How often will I have to take out the ashes?
Anthony
Last Update 3 years ago
To give a quick and approximate answer, ashes will generally have to be removed every 1 - 2 weeks or so. However, this dependent on a number of factors:
- How many hours your stove runs for in any given day/week
- What power your stove runs at – if it runs at full power most of the time, it’ll burn a lot more pellets than if it usually runs at lower power levels
- The size of your stove and what it’s heating, e.g. is it a small air stove, heating a single room or perhaps a boiler stove, heating your whole house. Larger stoves have larger ash boxes too, so the these two things generally balance themselves out.
- What type and quality of pellets you burn in your stove. All wood pellets should meet the EN Plus / A1 standard but even then, there is a big variation in quality and ash content between brands. Each wood pellet brand’s ash content should be displayed on their packaging.
- How often you move your wood pellets – every time you pour them, shovel them or move them in general, will lead to some pellet breakages and an increase in dust within the pellet. It’s more difficult for your stove to burn dust efficiently so this will lead to an increase in ash.
So, the best estimate we can give you is that if you intend to use your stove in an light to average way and burn good quality wood pellets, you’ll need to take out ashes around every 2 weeks. If you think you’ll be a heavier user or you intend to use a lesser quality pellet, then allow for ash removal once per week approx..