Question for you 24/7 burners

[Elderthewelder]

How often do you clean the ash from your stove? I have been burning quite a bit lately, not quite 24/7 but pretty close, I have a small insert with a small firebox, so the ash builds up pretty fast, every time I think about cleaning the stove out I notice quite a bit of hot embers/coals lurking under the ash, so I just end up building another fire as I am not really set up to deal with hot ash, but need to heat the house.

What do you guy's do in these scenario's? I know you can buy those small metal can's and set them on the hearth, but I do not really want to put hot ash in one of those as I believe they are just pretty thin galvanised steel, and I do not want to deal with possible galvanise poisoning or rot out of bottom of can due to heat.

what I did this morning was scoop the ash into one of those stainless steel turkey fryer pots/ emptied it out back and sprayed it down with the garden hose, I know there must be a better way

BTW, we are cooking our bird in the oven this year/not deep frying it, no worries about ash on the bird LOL

 

[perley03]

What I usually do is scoop the ash into a galvanized ash bucket and take it outside and dump it on the garden. If I'm restarting a fire right after, I generally leave some coals off to the side and scoop the remaining ash into the bucket, then move the coals back over and get my fire going. I generally leave a bit of ash on the bottom to reduce air flow, or my fire takes right off and burns too hot, and I wind up burning more wood than I want.

 

[Dunadan]

Do a search on "ash removal" and you'll see this discussed at length.

The short answer...I remove my ash about once every 2-3 weeks.

Yes it builds up, but it keeps the coals going for a long time. I find the ash packs down and a bit more burns down with each new burn, so it takes a while to really get out of control. I do tend to spread it out with each new burn. The ash in front I rake to the sides, then push towards the back of the stove. At the same time I'm pulling the coals forward to where the ash was (and the ash takes the space where the coals were).

 

[Gene K.]

I have a small insert, probably quite similar to yours, by my guess (it came with the house; I'm uncertain of the brand or model).

It's important to have a little ash on the bottom of the insert, because it protects, insulates and acts as a catalyst. But of course, too much gets in the way. So, I often push the stuff to the sides of the insert until it's cool. I then use the fireplace shovel and drop it into a bucket of water. The ash/water mixture, which can make lye, if anyone is interested, is carted to the compost heap. Now, as you probably realize, the lye is basic, but I have a lot of acid in that compost heap from the coffee grounds from my local Starbucks and the tanic acid in my decomposing leaves, so it works just fine.

When I was growing up, my parents just dumped the ashes into an old metal coal scuttle and we threw it into the farm's limestone driveway. I'm sure that you can find old metal buckets of this ilk all over. Check your local hardware store.

How often do you clean the ash from your stove? I have been burning quite a bit lately, not quite 24/7 but pretty close, I have a small insert with a small firebox, so the ash builds up pretty fast, every time I think about cleaning the stove out I notice quite a bit of hot embers/coals lurking under the ash, so I just end up building another fire as I am not really set up to deal with hot ash, but need to heat the house.

What do you guy's do in these scenario's? I know you can buy those small metal can's and set them on the hearth, but I do not really want to put hot ash in one of those as I believe they are just pretty thin galvanised steel, and I do not want to deal with possible galvanise poisoning or rot out of bottom of can due to heat.

what I did this morning was scoop the ash into one of those stainless steel turkey fryer pots/ emptied it out back and sprayed it down with the garden hose, I know there must be a better way

BTW, we are cooking our bird in the oven this year/not deep frying it, no worries about ash on the bird LOL

 

[jpl1nh]

I have an ash tray so I rake the ash-coal mix aaround a bit and the ash drops in to it. When I think it's near full, before I do the rake bit the next time, I empty it across my lawn: no coals at that point, only ash. In my old steel stove without an ash tray, I pulled the mix forward towards the door where the air supply was, then pushed as much of the coal material back as possible and built my fire on that coal bed. Next load, I'd shovel the ash from up front where the coals had now burned out into a galvanized ash bucket, repeated the process above etc.

 

[derbygreg]

Before I got my Isle Royale which has an awesome ash tray, I used an ash trap. They work great

(broken link removed)

Check it out.