Removing ashes from woodstove while its burning?

I have used a 55 gallon drum in a covered carport. Just dump your ashes into the drum and put the lid on. Then in the Spring you can scatter the ashes on your garden. The available potash in the ashes leaches away quickly as it is water soluble, so to sprinkle them on the garden through the winter costs you the potash, 'cause when the plants need it, it has already washed away. I have often wished for a grate of some sort to separate the charcoal from the ash, so I could use the charcoal for certain smithing operations such as re-tinning copper saucepans. To get the hot ashes from the house to the shed I used a coal scuttle for years, filling it and setting it outside the door in the yard until I was going to the carport... just don't clean out a hot stove and leave the bucket sit outside in the leaves with a bit of wind blowing...something told me to go outside and when I did, I discovered a newly kindled blaze.

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you have to be smart to feel stupid

Ken- is the poker you make the one with the wrought iron look that is twisted and has a same metal handle? sis

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www.MontanaSticksAndStones.com at Goshen Farm

if you live in washington on the pacific coast, you dont have to worry about ashes and fires, you just wait a day or two and it starts pouring out side and you take the ashes out and they just go away. We get an average of three inches a week and got about ninty inches last year. the ashes work great for the folage on the hill and the rain is good for the grass, the cows gain two pounds plus a day and we only feed about three and a half months a year. there are good answers to your question here though. the metal can is every thing.

One of our neighbours put his on the porch to cool in a cardboard box. The fire department weren't impressed with his reasoning ability. They DID manage to save the foundation though.

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The internet - fueling paranoia and misinformation since 1873.

One time I took out a log that I had tried to fit in the stove, and it wouldn't go, so I placed it outside in the ash can. I think it was one of those big metal wash tubs. Anyway the log was hollow, and the wind was blowing. Next thing I know, there is this flame shooting right out of the end of this hollow log. Looked like a candle on steroids. Thank goodness it caught my eye and I was able to put it out before it caught something else on fire.

Homemade might be better. I bought one of those and it was more of a pain than it was worth.

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Nevermore

"Ken- is the poker you make the one with the wrought iron look that is twisted and has a same metal handle? sis"

Yes. I make indoor and outdoor pokers in assorted size material (3/8" - 1/2" round and square) and lengths (up to 48" - although someone recently requested one to the 60"). I also make one for outdoor wood burning furnaces and do some custom work. In square stock I usually put a twist in the middle.

For a look go to eBay and do a seller search on scharabo. Once in listings do a keyword search on poker.

My best seller is the 48" length in 1/2" square stock used for outdoor firepits.

The ash hoe I'm considering would be three teeth on one side about 3/8" x 1 1/2" and then a piece of 1/4" x 1" x 5" on the other side. Length 30". Concept is the teeth would be used to push embers to the side and then the flat stock (hoe) used to pull ashes out. Your evaluation of concept would be welcome.

Please don't set it on the porch. A friend of my daughter burned their house down that way. She set the hot ash container in the snow on the deck and took the kids for a walk. They came home to a house engulfed in flames. She never could figure out how it could happen, but it did.

"Please don't set it on the porch. A friend of my daughter burned their house down that way. She set the hot ash container in the snow on the deck and took the kids for a walk. They came home to a house engulfed in flames. She never could figure out how it could happen, but it did."

Seems to me the can might have burned a hole through the deck but was unlikely to spread as the melting snow would put it out. What did the Fire Investigator give as the source?