At Home In The Woods

[ruralruss]

ruralruss,
Do you clean out your fireplace with the wetvac? How do you prevent sucking up hot coals? Hot coals could do a number on a wetvac.

Obed

My wife does it because she has steadier hands and no we do not clean the stove out with the vac. She uses the fireplace shovel with one hand while holding the vac hose above the bucket. Many time there are hot coals left in the stove and also in the bucket. If the fire is cold we still do the same and you can get it pretty clean with just the shovel. When we clean the stove hot we set it outside on bare ground unless it is raining or going to, then I set in in the garage on the concrete away from everything.

 

[clemsonfor]

I have cleaned the Wood stove with shop vac after like a week or two without a fire. My coals will stay from a cold fire for up to 30 hours after last loading and 3x that long i think if it was really hot fire for weeks.

I just shovel out and try and hold the bucked as close to the stove door as possible so the draft takes the fly ash up the chimney.

Is that fireplace all crosoted up or are the doors black?I was thinking your doors were clear though. If your doors look like that have you checked your chimney, it may be way worse than that!

As far as when i take the ashes out, if there more cold like with a few coals i use a plastic 5 gal bucket and then take them into the gravel drive about 40ft from home and place them there weather raining or not. I have melted my bucket a few times by getting some good size coals in there. These last few times i have went back to my old coal bucket that has a rotted place half way up the back (but i lean it foward while shoveling to the ash dont hit this spot untill i level it outside then i dont care. Anyway with the bucket i shovel out ashes and coals enough so that i can load wood adequatly. It will get so hot that even through my heavy thick HF welding glove i can feel the heat of the bucket. It goes straight outside and into the drive to cool for a few days before thrown in the garden.

 

[patrick_g]

I recently built shelves for the equipment space in my basement. I used MDF in 11 1/4 inch width by 3/4 inch thick. It comes in 16 ft pieces. It is approximately the equal (in area) of half a sheet of 4x8 material. You only have to cut it to length (no ripping of 4x8 material. I build my own brackets out of wood or steel depending on the situation. If shelves are to hold lots of weight I put a cleat across the back to support back edge of shelf and glue and nail a 2 inch piece along front edge to make the shelf stiffer.

I also have shelves similar to these in my workshops (wood working and metal working) and so far so good regarding shelf sag. Oldest shelves are 5+ years old and are in great shape.

If you'd rather spend the time and not the money then DIY shelves are the way to go. If you have a source of throw away, i.e. FREE pallets then recycle pallets into shelves and save even more $.

Patrick

 

[Obed]

I have cleaned the Wood stove with shop vac after like a week or two without a fire. My coals will stay from a cold fire for up to 30 hours after last loading and 3x that long i think if it was really hot fire for weeks.

I just shovel out and try and hold the bucked as close to the stove door as possible so the draft takes the fly ash up the chimney.

Using the perforated scoop helps to sift the ashes to separate them from the coals. We bought the scoop at a pet store. It was made for scooping stuff out of a litter box. After separating the coals from the ashes, I used the FP shovel to shovel the ashes into the bucket, only partially lifting the lid on the bucket to minimize how many ashes float into the air.

Is that fireplace all crosoted up or are the doors black?I was thinking your doors were clear though. If your doors look like that have you checked your chimney, it may be way worse than that!

We may have some creosote in the chimney. My wife was cleaning out the fireplace today and found some creosote flakes on the baffle at the top of the fireplace located below the chimney flu. What we don't know is whether or not what we are seeing normal or is an issue. But we are playing it safe and going to get a chimney sweep to come inspect and clean our chimney before we build another fire.

We have two factors potentially affecting possible creosote build-up. First is, obviously, some of our firewood is not as seasoned as I would like. Secondly, to minimize the firewood consumption, we have been burning the wood with the fireplace's air control on low (closed as much as possible) which lowers the temperature of the fire. Keeping the air control on low still keeps the house warm so we don't really need more air to heat the house once the fire is burning well. However, we may need to burn fires using more air to provide a cleaner fire.

The blackness on the fireplace glass seems to be normal for this fireplace based on what we've read in the support forums for our fireplace. Burning a real hot fire will clean much of the blackness off the glass.

Obed

 

[Obed]

My wife does it because she has steadier hands and no we do not clean the stove out with the vac. She uses the fireplace shovel with one hand while holding the vac hose above the bucket.

ruralruss,
My wife tried this method of cleaning out the fireplace today and said it worked very well. She was able to use the handle of the bucket to hold the wet vac hose in place above the bucket which freed both of her hands while she shovelled out the ashes.

Obed

 

[Obed]

I found a very informative article about creosote and how to prevent/minimize it.

 

[Depmandog]

Back in the early 80's, I worked at a fireplace / wood stove retail store in Colorado. The proprietor was an immigrant stone mason who had built hundreds of chimneys during his career, plus several masonry chimneys in his sprawling store. In addition to the masonry chimneys, there were several metal insulated chimneys.

