What to you do with wood ash from fireplace?

[clemsonfor]

I think the 'not very efficient' part is the soap process or recipe you are using.

I do the same and it's QUITE effective on grease. In fact.. I no longer buy commercial soap.. I've been making my own for years now. In a head off comparison I found my soap was far superior to commercial soaps ant specifically removing oil and grease.

I make 'shampoo' bars and laundry or dish bars as well.

PS.. if you ar emaking those super high content glycerin bars.. those look great around a bathroom sink or for gifts.. but are practically worthless for actually washing greasy or dirty stuff. They are mainly for non dirty hands, and soft skin.

whats your laundry soap recepie? I tried one that just sucked. Didnt clean anything.

 

[tcreeley]

Goes in the garden if the ash has no paper mixed in. Our gravel drive gets coated in ice every few years that is too slick to walk on or drive on. A light dusting of ash makes the footing secure and the traction for the vehicles good. It is filthy stuff at first, but sinks in as the sun is out, melts the ice, and disappears. I never use salt, just the ash if I need it.

 

[pmhowe]

I collect my wood ash and place it in a metal can with a tight lid. I leave it outside in the cold for at least a week. Here in Colorado, the danger of a fire from a smoldering ember is far too great to take a chance with a less conservative approach. A hot ember in an ash environment can stay hot for a long time. Within a sealed can, its survivability is much reduced. A few years ago, a homeowner nearby placed his wood stove ashes into a metal can without a lid and put the can outside. The wind came up, fanned the residual embers, and he lost his house.

Once cooled the ashes are dumped into a trash bag and sent to the dump. The soil here is alkaline, and adding ash to it would make it worse for good growing.

 

[farmeratheart]

Some goes in the garden. Each year I give back a 50 gal trash containers worth of ashes to my friend with the woods from which most of my firewood comes. He uses them for traction assist around the farm during the icy times. The rest goes on his farms manure pile to be spread back onto the land from which the wood originated.

 

[dmccarty]

Your the same climate as me. Wood barly dries untill split around here and takes another 2 years to dry totaly to burn well in an EPA stove. What are you burning it that likes wet wood?

Mostly red and white oak with some ash, hickory and sweet gum from time to time. My wood is seldom wet even though I often/sometime will cut and split six month prior to usage. Not planned that way but just the way my schedule works. I have found that if I cut the wood into rounds and keep them off the ground they dry out quickly. If I tarp the rounds to keep water off the wood that works even better. The tarp is really important if the bark is off the wood. Bark on the wood does help keep the rain off but a tarp is better.

The trees I almost always use for firewood have often been dead for years. The trees I have been using for the last couple of years were bull dozed down 3-4 years prior to be cutting them up. The wood in the stove now is the last of that wood but it was also split last year but piled on bark and covered by tarps, brown side up, to keep out the rain. I think using a tarp not only keeps off the rain but creates a kiln drying affect as well.

For the last few years, I have been storing the wood on the south side of the house. The house has 32 inch overhangs and the south side can be quite a bit warmer because of the southern exposure to sun, the gravel walkway and house brick. I tarp wood with the dark side out which helps heat and dry the wood.

I brought the last of the split wood to the house yesterday and hopefully this week I can go split some of the rounds that I cut up a couple of years ago. I have another pile that is stacked and tarped from a white oak that fell down in 2015 and which I cut up last summerish time. Some of that wood was VERY wet so it will be interesting to see how well it has dried.

Later,
Dan

 

[Soundguy]

whats your laundry soap recepie? I tried one that just sucked. Didnt clean anything.

not near my notes, but my basic recipie starts with 2# fat, 7 oz water and 4.4 oz lye or potash. ( cold process )

I have increased the lye or ash up and have also put in a little bit of borax flakes as a test. I'm not sold on the borax flakes though.

I've made both large laundry bars, and also small ones in silicone muffin pans, those go into a hollow ball and into the laundry on the wash cycle, remove for rinse.

the bar is good for scrubbing on a stain, otherwise shave some strips off into the water. lil goes a long way.