Routine Cleaning

How often do you clean the fly ash in your stove during the heating season?
Do you shut down to do it? Keep the fire going?
I have an Alaska Channing III and will sometimes stop the burn to clean. But, of course, it is the hassle of getting lit again.
What is your routine?

ON my big boiler, I use a garden hoe while the unit is burning, and just scrape what areas I can easily get to.

ON my LeisureLine Pioneer stoker, I haven't cleaned it yet, I have looked to see if there is any accumulation in the flue pipe after a month of burning, and it was pretty clean.

the long nearly horizontal sections of flue pipe will collect the most and are more important to keep clean than the inside of the stove itself.

Greg L

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I seem to get a lot of fly ash in my Keystroker Koker. It is vented to a Chimney with a ceramic lining. When there is ¼ to ½ in. of ash in the pipe, I vac it out. Have cleaned it out three times since Dec 1. My old Kirby is dying, throwing ash all over the place. Are there any suggestions on what to look for on a new shop vac?
Gary

I use an old Sears shop vac. I get fly ash in the first elbow out of the boiler which I can get from the ash compartment. I just put the boiler in idle mode and do it quickly. The other place I get fly ash of course is in the nearly vertical section to the chimney. That one I haven't cleaned yet but as all my work for today got cancelled due to the snow, I think I'll do that today. In the past, I've shut down the boiler to do this but I'm going to try a new method. I'm going to drill a small hole in the elbow, looking into the vertical section and use an air compressor with an air jet fitting and a piece of tubing and just try to blow it into the terra cotta flue. It will fall into the ash cleanouut and I candeal with it later. Sounds good in theory but I'll let you know. Oh, then I'll place a small bolt in the hole I drilled.

I bought a 5.5hp/5 gallon shop-vac at lowes for about 60 bucks and its got all the power Ive ever wanted in a light easiy to move around unit. I cant stand those 16 or 20 gallon giants everyone loves till they need to put it away somewhere. The vac came with bags for the inside as well as a filter....I didnt want to use the bags at first...Im Cheap.... but that was kinda a mistake, with no foam filter over the pleated filter it filled ever pleat with dog hair and sheatrock dust in a few minutes....very powerful. So anyway I started using the filter bags and they are awesome for fly ash, sawdust, sheetrock dust, whatever and no dust cloud when I empty it. good luck. Jim oh yeah the bags are about 6 bucks for three of them

I like the idea about 5 gal ver 15/20 gal, easer to handle and store.
Thanks
Gary

Make sure you buy the drywall dust bags and you will not get any, and I mean any dust in the house from the shop-vac. The rigid vacs sold at home depot are really good vacs also. I have heard that they have more suction than the shop-vac brand. What ever brand you buy just make sure that there are drywall dust filter bags available for it.

I looked at Home Depot, saw a nice 5hp vac by Ridgid. Looks like a small tool box, nice handle on it and it comes with the good dry wall / fly ash filter, that is washable. Modle # WD4550, $99.95. Tried it out this morning, works great. I will be buying a longer hose for it, 7' is not lone enough.
Gary

I have a Alaska kast console 111 with a direct vent and a coal-trol. Every two weeks or so, I like to run the stove on minimum and cool it down. Then leave the direct vent run, remove outside vent cover and shut down the coal-trol. Vacuum out the inside floor and walls with an old shopvac. Shut down the direct vent mtr and vac out the inlet side, then vac out the outlet side and vent pipe, then turn controls back on. If you move fast while direct vent is down, you will not have to re-light your fire
George

A washable filter sounds good to me.