'fess up now, how much of a mess is it??

[jbrown56]

ketoret, My stove is blue/black enamel and didn't have any burn off smoke when first lit. I paid $ 2200 US delivered. I get more heat with less wood than with the old stove and the secondary burn is spectacular.

Jim

 

[colsmith]

We keep our broom/dustpan and small shop vac near the stove most of the time. I didn't know before that it was the German in me that makes sweeping about the only cleaning task that I don't mind! I sweep around the stove about once a day, hubby tends to vacuum instead. I throw the sweepings into the stove, as it is mostly wood bits. Our stove is fairly close to the front door so it is a localized mess, and we deal with it quickly after bringing wood in. We have about 3 days wood storage under and near the hearth, so we have to clean up after bringing wood in from outside. Also just some general cleaning up daily, but that is just a couple minutes. We may be about to get an IRobot Roomba to vacuum on its own. We tend to be slobby in general, but actually our stove area looks nice. We had enough sense to rip out the carpet before putting the stove in, we have vinyl flooring. Have learned that hot coals, if doused quickly enough, do NOT melt the vinyl tiles! ;-)

Where I split wood is kind of messy looking with wood chips all over, but I live on 5 acres in the country (sort of, partly suburban, but across from a field and down the road from cows and so on) so who cares? Some people think the big wood piles look odd, my advice is plan their layout carefully so they are all parallel and they will look nicer.

 

[abj1969]

depends who is operating the stove.. if its my girlfriend then its a mess.. ash and crap on the hearth pad, wood chips/dirt around the wood pile next to the stove.. if its me, not much of a mess at all.. i sweep the crap up right away and it stays clean... only time that any ash really gets air borne for me is when i'm cleaning it.. i shovel it into a bucket and it becomes air borne even with paper obe the bucket.. nothing outragious though... go for man you will love the heat man..

 

[kolbyTheDog]

I think a lot of the mess can be kept to a minimum by planning ahead of time like which room in the house you decide to install the stove. I have a central living room that would be the obvious place to put the stove, but we opted to put it in the end of our long kitchen / family room. Now the stove is 10 feet from the garage where I store 3 wheelbarrows full of wood. I cart in about 2.5 stove loads of wood at a time in a plastic crate. All the mess is contained in this one room which is also our mud room so we are used to it being messy any way. Had we put the stove in the living room I would have had to carry the wood through the house and tracked the mess everywhere. Also when the stove heats us out of the kitchen room, we can go cool off / be in comfort in the central room. However, the back bedrooms are pretty cold but I use 2 box fans on the floor to help distribute the heat. And, in the summer when we are not using the stove, it won't be an eyesore in the center of the house. I can also slide open our sliding glass door to the deck and bring in a lot of clean air if the stove smokes or the room get too hot.

 

[Heat Miser]

Well here in Pa. I would say the amount of mess from burning the wood is nothin' in comparison to the thought of payin' $2000 to heat this place this winter

Seriously. I could hire a maid to clean my hearth and entire home for less money than I'd spend on gas to heat it.

Re: Mess

Yes there is dirt from the wood and ashes from the stove. There's no way to avoid it. I just vacuum up the dirt every couple days. I'll sweep the ashes up from the stove and dump them back into the stove until I remove the ashpan for clean up. I'm careful about using a vacuum near the stove to suck up ashes. There could be a hot ember that catches fire in the bag if you aren't extremely careful. Best to use an ash vacuum if you're going to be doing a lot of vacuuming of ashes to be safe.

 

[CountryGal]

My ash pail looks like a small garbage can with a lid. When I shovel ashes, I hold the lid upside down under the shovel and keep the lid there until I lower the shovel into the pail. I put the shovel down in the pail right on the ash in the bottom and then dump it. Don't just hold the shovel over the pail and dump it because ashes will get in the air, like my husband does!

I also have a tiny brush and dustpan, like the size you get for your car. The dollar store or 99 cent store has them and they are perfect size for brushing off the ledge under the stove door and sweeping up the hearth. They don't take up any room and I just keep mine by my fatwood holder.

It isn't a mess if you take a little time and do things slower, especially getting ashes out of the stove. Even carrying in wood isn't messy if I'm careful.

 

[ecfinn]

Just a reminder to everyone that says they use a vaccuum of some sort. Be very careful not to use it on anything that might be even the slightest bit warm. Once that bit gets sucked into the vac with all the air rushing past it you could be in for a world of trouble in a hurry.

I tend to sweep the hearth 2-3 times a day and put the accumulated junk back into the stove to burn. I only vaccuum inside the hearth gate (within 20 inches or so of the stove) when I know the stove is cold. Like this morning. I try to do a thorough cleaning of the hearth area every 2-3 weeks, but that doesn't always happen.

Honestly, though, with a 1.5 and 3.5 year old boys the hearth is usually cleaner than the rest of the room. And when there are little barks bits on the floor you can be sure someone will drive a toy car through it and spread it out far and wide.

HTH,

Eric