Hi Catherine
Do get one they cost around 30 euros, you attach it to your real hoover, and bingo! No coughing, no dust, and it is trapped in the tin ready for you to tip out on your garden. It's a no-brainer!
And I'd divorce you Nick!
Can I be your wife Gordon?
I use our industrial vac to occasionally clean out ours which is usually once or twice a year when I sweep the chimneys. Why doesn't Mr H simply buy you a face mask?
By the way, what's a washing machine?
Got one of those intermediate thingys that uses the normal vacuum cleaner. Never use it. But then I wouldn't it's Naty who cleans the fire :D and she doesn't use it either.
Haven't got a clue what you're on about here.
Washing machine ? Vacuum cleaner ?
What's all that about then????
Catherine,
I think I`ll show your post to my wife as it`s me who gets up early to clear the Insert & have a nice warm house ready for her - I also get the breakfast ready and empty the dishwasher before she appears in the kitchen having done her Yoga exercises etc!
I only vacuum our Insert at the end of the winter - a good brush & clearing the ash through the grate & emptying the ash pan is sufficient on a daily basis.
Ours is the separate one - how much did the motorised one cost?
Bought one for my hubby from lidl this Christmas......we believe in practical presents! Its been a god send and works so well. Just make sure you get one with an internal motor and not the separate kind and keep the internal filter clean. Cleaning the woodburner is now not a chore and takes under 2 minutes. Get one, you won't regret it.
We bought one from Lidl (I think for around 15 Euro)and it works fine, although the filter does need cleaning regularly - probably after every use to get the best out of it. A quick shake and a bang gainst an (outdoor) wall does the trick. Well worth the investment.
I have one, and I wouldn't bother because I never use it.
The "ash hoover" part is only a bucket with a filter and a pipe, it connects to our Dyson vacuum cleaner for the suction. I don't think it was that expensive. It's a bit of a faff to use, so mostly I just scoop the ashes out with a small shovel into a metal bucket, and empty that into the wheelie bin.
Our fireplace is essentially a rectangular box, there's no ash pan or anything, so access is easy, and I don't clean it after every fire either, it's fine to make the fire on a bed of ash.
So all in all I don't think it's worth it unless perhaps you have a particularly tricky thing to clean very regularly.
Catherine, we mainly do as David does. A daily sweep and empty the ashbox. But last year I bought an ash vacuum at Leroy Merlin for about €45 plus another €8 for a spare filter (not needed yet). It works a treat. Very powerful and good at getting into the nooks & crannies in our two wood burners. We use it about once a month.
But another great use I've found is on the garage concrete floor. Every few months I sweep all the garage dust into a pile and then use the ash vacuum. Brilliant job!
I've lost count of the number of Dysons etc around the property, but the ash vacuum is the easiest to use and, seemingly, the most powerful.
I'd buy one if I were you!
Oh no! We went through that. Because we have a Rayburn and a huge open fire I said we should. She said 'No!'. I raided my piggy bank and bought one. I could only find one of those quite large ones, a Kärcher AD3.200 to be precise. I paid €106 when I bought it three years ago, probably gone up a bit since. Anyway, it is a bit of a stalemate. It takes me as long to get it out, set it up and get to work as cleaning by hand. When it is emptied it makes a horrible mess and then the cleaner needs to be cleaned anyway. To prove the point, I have gone to get it and just to spite me both have been shovelled and brush cleaned before I am there. BUT I REFUSE to give up!
So, there is a non-answer to probably help put coals on the fire. Being impartial, I would say buy and be damned. The only warning is to avoid the little Kärcher with the silly face on it. My friend down the road's wife has one and it seems to redistribute some of the ashes around the room. When I bought it was only about €8 cheaper, so no point unless you're into things with silly faces.
How do you clean the fire out Catherine? We just rake over the ashes then empty the ashbox out. Now and again my wife does an extra sweep with a handbrush. We don't usually have a problem with dust floating about.
That said - why not give him the job of cleaning it out for a while and then see what he thinks about the idea of a cleaner for it?! :)