heating?
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About 2000SF of unfinished project house., No insulation yet and many of the walls still open (no drywall) I have an NC-30 in the basement and the 50 in the first floor. About as good as i can do is about 60 on a not too cold day as im losing so much heat as fast as i can make it.
 
As I read through this thread, I wonder what is going on for me. All of you that are talking about not cleaning out until now... I've filled a 35 gallon metal trash can so far. This was at first with my 30NC downstairs, mostly sifted ashes. I've filled about 2 ash buckets (3-4 gallon) in three weeks burning with the FP25. It has me wondering why I have so much more in terms of ash volume than the other posters.

I've thought that ash (the tree) produces more ash(burnt up wood), but is it really that dramatic? I've produced that volume of ash from my FP25 in 3 weeks loading 3 times per day, so roughly 21 loads has = 8 gallons of ash.
 
Seasoned Oak said:
About 2000SF of unfinished project house., No insulation yet and many of the walls still open (no drywall) I have an NC-30 in the basement and the 50 in the first floor. About as good as i can do is about 60 on a not too cold day as im losing so much heat as fast as i can make it.
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When we were remodeling, we used a lot of curtains to block keep areas warm. it worked surprisingly well... given that we decided to do big windows in February!
 
venator260 said:
As I read through this thread, I wonder what is going on for me. All of you that are talking about not cleaning out until now... I've filled a 35 gallon metal trash can so far. This was at first with my 30NC downstairs, mostly sifted ashes. I've filled about 2 ash buckets (3-4 gallon) in three weeks burning with the FP25. It has me wondering why I have so much more in terms of ash volume than the other posters.

I've thought that ash (the tree) produces more ash(burnt up wood), but is it really that dramatic? I've produced that volume of ash from my FP25 in 3 weeks loading 3 times per day, so roughly 21 loads has = 8 gallons of ash.
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That’s crazy. I dont think i would fill 35 gal in 5 years using my average of 4 cord a season. I burn all hardwood too that would build up more then softwoods.
 
Dieselhead said:
That’s crazy. I dont think i would fill 35 gal in 5 years using my average of 4 cord a season. I burn all hardwood too that would build up more then softwoods.
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Hm... Well then I wonder what the difference is? I'm taking out fine gray ashes. I just dumped my bucket in my metal trash can tonight and it overflowed; the ash is fine enough that it likes to flow around, and ran over the sides. So it's completely full, and I emptied it last spring. I'm trying to figure what I've burned so far this year, and it has to be somewhere around 1.5 to 2 cords, based upon the number of cartloads I've brought into the basement and what I have left.

The oak I've burned seems to reduce better; but I haven't burned much of anything but ash in any significant volume through a newer stove. To get it out of the way; the highest MC I found on a room temp fresh split has been 19%, and that was a larger round that I needed to split down to fit comfortably in my FP25.
 
The amount of ash depends a lot on the type of wood and moisture content, also reloading early when it's cold will build up ash. My wood this year is drier than last year and haven't filled up my 5 gallon bucket yet. I don't like waiting til its too much ash to shovel out and take a couple shovels full every couple of days.
 
My ash/coal build up has been a dramatic increase from last year, but I attribute it to how much more I'm burning and the way I'm burning. Last year I would keep a lot more air running through the stove over night as opposed to shutting the air off before bed/before work.
 
venator260 said:
As I read through this thread, I wonder what is going on for me. All of you that are talking about not cleaning out until now... I've filled a 35 gallon metal trash can so far. This was at first with my 30NC downstairs, mostly sifted ashes. I've filled about 2 ash buckets (3-4 gallon) in three weeks burning with the FP25. It has me wondering why I have so much more in terms of ash volume than the other posters.