We heated the store using only wood heat. Every section of the store had either a wood stove, fireplace insert or a decorator fireplace.

I asked him one day how often he cleaned his flu's. He replied - never. (parts of his store had been constructed for 25 years). He said that on all the chimneys with the air tight stoves - he purposely starts a flu fire (raging fire in the fire box with the doors open), and as soon as he hears the flu catch fire (kinda sounds like a jet roar) he would shut the doors / turn the air control off, and in 30 seconds the combustion air was totally consumed, all flames extinguished. Then he would crack open the air control to put the stove on low heat and head to the next stove to repeat.

He went on to say, that if done often enough it keeps the flu clean as a whistle.

(On the decorative fireplaces, those were never burned enough to worry about. Plus he would rotate stoves all of the time - so those chimneys were "cleaned by fire" when an air tight stove was installed. )

They actually had two retail locations. After I was trained, they sent me to manage the other store, and I was instructed to do the same. I must say, it is a scary feeling to let the fire rage to the point you here the chimney catch, but a fire does need oxygen to burn. After a while it became second nature.

DISCLAIMER: He was a professional who knew exactly what type of chimney he had, and had either personally installed or supervised the installation of every chimney (and stove). Plus, he maintained the stoves, replacing gaskets, etc and knew if he turned the air dampers off, it would completely shut off the oxygen supply. DO NOT TRY THIS.

I will say that I do the same with my stove in my building. Oh, not every time I use the stove, but maybe every 10th time. My flue (insulated metal) is clean as a whistle.

One key point, the flu / chimney systems were inspected yearly to make sure no cracks, obstructions or other hazards were present.

And one other tidbit, you can clean the glass with easy off oven cleaner to get rid of the soot build up.

 

[955Lincoln]

He said that on all the chimneys with the air tight stoves - he purposely starts a flu fire (raging fire in the fire box with the doors open), and as soon as he hears the flu catch fire (kinda sounds like a jet roar) he would shut the doors / turn the air control off, and in 30 seconds the combustion air was totally consumed, all flames extinguished.

Glad to hear I'm not the only moron. The stove can really complain like there is a monster wanting out. Then you hear all of the crispy flakes falling down to the bottom (35' supervised masonary).

 

[ruralruss]

ruralruss,
My wife tried this method of cleaning out the fireplace today and said it worked very well. She was able to use the handle of the bucket to hold the wet vac hose in place above the bucket which freed both of her hands while she shovelled out the ashes.

Obed

As in the article you mentioned, whenever we start a fire or reload the fire we let it burn until real hot before we cut off the air.

 

[patrick_g]

I have an 18 1/2 ft util trailer, a 7x12 dump trailer, and a lumber/utility rack on my crew cab short bed F-250 Super Duty. Since getting/installing the Harbor Freight rack I use the trailers about 1/3 to 1/2 as much. Way less hassle with rack. I carry 20 ft lengths of steel, pipe, lumber etc.If the material is super floppy I put a board or two up with it and tie them together to reduce/eliminate floppy bouncing.

Although I have hills/slopes that make loading into the util trailer or dumper easier they are not where it is convenient so building a loading ramp is on my list. I will make a front and sloping sides out of concrete and fill with rocks, debris, and dirt with crushed limestone gravel with fines (crusher run) on top for all weather ops. I will put "weep" holes in the concrete wall to drain any accumulation water so as to avoid build up of hydrostatic pressure.I may opt to build the loading dock/ramps as a grease pit to facilitate oil changes and inspection/work on bottom side of wheeled gear.

As regards coals vs vac... There is a commercially available metal bucket (5 gal I think) that you put upstream of your vac. It catches the debris before it goes to the vac canister. So if there are any coals they are trapped in this metal bucket where you may cap them off air tight so they go out for later safe disposal.

On my list is the job of a DIY copy of a small cyclone filter made of metal to safely vac live coals, essentially a metal version of Oneida's "Dust Deputy."

Link to Dust Deputy:

Buy Oneida Molded DIY Dust Deputy Cyclone at Woodcraft

"Borrowing" their design but fabricated in metal should not be too tough. It will keep nearly all the fire residue out of the shop or wet/dry vac and its filter. I have Oneida's full sized cyclone system, a 3 HP Dust Gorilla and it works super. I expect a scaled down version to work well too.

Although I have a couple 25 ft 2 inch vac hoses that reach anywhere in my shops by plugging into the dust collection system's distributed inlets I still could use a Dust Deputy or two but am too cheap to pay their price, hence the DIY plan.

Oh, both the above listed trailers have ramps and built-in ramp storage but... the ramps are darned heavy so I will build the loading dock and only have to use the ramps away from home.

Note to guys using boards for ramps: Making the boards wider by 3-4 inches or more is NOT an efficient approach. Better to add a 2x4 or 2x6 at right angles to board ramp (a little shorter than ramp for clearance at the ends) on the underside of the ramps near midline of ramp. Adding the same amount of wood here is far better than adding width.

...and finally... great job building those shelves you guys. Good on you!

Patrick