Clean out

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K

khpony

Member
Sep 28, 2019
47
Rociada, NM
What's everyone using to clean out there pellet stoves? I've read conflicting reports between shop vacs and ash vacs. Got the new stove going good so now to properly take care of it.
 
I hide a metal canister shopvac 6.5 hp with a fine filter and bag, I also do the leaf blower trick after every ton or so
 
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I use my wet/dry vac with two filters. Why two you ask? Three years ago I was cleaning my stove, vacuuming away, oblivious to the world when my wife started yelling. Huh? What? You yelling at me? I shut off the vac and she showed me how I had covered the furniture with a fine gray dust. It seems the bag had a hole in it and....... You can figure out the rest. Yes, we're still married. NEVER have I vacuumed the stove again without the second filter. Never.
 
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johneh said:
Shop-Vac with drywall dust bag
Click to expand...
Same here. Bought it 5 years ago and still haven’t had to change the filter. Just knock off the ash with the plastic pickup tube. After the stove shuts down I run the exhaust blower with the damper wide open, that cold outside air cools the stove pretty quickly. Never had any hot embers.

But I got an ash vac as part of my spare stove deal this summer. The seller emptied it and used it to suck the pellets out of hopper before we loaded the stove so I know it works. If anything it should go longer before having to dump it.
 
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Washed-Up said:
I hide a metal canister shopvac 6.5 hp with a fine filter and bag, I also do the leaf blower trick after every ton or so
Click to expand...
same here. Drywall (yellow) bag inside. I soil the deck a couple times every winter. The black stuff looks good on the snow...
 
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I only use the yellow drywall bag, no pleated filter on the blower-sucker housing. The yellow bag (use the Shop Vac brand, not some cheap knockoff, gets everything no issue. I could see an ash vac for a woodstove but a pellet -biomass stove, not needed so long as you use some common sense.

been doing that for at least 15 years now and the Shop Vac cleans the shop floor too. I like to fill the bag up as they aren't cheap.
 
I used a small shop vac and that worked fine. But I wanted to use that SV for other purposes too, so I bought an ash vac (plus, the metal canister makes me feel better.

The first Stove vac I got was a PowerSmith and I did not care for it. I did like that it was on wheels and it had a nice long electrical cord.. BUT, the suction was minimal and the motor quit 13 months after I bought it. I could have contacted the company, and they may have replaced it (I've heard their customer service is pretty good), but I was so underwhelmed by the actual performance that I didn't bother to do that.

I went back to the regular Shop Vac until I found a Stove Vac (made by Shop Vac) on sale. I've had that for IDk, 3 years maybe, and the suction is great. The electrical cord is a bit on the short side for my liking, but that is minor and there are ways around that if needed.
 
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IMO, ash Vacs are for wood stoves and fireplaces where there may be hot embers under the ashes that stay hot for a long time. That isn't so with a bio mass stove. The pellets burn out quickly with forced draft, same with corn (takes a few seconds longer). My Shop Vac (stainless barrel) came with a really long cord and casters which is nice when vacumming the shop as One outlet is goof for about all of it. The largest Harbor Freight cannister vacuum is a good alternative and costs about 50 bucks less than a shop vac. Problem is, it has a plastic barrel. I have one as well. Got it for a Christmas present. Takes genuine Shop Vac yellow drywall bags too.

You have to use the yellow bags versus the white ones. The yellow bags filter much finer and are meant for sheet rock dust.

Only thing I don't like about the Shop Vac brand is mine (at least) only sucks, no blower port. The HF one sucks and blows.
 
When I started I was always broke. Paying for 2 houses plus prepping the old one to get sold, then the child costs too. So I used a canister vac I got from the resale. I also grabbed every yellow bag that at least fit the inlet tube, for 25c each. That got me by for the first year. I reused bags too as long as they didn’t leak. After my other house sold I bought myself the shop vac.
 
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For everyone's knowledge.. Menards has the yellow dry wall bags to fit but DO NOT BUY them. They are thin and the rip easily. I bought a pack (about 1/2 the price of the Genuine article). Fine print said 'Made in China'. They are junk. Went to the burn pile. Menards has some good stuff at good prices but the yellow drywall bags aren't.
 
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BigJohnfromCT said:
Yes, we're still married. NEVER have I vacuumed the stove again without the second filter. Never.
Click to expand...
Should probably heed your advice as well. My wife can be nasty at times and she's a big girl too. I never want to pizz her off. Not big as in obese, just large boned besides, she helps wit the farm chores all the time. Back when I did small squares, she could toss a bale as good as the guys could.
 
