What to do with all this ash!

Compact it a sell it to artists for charcoal drawings...

Powder it and refill your printer cartridges...

Change the color of common every day items from white to black, cars, shirts, upholstery, etc...

Squeeze it really really really really really really hard and make diamonds out of it...

Sell it to drug addicts as a sniffable form of "Black Tar" heroin... You'll make money and it would be better for their health...

Supposedly, they are making diamonds out of the deceased but I think they are just hiding the bodies somewhere and using the ash like you mentioned. I dont think anybody wants to go to work and press the bodies of the deceased really really really really really hard. I would be late to work once in awhile. Wonder if they are slipping them Cubic Zirconia (?)

The deceased > diamonds has long puzzled me (urban myth/fact ?). It's why people choose KrisDel™ instead of LynDoor Industries.

My own choice would be for launch into space and coating some satellite or other.

If these ashes are from your wood stove, there should be nothing but fluffy powder that just "goes away" outside.

If these are ashes from a coal stove, they hang around awhile. I believe that coal-stove ash can be used as filler in concrete. Realistically, you'll have to find a place to keep hauling and dumping it.

The wife of a friend (on a farm) died and she was cremated. He decided to put her ashes in the garden next to the garden path. (she was in gardening)

Now he told us that she was very restless in the windy months. The one day she was on the left of the path and the next day she was on the right.

The motto : Don't put the ashes in the garden.

What to do with the ash : Mix with plaster of Paris ( not Hilton) make ornaments, paint with lead free paint and give away as Christmas presents.

What type of wood are you burning?

I had a willow tree in my yard but the hammerhead (hoepoe) kept on making nest in the branches and the branches broke and really is unsafe. I had to take it down.

The remaining stub was about 1 m diam 1.5 m high. and I decided to put fire to it and contribute a bit of CO2 for global warping.

I fed a lot of bark into the fire and now I am left with some pure white powder almost like aspirin in appearance. The question is now: Did I prepare medicine without a licence?

Love your answer, but...

"and contribute a bit of CO2 for global warping."

For shame, for shame...

The CO2 blew over to my neighbour. I did some virtual pollution.

Is that acceptable?

Oh dear no, you must collect all CO₂ in balloons and take it far away from habitation and release it back into the wild.

You must do it quickly too else the CO₂ will become tame and follow you around...just like a giant fart.

Hi Del

Is there a training course for CO2 to prepare them for the wild?

Maybe they need counseling - The wild can be very lonely if accustomed to urban conditions.

OK It is Monday - time to be serious again (from to )

I have an open fire and have been burning wood for years including the odd bit of coal when it is really cold (but mu neighbours complain too much so I packed that in)

The wood ash should just be an incredibly fine powder which again just annoys the neighbours

Chuck it out of your window and see it fly away is lovely as a therapy

No more seriously, I have always dumped it in my back yard and I do not have a pile of it growing to a mountain. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust really works well. The weather takes great care of it and it just seems to disappear. The coal dust is not so nice as this is high in sulfur content. It stinks in other words.

My bigger problem is the soot I get out of the chimney when I clean it. This is less frequent but presents me with a bigger problem. It does not disappear as I have found out to my own detriment and will stain even after a long long time. It is also bad for the old chesticles or so I have been told. I tend to bury that and hope that I will not dig it back up next time I need to clean the chimney. That reminds me that I should be doing that tomorrow, darn where did I bury it last time?

The soot from your chimney is mostly carbon, and quite burnable. Just put it back in the stove a bit at a time. Put a thin layer on the floor of the stove before adding your kindling when starting a new fire, and it will be nearly all converted into CO₂ and H₂O and just a bit of ash. Do NOT toss it on top of an already hot fire, or you may have an explosion, especially if it is fine soot!

Nice tip! Thanks!

We heat with wood heat only, and in our climate we go through about 10 cord a year of good hardwood. We used to have a much older, in-efficient wood stove with a rather large wood box but have since replaced it 2 years ago with an efficient Pacific Energy Wood stove.

We now have much less ash to dispose of, but what ash we do get I take and dump at the base of trees on our property. I don't know if it is good or bad for them, the conifers seem to like it though. Also I dump it in low areas in the lawn and in the perennial gardens.

The connifers like it because they prefer a lime type soil. They love the alkali nature of the ash. Do never put your coal ash with the conifers though as that is acidy after a few rainfalls.

Like I said, ashes to ashes etc.

How about trying to sell it or give it away to a Chinese, Japanese or Mexican restaurant? Some of them will boil wood ash to extract lye water which will then be used for cooking dumplings (or hominy grits in the case of the Mexican restaurant).

Hi Mr. Truman Brain.

Here is what you should do:

Remove larger particles so to create a very fine powder. Melt some bees wax and add some gum-turps (nicer smell). Combine the three and you have a fine wax polish. It should have the consistency of shoe polish. That's the stuff we used to polish our shoes with (for the youngsters).

We used fine oak ash and baby oil to polish stainless steel. While dosing, trust your instinct and do small samples first.

"Mr. Truman Brain's Polishing Agent". Tell nobody I told you. You'll make a mint Mate.

Were is vermin when you need him?

