How much ash do you get from your wood furnace?

[fields_mj]

For those with an add on wood furnace, I'm curious how much ash you normally get vs how much wood you're burning especially if you have a Drolet Heat Commander since that's what I'm considering. For many years, I've been reading about how great the high efficiency units are, and I've often noticed people mentioning that they don't get much ash left over with some saying the ash from the entire season would fit in a 5 gal bucket. When I hear claims like that, I often wonder what their conditions/circumstances are and whether or not I should expect similar results or not. My current wood furnace was made in 1980 and closely resembles a Clayton. Most years I burn roughly 3 cords of mostly hickory with some oak, ash, and locust mixed in, and on a typical year I normally produce 20 to 30 gal of ash. Reducing the ash would be nice, but chemically speaking I'm having a hard time understanding how a more efficient burn process would result in less ash. Less creosote buildup in the chimney makes sense, but ash is just the carbon that remains and that seems like it should remain consistent (ie a ton of seasoned wood should produce the same amount of ash regardless of species, volume, or what it's burned in).

Thanks,
Mark

 

[travis8352]

With my heat commander i generally empty the pan once a week. I could fit more but just to keep things simple i empty it once a week and its id say mostly full. When its really cold i empty it maybe after 5 days and it will have the same amount. Ive burnt about 3.5 cords this winter so far of mostly maple and yellow birch

 

[salecker]

I get about a 5 gal bucket per cord of spruce i burn, but a lot of ash gets blown out the chimmany as it has an induction fan.

 

[brenndatomu]

It varies wildly depending on what species of wood you burn, and how you treat the ashes...if you rake them all out every day, you will have more volume than if you let it build up some and fully burn/break them down
I didn't see much difference in ash production between the Tundra, Heat Commander, and my Kuuma VF100...how you manage it in the firebox means more than the model (of current models)

 

[fields_mj]

I wondered if some of it wasn't being blown out the chimney. My ash pan is about 7" wide by 5" tall and 26" long. When its pretty cold out, mine is pretty full by the end of the 2nd day.

Letting them sit and not raking them out too early makes a lot of sense. I just wasn't sure how that would work with the Heat Commander. With styles where the bottom of the firebox is shaped like a V, and the ashes naturally gravity feed into the ash pan, I can leave the coals (and ashes) alone and just add wood so long as there's enough coals left that I just need to add a few spits. My biggest concern about the HC is the fact that the firebox looks more like a wood stove than a furnace. It seems like the coals would need a little more maintenance and therefore it would produce more ash. Actually, that raises another question about the HC. With the V shaped fire box, adding wood is a pretty straight forward affair even with a pretty small bed of coals. It seems like the square firebox on the HC would require more of a restart if the coals burn down too far. Seems like this would cause some inconsistency in the heat output.

 

[brenndatomu]

You just rake the coals over the grate and load...when you hit the reload button that will usually get things fired right back up...but yes, as with any burner if you let it go too long you are doing a relight.

 

[hobbyheater]

My Mother in Law has a Ardent Energy burns 12/14 cords per year of softwood and produces 30/40 gallons of ash per year but burning really dry wood(less than 7% moisture content) only have to clean the chimney once a year!
Our Jetstream gasification bioler with storage burned 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 cords of softwood per year and produced maybe 2 to 3 gallons of ash per year,and you never had to clean the chimney!
The Vedolux is burning maybe 4 cords of softwood per year and produces so little ash that I vacuum it up ,and starting my 5 year there has been no need to clean the chimney!

 

[mynx]

I have a garn 2000 that I burn continuously October through April. I burn 10 cords per year Of 70% soft maple, 20% white oak, and 10% cherry or birch, all seasoned at at least one year and have three 31 gallon cans of very fine ash per season. This works out to 1.2 ft.³ of ash per cord burned.