I have the VC Encore with the ashpan and cover setup, and like it, though it isn't an essential IMHO. I do a few things slightly differently however.
1. I have TWO pans, one slide on lid. I think this is a MAJOR improvement over the stock system. It greatly reduces the "fiddle factor" and the number of times you need to open the ash door. It also means that you can run the full ashpan outside at your convenience, instead of it needing to be a "do it now" sort of thing.
2. I find, at least on my stove, there is a great deal of "slop" in the ash door hinge. You need to wiggle the door in just the right way in order to get it to close and latch properly. If you don't, then you end up with an air leak blowing up through the grate, which will rapidly make the stove go "thermonuclear". It isn't a big deal, but it takes a bit of care.
3. Opening the ash door puts the fire into over-drive - even if you just have a bed of coals, you will go to mega flames in a matter of seconds, even with the griddle and air controls closed, it still acts like you dumped a cup of gas on it. As a result, I don't like having the door open for more than a few seconds. Note that the VC instructions say to close the door while emptying the pan - thus requiring two openings - one to remove the pan, and one to replace it.
4. The lid is GREAT at minimzing the mess in the house. :coolgrin: It doesn't do a damn thing for helping reduce the mess OUTSIDE - I have yet to find a way to empty the pan without making a dust cloud.
Having two pans, my routine is the following...
1. Kick out the cat.
2. Open the griddle, gently stir the coals around to encourage most of the ashes to fall through the grate into the pan. If there are lots of coals, spread them fairly evenly, if only a few, pile them more or less in the center. CLOSE GRIDDLE!
3. Open the ash pan door, check the level of ash. If not fairly full, close door. If full use lid to remove full, hot, pan - place on hearth, leaving lid on pan. Drop empty (cold) pan into holder, close ash door.
4. Do rest normal loading routine - add splits, open air, let char, kick in cat, turn air to burn setting.
5. Use lid to take full pan outside, wear hot glove. Remove lid, dump pan into ash bucket, while dodging dust cloud. Bring lid and pan back into house, prepare to repeat as needed.
I have found that burning 2-3 full loads of wood a day, I seem to be emptying the ash pan about every other day, sometimes three days.
I think I would be far less happy with the ashpan setup if I only had one pan, but with two pans and rotating them, it works great.
My old smoke dragon used the bucket and shovel approach, and while it wasn't horrible, the VC method is much neater IMHO.
Gooserider