I've thought that ash (the tree) produces more ash(burnt up wood), but is it really that dramatic? I've produced that volume of ash from my FP25 in 3 weeks loading 3 times per day, so roughly 21 loads has = 8 gallons of ash.
Click to expand...
How many splits are you putting in and how big? I load 2 splits 21" long about 6" across E-W then about 6 16" splits about 4" across N-S across the top of the 21" splits. I only burn ash and it seems to burn down nice now that I am leaving the air shut off a little more open. Granted I'm not getting as long of burns but still have hot coals to start a fire after an overnight burn of 9 hours. I only load twice a day once in the AM before I leave for work then once at night before bed. House stays around 68* between reloading and about 75* downstairs and 69* upstairs. On the real cold nights that dipped down to 0* the upstairs didn't get above 64* but that was with no supplemental heat. My furnace kicks on about 2 times a day to heat the one living room. I have only got about 8-10 gallons worth of ash when I've been burning for a little over 2 1/2 months. Granted my earlier fires were small but for 2 months they have been full blown heating 3000 sq.ft. house type of fires.
 
Chas0218 said:
How many splits are you putting in and how big? I load 2 splits 21" long about 6" across E-W then about 6 16" splits about 4" across N-S across the top of the 21" splits. I only burn ash and it seems to burn down nice now that I am leaving the air shut off a little more open. Granted I'm not getting as long of burns but still have hot coals to start a fire after an overnight burn of 9 hours. I only load twice a day once in the AM before I leave for work then once at night before bed. House stays around 68* between reloading and about 75* downstairs and 69* upstairs. On the real cold nights that dipped down to 0* the upstairs didn't get above 64* but that was with no supplemental heat. My furnace kicks on about 2 times a day to heat the one living room. I have only got about 8-10 gallons worth of ash when I've been burning for a little over 2 1/2 months. Granted my earlier fires were small but for 2 months they have been full blown heating 3000 sq.ft. house type of fires.
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My usual load in the fp25 25 is 6 splits about 4-6 inches wide. In the 30nc I could fit about 8 of those splits in. The fp25 is loaded e/w, the 30nc was n/s. With both stoves, I've been loading 3x per day for a good while now. 2-3 days in there I got 4 cycles in a day out of the fp25 when it was rather cold outside.

Where I have difficulty understand this is what I take out doesn't have much in the way of charcoal in it, it's just about all fine grey ash that's taken out of my stove. I sift the charcoal out and just take the grey ash that remains. I cant imagine what I'm taking out has much in the way of unburnt remnants yet I'm getting several times the ash volume of other posters, seemingly burning the same way; 7-9 hour cycles from a 2.5ft^2 fire box.
 
I know oak is much better than cherry and elm for me. I think I remember seeing a wood btu chart that included ash volume but have not been able to find it again. Anyone have that. I think it is interesting that there is so much difference in species. My simple mind would think dry weight would balance out but obviously some are better at low ask than others.
 
I scoop it out whenever it gets full enough to spill out when I open the doors to add more wood. For the Heat 'n Glow, that seems to be about every 10 days when burning hard, more like 2 weeks otherwise. The Quadrafire in the basement is deeper and can go more like 3 weeks of 24/7 burns, but then all the ash doesn't fit in one coal bucket.
 
venator260 said:
My usual load in the fp25 25 is 6 splits about 4-6 inches wide. In the 30nc I could fit about 8 of those splits in. The fp25 is loaded e/w, the 30nc was n/s. With both stoves, I've been loading 3x per day for a good while now. 2-3 days in there I got 4 cycles in a day out of the fp25 when it was rather cold outside.

Where I have difficulty understand this is what I take out doesn't have much in the way of charcoal in it, it's just about all fine grey ash that's taken out of my stove. I sift the charcoal out and just take the grey ash that remains. I cant imagine what I'm taking out has much in the way of unburnt remnants yet I'm getting several times the ash volume of other posters, seemingly burning the same way; 7-9 hour cycles from a 2.5ft^2 fire box.
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Sounds like you are getting a complete burn with the light and fluffy ashes. I didn't get as much of that before I started opening the air shutoff all the way once it was down to coals. I usually don't get a lot of charcoal chunks maybe a few small ones just a lot of red coals when I need to re-load the fire. I too get a lot more ashes and seem to clean it more often than what others do but I like to load up the stove so I probably clean out the old ashes more often than others. My stove is similar to the 30nc and I have found that loading n/s in my stove will get more complete burns probably because it is a hotter fire than the e/w. For the last we we haven't seen temps get out of the teens and single digits every night so I have been burning pretty hot and filling often . With all the burning I have been doing lately I can fill my 2.5 gallon ash bucket probably every 4-6 days.
 
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