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1634230021510.jpeg
This is what I got. It does fill up after a few cleanings, because the filter takes up a good portion of the tank. Can get another cleaning by standing it on end, it stays up. It’s light enough where I just take one plastic tube with me and go trudge through the snow and dump it in the woods. Then just rotate the top section by the handle and tap the ash off the filter without even removing the filter. As long as it’s not windy I stay clean.
 
SidecarFlip said:
IMO, ash Vacs are for wood stoves and fireplaces where there may be hot embers under the ashes that stay hot for a long time. That isn't so with a bio mass stove. The pellets burn out quickly with forced draft, same with corn (takes a few seconds longer). My Shop Vac (stainless barrel) came with a really long cord and casters which is nice when vacumming the shop as One outlet is goof for about all of it. The largest Harbor Freight cannister vacuum is a good alternative and costs about 50 bucks less than a shop vac. Problem is, it has a plastic barrel. I have one as well. Got it for a Christmas present. Takes genuine Shop Vac yellow drywall bags too.

You have to use the yellow bags versus the white ones. The yellow bags filter much finer and are meant for sheet rock dust.

Only thing I don't like about the Shop Vac brand is mine (at least) only sucks, no blower port. The HF one sucks and blows.
Click to expand...

I disagree with the statement about pellet stoves not having embers in them in a short time. My stoves have glowing embers after 30 minutes of being off. The ashes in the ash pan and on the "shelves" at the side of the stoves really insulate embers and I can see them come to life when introduced to fresh air.

My thought is to be safe as to be sorry.
 
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I never have but then I sweep almost everything into the ash pan prior to using the shop vac to suck out the ashes so if there are any, the are in the ash pan anyway. Could be but in my scenario, never occurred. Don't use the vacuum every time anyway, Maybe weekly.

When the ash pan is full, it gets dumped the the gravel drive. Tried the garden thing years ago with poor results.
 
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Clean my stove on Sunday mornings. Routine: get up, have a cup of coffee, turn off stove, cook breakfast while drinking my second cup, wash dishes, clean stove. This gives the stove ample time to cool down and allows for any few smoldering pellets to extinguish.
 
I use a ShopVac with a yellow bag and a HEPA filter. I started with the HEPA, which worked OK, except the vacuum doesn't seal around the two halves of the vacuum, so I ended up with ash coming out the crack. Once I added the bag, no more problems.

20211017_112531.jpg
 
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Like I said in a previous post DON'T BUY THE CHEAP MENARDS YELLOW BAGS. Not worth a wet fart. I know, I did and they went in the garbage.
 
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bogieb said:
I disagree with the statement about pellet stoves not having embers in them in a short time. My stoves have glowing embers after 30 minutes of being off. The ashes in the ash pan and on the "shelves" at the side of the stoves really insulate embers and I can see them come to life when introduced to fresh air.

My thought is to be safe as to be sorry.
Click to expand...
I never let mine get that built up where there might be and my sop is I open everything up and shovel )well push as much as I can into the ash pan which gets emptied in the gravel driveway. In over 15 years, never had issue one with the shop vac and hot embers.

Always a first time I guess, but so far no smoldering vac bag.
 
Must be different for every stove. Anything glowing that mine ejects from the burn pot is no longer glowing in a matter of seconds. After it shuts down I run the exhaust blower until the door glass is no longer hot to the touch. Which is maybe another 10 minutes. By then the burn pot is ice cold, so anything that may have been glowing in the pot is long since cooled.

I dump my ashes in the woods. After I realize the vac is full, so they’ve been sitting a week or two. I dumped them in the yard once and regretted it. I don’t want that slimy mess on my boots or tires or anything.
 
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Corn ash is different. Basically what you have are the roasted husks. I do know it's no good for the garden. Did that one year and had to lime the spot (hydrated lime) to get anything to grow, No woods to speak of here, just farm fields. Guess I could dump them in the road out front, it's gravel and dirt.
 
khpony said:
Thanks for all the good advice. Rather than use my 5.5 gal. Shop Vac I believe I'll look for a 3 gal metal shop vac and use double filters.
Click to expand...
What did you end up using and have you been happy with it? Or is it all just a lost cause and may as well stick to bucket and shovel?
 
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