This is my second year heating with a wood stove. I cleaned out the stove about once every two weeks during the first year. The stove would fill up with ash nearly to the top of the doghouse over about a two week period.
I read on hearth.com that some people can go a month or more without cleaning out the ash. I figured they simply had a larger "basin" to hold the ash.
Recently I have gotten lazier. On Saturday, I cleaned out the stove after a full four weeks. I noticed that over time, the ash seems to compress into these "bricks" of ash, which reduces their volume. The volume taken up by the ash seems to stabilize at about the height of the doghouse or a little below that point at two weeks. Another two weeks later, and it was at about the same point, presumably because the ash was continually getting compressed.
Anyways, I thought this was interesting. If you have never experimented with the duration of time between ash cleanouts, give it a try!
I read on hearth.com that some people can go a month or more without cleaning out the ash. I figured they simply had a larger "basin" to hold the ash.
Recently I have gotten lazier. On Saturday, I cleaned out the stove after a full four weeks. I noticed that over time, the ash seems to compress into these "bricks" of ash, which reduces their volume. The volume taken up by the ash seems to stabilize at about the height of the doghouse or a little below that point at two weeks. Another two weeks later, and it was at about the same point, presumably because the ash was continually getting compressed.
Anyways, I thought this was interesting. If you have never experimented with the duration of time between ash cleanouts, give it a try!