Madison Smart Stove Creating Dust

[Sailorman3]

I had my Madison Smart stove installed for 2 weeks now. The stove works well but is creating a whole lot of dust that I assume is from the ash. It does have a blower instaled that we use. Could the blower be blowing the ash around that is in the ash bin at the bottom of the stove? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[begreen]

Shouldn't happen. Do you have the blower off when cleaning ash in the stove?

 

[Sailorman3]

Yes the stove is completely off when cleaning out the ash. No fire and no fan. There is a intake hole in the back of the stove that I believe goes directly into the ash box. I thought maybe some dust may be coming out though there. From now on I'm not leaving any ash in the ash box at all to see if that will be better.

 

[begreen]

Intake for the blower? That seems very odd.

From now on I'm not leaving any ash in the ash box at all to see if that will be better.

Good idea. Keep us posted.

 

[kennyp2339]

interesting, other than that, how do you like the stove?

 

[Sailorman3]

I actually love the stove. If you follow the factory directions on lighting it I have a great fire going in The 15-20 min range. It throws off lots of heat and draws excellent. It doesn't fit a 20 inch log so I junk the wood short. I've only had it installed for 2 weeks and just did the first chimney sweep and got about a quarter of a pop can full of creasolt out of a 21 foot chimney. If I can save 100 off my electric bill during the winter I will be extreamly happy.

 

[WayneN]

Just picked mine up today. Can't wait to put the chimney in and fire her up!




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[Woody Stover]

stove works well but is creating a whole lot of dust that I assume is from the ash.

I think the ash you're seeing in the room may have to do with your technique when emptying ashes from the stove, if you are shoveling them out. The stoves I have now have grated ash-handling systems, but when I've shoveled in the past I took precautions to minimize the amount of dust escaping. If I just scooped out a shovel full of ash and dumped it haphazardly into a bucket, I had dust flying everywhere. First thing I changed was that I tried to remove ash only when it was cold out so that draft was strong and would pull any stray ash back into the stove box. I used a shallow pan which was about twice as long as it was wide. To empty ashes, I held the pan as close to the stove as I could, directly beneath the door opening. I would then carefully scoop up a shovel full of ash and put the shovel in the left end of the pan (I'm right-handed) at a slant, with the end of the shovel touching the bottom of the pan and the handle at a 45* or so angle. I would make a quick, little forward/back move to get the ash sliding off of the shovel, then keep drawing the handle to the right, maybe even raising my right hand to create more angle, depositing the ash on the bottom of the pan and creating the least amount of dust I could. At no time did I want ash falling off the shovel as it would result in a cloud of dust that the draft of the stove might not be able to capture completely. With some practice, I got pretty good at minimizing the amount of dust that escaped.

 

[branchburner]

I took precautions to minimize the amount of dust escaping.

In addition to taking care not to make a cloud of ash, as you described, I have also gotten into the habit of having the vacuum running as I empty the ashes. I rest the end of the pipe on top of the (cold) stove right over the door, to catch some of the ash that gets stirred up.

The other thing is, I empty the ashes less frequently rather than more frequently... I figure handling lots of ash fewer times might might cause less of a dust problem than messing with a little bit of ash lots of times.

I might suggest also to the OP that some of the dust may not be ash, but that the blower and the convection currents might be helping circulate other household dust in a way that makes it appear the stove is "creating" it.

 

[spirilis]

The blower shouldn't distribute any ashes. You are right that the air intake (outdoor air intake pipe) in the back leads to the ash pan area. Ordinarily ashes shouldn't come out if the draft is pulling air in, but if so maybe put a piece of duct tape over it when you rake ashes into the hole in the firebox floor (remove the tape after). The actual air intake involved air passing into the ash pan chamber (pedestal), back up a large rectangular plenum in the back of the stove leading to the secondary air manifold and primary air channel at the top (which passes air through a metal channel in the hottest part of the stove just beneath the stovetop) and to the front glass, while a small "doghouse" air channel in the front lower firebox sources air from inside the front of the pedestal (taking air passing all the way across the ash pan). This design ensures live embers that might be in the ash pan admit their gasses back through the stove's combustion air intake flow.