- Oct 16, 2012
- 108
I bought a PowerSmith ash vac last spring and could not have been happier(other than the bs short short hose). I bought the additional kit and a long hose which is a must. Great for getting spiders off the cathedral ceiling 
Had pretty good suction, almost enough to impersonate a real shop vac. Worked great for it's intended purpose but I ended up using it as I would my shop vac, bad idea. The plastic piece on the end of hose that inserts into the canister is cheap cheap plastic junk. I never tug on the hose to pull the vacuum around and the piece of junk still broke. Luckily I had the extra hose so was able to use the other piece of junk connection to replace the broken one until I fried the motor...
Yep, my fault it was. I decided it would be a good idea to vacuum up a few damp leaves that were on my new gravel parking area. Less than 5 minutes sucking up small quarter size leaves one at a time along with a small bit of gravel and the PowerSmith lost most of it suck ability. Then a few days later I used the denutted vacuum to do some dusting on my furniture and 5 minutes into it's chore my breaker in the house blew. Vacuum's motor was quite warm, it's history. Apparently the moisture from the leaves fried it
Thinking of replacing it with a real shop vac, something like this...
http://www.amazon.com/Shop-Vac-5872410-5-5-Peak-Horsepower-Contractor/dp/B0041T4U4S/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1414867261&sr=8-11&keywords=shop vac
figure if I get the right filter/bag it should work fine as an ash vac and also be able to handle other chores.
All in all the PowerSmith ash vac works great for sucking ash out of your stove until the hose connection breaks. Just handle it with care, only use it for it's intended purpose and you may get more than the six or so months I got out of mine
Had pretty good suction, almost enough to impersonate a real shop vac. Worked great for it's intended purpose but I ended up using it as I would my shop vac, bad idea. The plastic piece on the end of hose that inserts into the canister is cheap cheap plastic junk. I never tug on the hose to pull the vacuum around and the piece of junk still broke. Luckily I had the extra hose so was able to use the other piece of junk connection to replace the broken one until I fried the motor...Yep, my fault it was. I decided it would be a good idea to vacuum up a few damp leaves that were on my new gravel parking area. Less than 5 minutes sucking up small quarter size leaves one at a time along with a small bit of gravel and the PowerSmith lost most of it suck ability. Then a few days later I used the denutted vacuum to do some dusting on my furniture and 5 minutes into it's chore my breaker in the house blew. Vacuum's motor was quite warm, it's history. Apparently the moisture from the leaves fried it
Thinking of replacing it with a real shop vac, something like this...
http://www.amazon.com/Shop-Vac-5872410-5-5-Peak-Horsepower-Contractor/dp/B0041T4U4S/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1414867261&sr=8-11&keywords=shop vac
figure if I get the right filter/bag it should work fine as an ash vac and also be able to handle other chores.
All in all the PowerSmith ash vac works great for sucking ash out of your stove until the hose connection breaks. Just handle it with care, only use it for it's intended purpose and you may get more than the six or so months I got out of mine
so nobody else does a bonehead move like me and destroys their ashvac
