How often do you clean out the stove?

[Bigcube]

How deep can the ashes get before you scoop them out? For you people that burn 24/7, do you scoop them out hot? I let it fizzle down over night and was going to scoop them out this morning but they were still hot. Right now I've got a little bit of water in the basement so I'm burning to keep the furnace from turning on. Thank god all the rain will turn to snow over night. It's been right around 30 all day and the house was 78 when I opened up the windows to cool it down some. :cheese:

 

[Highbeam]

I scoop them out hot or cold and try to do it before hte ashes are high enough to interfere with wood loading.

 

[northwinds]

I empty out most of the ashes every other day. I rake the ashes into the ash drawer one day and then the next
day, I'll empty the ash drawer and scoop out the majority of what's left in the box, leaving any bigger chunks of
glowing embers for the re-light. From the firebox, I scoop in to a metal bucket. I've been spreading the ashes
across the yard in deep snow.

 

[grizzly2]

My Jotul 3 has an ash pan under the grates. In the morning when there is little or no fire left, I use a piece of kindling to stir the ashes arround untill most have fallen through the grates into the pan. I try to leave enough ash to cover most of the grate. this can make the grate last longer due to insulating it from the heat ( same goes for shaking down my Hitzer coal stove). I have to empty the pan about every other day.

 

[bmwloco]

I'm in the gentle mountains of western North Carolina running a vintage mid-70's Vermont Casting Resolute. I clean ashes out about every other lighting.

My wood pile is getting down to the massive oaks logs I hauled home two summers ago. A recently purchased 12lb maul helps take them down to manageable size after vip-vip with 16" chainsaw. It's just right now. Low ember burns to dust. I wish I had a massive load of it for next winter.

 

[raybonz]

How deep can the ashes get before you scoop them out? For you people that burn 24/7, do you scoop them out hot? I let it fizzle down over night and was going to scoop them out this morning but they were still hot. Right now I've got a little bit of water in the basement so I'm burning to keep the furnace from turning on. Thank god all the rain will turn to snow over night. It's been right around 30 all day and the house was 78 when I opened up the windows to cool it down some. :cheese:

I think I go at least a week and then I rarely go to bare metal as my stove runs better that way for some odd reason.. I leave my ash bin full because it creates a strange turbulance when empty.. Just a quirk with this particular stove not really a big deal. The bottom of my stove including the grates show no signs of wear, cracks etc. and I suspect the ash acts like an insulator. I imagine many stoves have their little oddities. My stove is an early epa stage one stove I would imagine they aren't so quirky as mine. Lots of people here mention replacing refractory linings or bricks which this stove doesn't have.. Oops got off subject, sorry bout that!

Ray

 

[Cearbhaill]

I try and get at least "some" out every time I let the fire get too low- every 2-3 days. I seem to accumulate ash up in the front or back in the rear, so I alternate where I scoop them from. Or sometimes when I reload I intentionally do it mostly to the left so I can scoop from the right when it burns down.
I have one bucket next to the hearth where I put hot ashes, and a second sitting outside cooling off. When the hearth bucket is full it sets outside on gravel for a couple of days before we toss it in the compost pile. Then we bring it inside and take the second, now full one, outside to set for a while.

 

[Bigcube]

Thanks for all the replies. I'll have to scoop them out soon. I'm running a 30 year old VC, it sure does like the wood, I've put about 8-10 logs in today :bug:

 

[cmonSTART]

I scoop a little out every morning before loading. The stove usually burns down overnight so morning is the time to do it.

 

[abj1969]

i do it when they get about 3" deep.. they start getting in the way of loading and i can tell the way the stove strats burning when its time.

 

[bonfireman]

I empty it with a home-fabbed 10" wide shovel, hot with the shimmering red embers still glowing. I empty that into two metal 5 gallon bucketts on the concrete basement floor. I let them sit there and cool down and empty them about twice per season. My old Allnighter Big Mo goes thru 5 cord of hardwood and fills a 5 gallon bucket about 5 times. That's one 5 gallon bucket per cord. This year I'm doing bio bricks and have filled 3 bucketts in 6 ton. Not bad.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Maybe every 3 or 4 days. Let the coals burn down quite a bit, rake them to the front of the stove and scoop out some ashes, careful to leave at least 1" of ash on the bottom (to protect the stove). Then move the hot coals to the rear and scoop out more ashes, careful to leave about 1" of ash on the bottom.

How often we remove ashes really depends upon the weather and type of wood burned. Some wood produces more ash than others so that is a big factor. We have gone up to a week before emptying ashes if the weather is relatively warm...which we now forget what that is like. Will Spring ever arrive? It's cold out there!

 

[mayhem]

I let mine go until the ash bed gets up to the door opening usually, then I let it die down and scoop it out as best I can. If I know a cold snap is coming I'll make the time to do a really thorough cleaning a day or so before it arrives so I don't get caught in the middle of -10 weather and having to clean out the stove.

 

[ControlFreak]

I normally do this before each load, that is, twice each day. I find that the accumulated ash just gets in the way of the fire. Additionally, I find that if there's a lot of ash in there, that it will form clumps that are difficult to separate from the remaining coals.

I used to take out ash every 2-3 days, but I find that with less accumulation in there, there's more working room for separating ash from coals, and it's all a lot easier. I use a shovel with 3/4" holes drilled in it to separate ash from coals.