Ash Removal Ideas?

[emsflyer84]

Hey all, just curious what y’all do when the asked you clean out from your stoves. Reason I’m asking is that I’ve basically been waiting for them to cool and bringing them down to the back of my property and dumping them. But I’ve created a little ask mountain and I don’t want to keep adding to the mountain. I have a small property with no real “woods” to speak of, so everything is pretty visible. Any other ideas? Thanks!

 

[stoveliker]

Spread them out over the yard or lawn, mix them in the compost pile,.use them for traction when the driveway is icy.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

I use an ash vacuum only vacuuming a bit at a time of the cooler ash on side and front of firebox. When ash vacuum gets full over some time, I put those ashes in a dedicated small metal trash can with cover I keep on outside stone patio. Ashes can remain live for a surprisingly long time so I overkill it a bit but easy enough to do it.
I used to find shoveling ash out of stove would be too messy and moved to the ash vacuum. The Powersmith ash vac works well.

 

[bigealta]

Toss high in the air to spread it out over the lawn. But not to much. Same with garden beds. It basically can replace lime. For us in the North east that's good.

 

[begreen]

Toss high in the air to spread it out over the lawn. But not to much. Same with garden beds. It basically can replace lime. For us in the North east that's good.

Lilacs and lavender like ashes, rhodies, blueberries, and camellias do not.

 

[kennyp2339]

Bag them up and throw them out, why make a project out of it if you dont have the space

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Bag them up and throw them out, why make a project out of it if you dont have the space

Good call. Not to sound like a maniac, but definitely the OP should allow a good amount of time to go by before throwing out the ashes in the garbage or otherwise storing them near combustible stuff. I only say this because if someone is asking for advice on Ash removal, I assumed they might not be aware of how long live ashes can survive.

 

[begreen]

Bag them up and throw them out, why make a project out of it if you dont have the space

Just make sure that the ashes are cold and there are no hidden hot embers in them. The embers can remain hot for a week when buried in ashes. There has been more than one fire caused by putting ashes in the trash too soon.

 

[ericm979]

Spread them out over the yard or lawn, mix them in the compost pile

I spread them out in the lawn and the lawn turned brown in those spots. I've dumped them in the compost pile when I'm positive the ashes cold and the compost is wet. But you can only put so much in the the compost or it will change the pH too much.

 

[stoveliker]

Too much on the lawn then.
I never have had it turn brown.
But my lawn has a lot of acidity from the oak leaves