cleaning out the ash

[skinnykid]

So when we are in prime burning season, how do you guys clean out your stoves. I mean you will have to wait till it is cooled down and it takes awhile. Then clean it out and start a new fire. Doesn't your house get cold while you are doing this?

Or do you just scoop the semi-hot stuff into a metal bucket or something?

 

[savageactor7]

In the morning the stove is usually the coolest that's a good time to shovel out the ash in the front and rake the hotter coals forward.

 

[ansehnlich1]

my jotul oslo has an ash pan, I empty that bad boy before re-stokin' in the morning and/or evening. I keep a 30 gallon galvanized can with lid on the back porch and dump the ash pan into that, then every week or so dump the galvanized can in a location so as to not cause a FOREST FIRE

 

[skinnykid]

I wish mine had an ash pan. Maybe someday.......

 

[fossil]

I use one of these:

http://www.fireplaceessentials.com/c96/Black-Ash-Container-and-Shovel-Set-p783.html

Only with a shorter shovel. The bucket has a lid and it has a double bottom with an air space between the two steel bottoms. I shovel ashes out maybe once/week or so, usually in the morning before re-firing the stoves up for the day. I like to leave coals & ~3/4" or so of ash in the stoves. One of my stoves has an ash drawer built into the pedestal, and I could just push ashes into it if I wanted, but more often than not I just shovel them right out the door into the bucket, as I do with the other stove. I place the bucket outside on concrete for at least a couple of days. That stuff'll stay hot a long time. My ashes ultimately get bagged up & go out with the household trash...but only after I know for sure they're dead & cold. Rick

 

[savageactor7]

Skinny I burned since the bronze age with ash pans was very reluctant to get a stove without one...couldn't possibly live without one. After burning for a season with my QF4300 I've discovered life is so much easier without an ash pan.

 

[skinnykid]

please explain

 

[Hogwildz]

coals to the side shovel out the ash, coals to the other side, shovel out that ash, spread the coals back out or pull up front, reload, repeat as needed.

 

[InTheRockies]

I use the same ash pan and shovel as fossil. I save my ashes--I've got 2 greenhouses and once the ashes have cooled (I set my ash bucket outside in the cold and snow for several days) I put it around their foundations because it helps discourage slugs from entering them during growing season. Since ashes compress and wear away with time each burning season I build the up perimeter of ash again. (I'll dig away snow to dump ash up against the greenhouses.)

 

[Girl]

Morning, hot coals are already in the back.

 

[BJ64]

I use one of these:

http://www.fireplaceessentials.com/c96/Black-Ash-Container-and-Shovel-Set-p783.html
That stuff'll stay hot a long time. My ashes ultimately get bagged up & go out with the household trash...but only after I know for sure they're dead & cold. Rick

That just gave me a bad visual image of a trash truck blazing away at an intersection.

I used to work in a lab. One of our lab tests involved quite a bit of magnesium perclorate (it is late and my spelling stinks right now). For a while we just dumped the spent material in the trash without a though in the world about it. Our trash was hauled 50 miles away to a landfill near Tulsa, and we kept hearing on the raido about spontanous fires erupting at the dump. After several months of police investigation they traced the fires to us dumping that chemical in the trash. The break in the case was when the trash wagon burst into flames and they had to empty the rig on the highway to save the truck.

 

[N/A N/A]

I just use the plain old shovel from my fire place set and I got a metal bucket from the hardware store. I have cleaned my stove out with it going full throttle. Its a little tricky got to lift the logs up with the poker and shovel underneath. I would not recommend anyone doing that. But I am a little nutty sometimes. Then the bucket goes right out side to be dumped on the ash pile. It also should be noted that I got an old set of firefighter gloves to keep the skin on my hands from blazing away.

 

[fraxinus]

I didn't have one until last year, but the Ashtrap (reviewed elsewhere on hearth.com) reduced the mess a great deal. This device is small enough to fit into the stove. I use a wide metal putty knife to scoop the hot ashes into the Ashtrap, close the cover, carefully carry it ouside and dump into a covered galvanized trash can. A shop vac with a fine dust filter can pick up any fine ash after it cools.

 

[Tfin]

coals to the side shovel out the ash, coals to the other side, shovel out that ash, spread the coals back out or pull up front, reload, repeat as needed.

Ditto that.