Wood Stove Poker and Ash Shovel

        

Wood Stove Poker
As described in a previous entry on wood stove accessories, I've been having a lot of trouble with the poker I use for my wood stove. The original poker I bought had three pieces: the poker end, the rod, and the handle. After getting hot and cooling off several times, the poker end would becoming loose, which made it a not-very-useful tool.

I tried tighening it as hard as I could. I also asked different people - with stronger arms than me - to tighten it, but it always came loose again. And they told me they had the same problem with their pokers.

After much searching, last winter I found this one-piece poker from Lehman's (lehmans.com). It has a very simple design but it really works well for me. I thought I'd miss the extra "hook" on my original poker. But, once I used the new one, I never went back. And no more wasted effort on tightening the end of the poker!

Ash Shovel
In order to remove the ashes from my wood stove, I used to push just the coals to the side and then use my shovel to remove the ashes underneath. That worked ok, but it took a lot of effort to separate the coals from the ashes.

Last winter, I found the ash shovel pictured above (also from Lehman's). Now my technique is as follows:

1. Using the ash shovel, push all of the ashes and coals to the right side of the stove, leaving an open space on the left.
2. Take a shovelful of the above and, keeping the ash shovel toward the back left-hand corner of the stove, shake it gently until only coals remain in the shovel.
3. Empty these coals on the right side of the open space.
4. Repeat #2 a couple of times (until there's enough ash to remove).
5. Using the ash shovel, scoop up the ashes and put them in the ash can. You have to move the shovel carefully, so the ashes don't drop through. Otherwise, you can use a regular ash shovel (without the holes) for this part.

Well, that sounds pretty complicated when I try to explain it, but it's actually really easy.

I haven't yet found a way to remove ashes so the dust doesn't get into the room. Keeping the shovel to the back of the stove does help some.

Keeping the stove door partly closed and being very gentle when shaking the ash shovel also helps. And I leave the cover loosely on top of my ash can, only opening it partway to add the new ashes, and then close it again right away.

If I find a better solution, I'll let you know.


See also:
Wood Stove Accessories - part 1
Wood Stove Accessories - part 2
Firewood Cart
Firewood Racks
Wood Burning Stove
Firewood for Woodstove

Posted by Beth on Sunday, September 16, 2007