Very fine powdery ash tends to collect around my woodstove as a result
of shoveling out ashes (or it just blows out the door when I open it).
This fine ash either plugs the vacuum cleaner bag, blows thru it, or a
combination of the two. What is a good way to manage this? Sweeping is
certainly a bad idea, but that's mostly what I have been doing.

"donald girod" wrote in message
...
Very fine powdery ash tends to collect around my woodstove as a result of
shoveling out ashes (or it just blows out the door when I open it). This
fine ash either plugs the vacuum cleaner bag, blows thru it, or a
combination of the two. What is a good way to manage this? Sweeping is
certainly a bad idea, but that's mostly what I have been doing.

It will go right through a regular Shop Vac, but you can buy a HEPA filter
that fits on them. That will get it.

It sure won't get through a "Clean Stream" (gore-tex) filter that fits
most models of Shop-Vac. And ... since any ash that escapes captivity
will fly much farther than you think, let me suggest that you have that
vac sucking dust from the immediate area while you're cleaning the
stove.

Takes a lot of fines to affect flow with this filter. Then you pull it
out and gently smack it so as to cause the dust to depart. Outdoors of
course.

J

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 08:56:33 -0500, donald girod
wrote:

Very fine powdery ash tends to collect around my woodstove as a result
of shoveling out ashes (or it just blows out the door when I open it).
This fine ash either plugs the vacuum cleaner bag, blows thru it, or a
combination of the two. What is a good way to manage this? Sweeping is
certainly a bad idea, but that's mostly what I have been doing.

I've tried spraying or dribbling water on ashes before picking them
up. When they're wet, you can use a fireplace shovel, or a garden
trowel.

IIRC it worked pretty well.


Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let
me know if you have posted also.

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 20:21:31 -0500, mm
wrote:

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005 08:56:33 -0500, donald girod
wrote:

Very fine powdery ash tends to collect around my woodstove as a result
of shoveling out ashes (or it just blows out the door when I open it).
This fine ash either plugs the vacuum cleaner bag, blows thru it, or a
combination of the two. What is a good way to manage this? Sweeping is
certainly a bad idea, but that's mostly what I have been doing.

I've tried spraying or dribbling water on ashes before picking them
up. When they're wet, you can use a fireplace shovel, or a garden
trowel.

IIRC it worked pretty well.

Really bad for exposed metal parts, though.