What vacuum do you recommend for cleaning the unit?

[adam6979]

My wife and I have been using our Shark Navigator Lift Off to clean the pellet stove after it has cooled enough that the ashes can be handled without a glove. I know, not the best solution. The vacuum works for this but I'm almost positive in saying that the filtration of the unit is not designed for very fine ash and dust.

The Love-less Ash vacuums are expensive and from what I can tell from the reviews, noisy.
There is a relative new-comer in the market, the Powersmith Ash vacuum that is more than half the price, gets high user ratings but is as noisy as the quietest Love-less.

Any other suggestions for an ash vacuum?

I used a little 5 gallon shop vac. I use a hepa filter bag on it and am on the 4th year and running strong. I replace the bag 2X per burn season and the original filter still looks brand new. Now I'll say both my stoves have ash pans and I use a brush to sweep away loose ash into the pans as much as possible then the vacuum for the fine cleanup.

Waiting for the stoves to cool down is vital and being careful not to hit any hot ash in the burn pots is critical.

I simply shut my stoves down, cycle the comb fans once, open the doors about an inch and cycle one more time...

It seems to work perfect for me and the vac was only $40 on amazon.... can't go wrong and I have none of the ash dust in the house that I have seen others complain about.