# Ashes are driving me nuts!!!



## Chief Cook (Apr 24, 2011)

Well I have finally decided to go public with my little problem, so here it goes. I know that there are many folks on HT that use wood to heat their homes, we do too. The only thing that I just hate about it is the MESS. No matter how hard I try to clean out the insert without making an ashy mess, I still just get it EVERYWHERE! :flame: Needless to say, I am sooo stinking tired of my home needing to be dusted, or would it need to be ashed? So would someone please tell me the trick to keeping the ash mess down to a minimum? :bored:


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## Helena (May 10, 2002)

Do you mean the dust or the actual ashes from the wood stove ?? I have a tray that we empty for the ashes. I wouldn' t have a wood stove without a side tray to empty the ashes. If you have to empty from the front with the fire having to die down is a real pain. I have been there ..and won't go there again. No fun..I sweep daily around the stove (s) and yes..it is messy at times but not as "messy" as paying for a heating bill. It is just the price you pay for not paying a heating bill and enjoying the warmth from the wood heat. It is a mess...but I deal with it as that is the only heat we have in our old farm house. I have 2 out of 3 wood stoves going at this time of year. I mostly have wood floors with a carpet in the livingroom...but vacuum and swept daily. The price we pay for independence. Just remember...spring is on it's way !!


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## justplainbill (Jan 25, 2013)

Our stove has an ash box under the fire grates that catches the ashes. Wood ashes can be a valuable additive to certain garden soils. For a lower longer lasting source of heat you might find a hard coal burning stove more desirable. I had an old Bengal that burned hard nut coal very nicely. The coal ash was generally coarser than wood ashes and was used to fill in driveway ruts.


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## farmrbrown (Jun 25, 2012)

Maybe try spraying a fine mist of water on them before you start?
Mine's in the basement with tile all around it so a quick brooming is all I need.
I don't know, but the $1,200 or so I invested in stove and chimney pipe are going to be just about repaid by the end of this winter, not to mention the ice storms don't even make me flinch now.
I can deal with that anytime.:goodjob:


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## GrammaBarb (Dec 27, 2012)

Hi Folks,

I heat with wood and cook with wood, and yes, there always seems to be a fine layer of dust on things, but I clean it up and it reappears as if by magic....sort of an agreement we have, so I'll never be bored. 

Having an 83 year-old home doesn't help, but I've made peace with it----I don't expect to have a pristine interior, and it doesn't fall over on me. Fair enough.

Oh, and I do indeed let the fire go out two or three times a month to muck out the ashes in the heater. It's a pain but not the ashes part---the "waiting for the house to warm up" part. The cook stove, of course, has a trap below the fire-box that is easily emptied.It's all just part and parcel in backing off or moving away from the grid, with all of it's sly conveniences for which you pay the rest of your life to enjoy......I'll take a little ash any day!

Barb


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## Chief Cook (Apr 24, 2011)

Most days I do love my wood burning insert. Just sometimes the ash mess makes me feel like a lazy homemaker! LOL I am looking forward to Spring even though that means the wind will be blowing dirt like crazy. So I only "dust" in the summer and fall time of the year. In the spring I "dirt". And from now on in the winter I will "ash" and be glad of it. LOL!


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## RedDirt Cowgirl (Sep 21, 2010)

Still running the 50 year+ Ashly wood stove Fall through Spring as the sole heat source - Ashes R Us!

Finally realized that if the flue was completely opened before I open the stove door that the updraft will keep the ashes from wafting out every time I add a stick of wood - much less shoveling it out. When it comes to that, it helps to cover the ash bucket with foil before I move it. Also discovered why ash buckets should not be round.

It's not the ashes that hit the floor (yeah, all that newspaper sprayed with water didn't have much effect in this house), it's the air-borne drift you don't even see that finally settles down everywhere.


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## katlupe (Nov 15, 2004)

We have two wood stoves going 24 hours a day, so unless my husband is cleaning the chimney of the stove in the living room, they never go out in winter. My cook stove has the little door that has to be opened and cleaned out, so what I do there is to put newspaper down under the ash bucket. That usually gets most of the mess. You will always have the dust to deal with, no way around that. The only way to control it, I have found is to do it more often. If it is not such a big amount, it is easier and not so much ashes or dust.


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