I have a question about ashes. This is only our second winter using the woodstove as our primary source of heat. I let the house heat run a time or two in the morning when we are just getting up. It seems to me that I have a lot of ashes to dispose of. Every other day I take out a 5 gallon bucket of ashes to the garden where I am keep them till I want to use them. Is that alot of ashes or is that pretty normal? I have a small black Bart fireplace insert with a fan. Thanks in advance for your input. susan

-- Susan c. Job (animalcrackers55@hotmail.com), December 08, 2000

Answers

That seems like an awful lot of ashes to me. We don't have that much in a week and our stove burns 24 hours a day. Maybe you are not letting it burn down enough before you put in more wood. We always have a good bed of coals in our stove and these eventually burn almost completely out.

-- bwilliams (bjconthefarm@yahoo.com), December 08, 2000.

A Lot of it depends on the wood you are burning!!!!!! Good hard woods have less ashes than you do with soft woods!! Sonda in Ks.

-- Sonda (sgbruce@birch.net), December 08, 2000.

Sondra is sooo right.. Soft wood is an ash maker. Burning Hedge, Osage Orange. green or dry will give you about 5 gallon of ash in a weeks time.

Today I plan on taking down a hedge tree, 30 inch in diameter. Your welcome to partake in this feast of heat.

-- Dan (triquest@about.com), December 08, 2000.

the woodburner a have now,, is a real small unit,, it makes ALOT of ash, compared to a heater I had at another house. This one is an air tight unti,, so maybe that has alot to do with it.I get 5 gallon bucket full every 3 days, and Im burniing around the clock, except when it dies out in the early morning

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), December 08, 2000.

The type of wood is a factor, also the draft on the chimney will affect it. Maybe the damper is allowing it to burn too hot, too fast.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), December 08, 2000.

Hi Susan, I burn pine during the day for hot fast fires to just take the chill out of the room, tile floors absorb the heat and I don't want a long fire going. With these hot fires we get very little ash, but when we put the hickory and oak on in the evenings and damper the stove down to sleep, this is when our ash builds up in ours, though not anywhere near a 5 gallon bucket full! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), December 08, 2000.

Hi Susan, We burn wood at least 4 months of te year. And it is around the clock too. We have an airtight cookstove in the kitchen. It can handle 14 inch blocks of wood. We do notice more ash build up when we burn green wood. THis is wood that has been cut in summer or fall and not allowed to dry a year before it is burned. Keep an eye on your chimney too, because if you are using green wood then the chimney will clog with soot sooner than if you burn dry wood that is dryed for a couple years at least. We also have a home made wood stove in the cellar which is made from tractor tire rims. The door and damper below it are not airtight and there fore the wood burns faster and needs more filling more often. We only fill a metal 5 gallon bucket once a week from these stoves. Hope this info helps.

-- michelle (tsjheath@ainop.com), December 08, 2000.

Susan we heat with a wood cook stove. I get not quite as many ashes as you but it is pretty close. I have one of those really neat old fashioned ash hoppers with the lip looking thing on it. Not sure how much it holds but it is a lot. Since we just moved here we had to buy some wood to get started till I could get some wind fall cut up. The wood I bought isn't exactly green but I know it isn't really well seasoned either. Maybe that is why there are so many ashes.

-- Amanda in Mo (aseley@townsqr.com), December 08, 2000.

Hmmmm. Susan, did you check the fiber seal around the doors? I didn't realize my first year (ok, ok, or two) that there was supposed to be a braided fiber seal around the doors. My stove is a Fisher fireplace insert. When I fixed the seal I dropped my wood consumption by (EASY) half (and the ashes too). It just had a constant draw on it up the chimney! If this is the case you can get the new seal and cement just about anywhere. I got mine at Menard's but they're available all over. Good luck! What kind of wood are you burning?

-- Gailann Schrader (gtschrader@aol.com), December 09, 2000.

Thank you all so much for the advice!!! I burn a mixed bag of wood, a little elm, hickory, sassafras, oak and much that I don't recognize, but no pine. I do need to replace the braid around the door, and I've got some, I just can't remember to get the glue stuff when I am out. Also it what I have seen comes with the braid, which I already have. I had bought some of the glue when I bought the braid, but then found that I didn't need to do it quite yet. Now that I need to replace the braid, I can't find the glue stuff!!! Anyway I will go get some this week, and see if that helps. Thanks again for all the info, till later, Susan

-- Susan (animalcrackers55@hotmail.com), December 09, 2000.

We burn wood in an airtight stove and have burned wood for many years in Northern Maine. We alway get more ashes with slow fires and when we are burning paper. It took a while but finally my husband stopped burning the paper. I told him to carry out all the ashes! We burn 24 hours a day for 6-7 months and now only carry out ashes maybe 1 to 2 5 gallon amounts a week depending on how cold and wood consumption.

-- Cecilie McKey (Cecilie 36@hotmail.com), December 14, 2000.

The wood you burn sounds good except for the elm. Skip it. Takes an eternity to dry out.There's some old saying about burning elm if you want a fire that won't warm you.

That would explain partly your large ammt of ash, if you have a good ammt of elm.I used it once and it performed as expected.I don't even bother with it anymore.

-- sharon wt (wildflower@ekyol.com), December 14, 2000.