"My Hole Story"with pics….

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.

bostonfan49

Minister of Fire
Nov 10, 2011
531
Essex Jct. Vermont
For the past 11 years, basically every Stove cleaning week, I have lugged two different Ash Vacs and one Shop vac up and down the basement stairs. I also go up and down the stairs getting pellets from our two storage bins. I needed to find a way to reduce my trips up and down the stairs! Two years ago, I added a Cyclone Dust Buster in-line attachment to my shop vac (One of the best and smartest moves I had made at the time) *Note, I can follow up with anyone about my version of the Cyclone or the even better New version in another post. My problem with adding this piece of equipment to the shop vac, is that it made my stair climbing even more a royal pain. The solution…..Drill a hole :cool:
So besides the Vacuum hose which I wonderfully just pull out of the hole to the desired length, I had to run the shop vac power cord up the hole as well, because it plugs into a Fast Cap universal remote control. It works perfectly! Pull the hose out, hit the little remote switch, Varooooom! The RVC box and remote have a separation range of up to 100’, so I could have plugged my shop vac and RVC box into an outlet in the basement but Fast Cap warns its customers that "Stray radio waves/signals could inadvertently power on the shop vac"! Probably very rare, but I wouldn’t want to risk a fire caused by an unattended running shop vac…….

AD7E9D7F-D4B6-4862-85E8-34AF6851BA1F.jpeg E02374A8-69EE-4565-AAB0-13DC7537E7CB.jpeg ADA94AB5-C1BB-406C-B25D-3FDFA431CB53.jpeg C4CAB7B6-0B95-496A-9EFC-8A3768EBA4DF.jpeg 0D5ADE5E-07E1-4EED-ACA3-9426DE7EDBF6.jpeg 776DB94C-A9BE-4EC4-86C2-9F315FA765B9.jpeg B6635D55-EB5C-4543-96BB-EF5CA2174B87.jpeg
 
Where there's a will, there's a way! Good thinking.
I'm curious though, what kind of stove is it that you need two ash vacs and a shop vac with a cyclone to clean? I just use my one 5 gallon Power Smith ash vac with the optional secondary filter and clean the whole thing from ash to stray pellets and fines. I don't have any stairs though since the stove is in the Livingroom and I keep the ash vac in the sunroom which is adjoining.
My pellets on the other hand are stored about 150 feet away in an enclosed veranda off of my big shed. I keep a big galvanized garbage can out in that same sunroom/porch that holds just under 5 bags and bring up 6 at a time on my ATV to the sliding glass doors 3 feet from the storage can every 5 days or so.

Ray
 
  • Like
Reactions: bostonfan49
Where there's a will, there's a way! Good thinking.
I'm curious though, what kind of stove is it that you need two ash vacs and a shop vac with a cyclone to clean? I just use my one 5 gallon Power Smith ash vac with the optional secondary filter and clean the whole thing from ash to stray pellets and fines. I don't have any stairs though since the stove is in the Livingroom and I keep the ash vac in the sunroom which is adjoining.
My pellets on the other hand are stored about 150 feet away in an enclosed veranda off of my big shed. I keep a big galvanized garbage can out in that same sunroom/porch that holds just under 5 bags and bring up 6 at a time on my ATV to the sliding glass doors 3 feet from the storage can every 5 days or so.

Ray
Hi Ray! My Stove (guess you didn’t catch my signature) is an Enviro M55. I’m on my 3rd Vac….sold my first, burnt out the motor on my Power Smith. The beauty of the cyclone is that 99.9999% of the ash goes into the Cyclone bucket. The only time I empty it is at the end of the heating season. You are fortunate to have all your stuff nice and close and no stairs!
Bill
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ocelot
Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but I am interested to know if when using the cyclone you still use a filter AND a bag for the shop-vac.