cleaning woodstove ashes

[dianatyree]

Does anyone have a really good way to clean the ashes that spill out from their woodburning stove? I have been using my sweeper which works really well except for recently I had to take off the lifetime filter which is supposed to keep the dust from getting back in the air, because it didn't have any suction when it was on, so even though I cleaned it 3 times it still would not work. The other danger in using a sweeper is if you get a hot coal and don't notice it,as happened a couple times with my last sweeper and you have to run outside quick with a smoking sweeper bag in the freezing cold Diana

[benshelpmeet]

How awful! One night when we first got our new wood stove we woke up with the down stairs filled with smoke we had left the flew shut and boy was the smoke thick. We had to open up the house it was in the teens out side and we turned on the whole house fan thus pulling in the crisp below freezing cold air filling the whole house with what felt like cooler water and driving out all the smoke. Burr... We were blowing out smoke it was so cold in our house. ;D It's humorous now but that night we were miserable.

We use a small old metal wheel barrel left outside our back door a good distance from our house to dump our ash pan in. We dump these ashes in our compost, which we will use in our garden this year. We do not have any coals falling out, but the ash dust on he cement floors we sweep up and throw in the wheel barrel out side. We use our ''Mr Clean'' broom and it works really good.

For hot coals I would use a wood stove broom and a wood stove shovel and a metal bucket would work nicely. Place this bucket outside away form house. Away from something that could catch fire.

I'm sorry to hear about your vacuum and it's clogged life time filter.