Have fun, and I will be spreading it (the ash) amongst the Tomatoes by adding some carbon from Coconut Palm droppings. Yours Truly. Ky.

We used to have coal ash, which really acted as marvellous fertiliser for rhubarb plants, and we feasted well on rhubarb shortcake,tarts, pies and the like.

Now we have installed a wood burner, and the old coal burner has yet to be removed when I get time and inclination.

Wood ash is fine fertiliser for lemon trees, and many other acid loving plants in our garden like azaleas and rhododendrons, not so great for the rhubarb.

When we run out of places to put the wood ash, there are neighbours and friends just waiting to get some, for their gardens.

Where do I live ?

The "Garden City" of Christrchurch, NZ, of course...

Rhubarb is lovely, would that be coincidence that rhubarb is sour and that coal ash is acidy? That would explain some.

if you burn wood completely you are left with a white brittle mass that consists of various metal oxides, mainly calcium, sodium, magnesium and potassium oxides, this is an impure lime and has zero water.

When water is added these are all 'slaked' or hydrated.

The sodium and potassium form soluble alkaline solution (plant lye, very cossosive and very alkaline),

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lye

The calcium and magnesium tend to form far less soluble precipitating wihite hydrated oxides.

MgO + H2O = Mg(OH)2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_hydroxide

CaO + H2O = Ca(OH)2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_hydroxide

excess wood ashes in one spot can kill plant life by corrosive action.

Usually they are sifted and the lumps with carbon/wood in them are burned further as the burinign process will make a white powder, unless under minimum oxygen conditions.

Ashes have to be hauled and go into the trash if you lack the ground area to safely spread them as a very dilutted ash

Wood Ash will be rich in potassium K--essential for Plant Growth.Soils are always poor in K due to its steady depletion by crops and biomass.

Can't you induce some local gardener to use your ash pile as mulch in his plot?

Maybe you can induce your nearby Nursery to give away small bags of ash with Potted saplings/cuttings.

If all of South-East Spain is choking with wood ash-maybe Spain's Foreign Aid Organization will be interested . To donate as Agro input to 3rd. world.

I would facilitate receipt if in containerloads.

Is that the best we can do?.................Only joking! I put the wood burner in a couple of days ago and have burnt pitaco which is a very soft, almost balsa type wood. gave off a lot of heat but only lasted for about half an hour a log! Today, I want out and found some olive trunks! They are going in today!

The wood ash was indeed very powdery and white, and with the quantity of logs in the first few days, have collected about 4 buckets full, the other 2 buckets were turned into my garden (if garden is the appropriate word!)

I like some of the ideas, so keep em coming guys

4 buckets in a few days?????? Are you sure you did not connect your woodburner to some intergalactic transporter gateway and you are now collecting more material than the entire earth is per day? (see http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/14146#newcomments)

I burn for weeks every night and whole days in the weekend and only clean it out as it is getting a bit too crowded in there which is never much more than a normal bucket full. Are you sure it is all totally burned? Is it still heavy or very flighty and light?

I don't understand that quantity of ash at all. How big is this burner?

I had that much wood ash from burning 4 pitaco roots and all the trunks! They are really fiberous, burn very quickly and give of loads of heat and make lots of ash! My burner is only domestic sized (foot and a half cubed) but the chiminy (ceramic coated metal tube) has excellent draw! The pitacos were the only wood I could lay my hands on to test the burner! And I'm pleased to say it passed with flying colours! Tried olive lastnight, and although hard to get going, once it took hold, three logs lasted the night, and with just a little encouragement, was warming my toes this morning!

I wish I had such a lovely looking tree in my garden. Why did you burn them, are they a bit of a pest or dangerous to the foundation of the building?

Sorry but don't know much about those trees, some would say don't know much in general but I don't care.

Sounds a lot of ash for sure. I normally burn free wood which is more often than not a healthy amount of conifers or leylandia. These trees grow like cabage and are the biggest source of neighbourly disputes. Lots of people have them as they are forming a dense hedge in almost no time. Downside is they keep on growing and if you don't chop them to reasonable size, they blok everybodies light in the entire street or block you are living in.

I am burning it now as we speak. A friend of mine had 2 mature hedges of it each 100 foot long. They chopped one hedge down completely last year and the 2nd one is now down to about 8 foot high. I had all the choppings over 2 inch diameter. Not dry yet so burning is frustrating.

I realy should clean my chimney. I have had 3 fires in there in 9 years, all in the first 2 years though after contractors cleaned it for me. I have cleaned it myself since and no problem yet but it needs doing now. The drafting is bad.

Anyway, what exactly are you going to do with your ash, have you made up your mind?

These trees are really cool! They grow to about 15m in one summer, then drop dead! The next year, the seeds that fell from the head grow to the same height and again drop dead! After another summer, they are as dry as a crisp! The locals use them for beams and supports because they are light and very strong! But there are so many, you can pick them up all over the coast!

OK, OK, I think this is a local name! I've been through about 30 tree identification sites, and nobody has a clue what it is! I'm going to have to try some fancy Spanish talking tomorrow and see if I can get a botanical name! I hope the general collective are happy with that! As for the car! I wasn't me! I was somewhere else entirely!

Rick@cae, have you been doctoring those pics?

Nope....try an "image google search" of the word and your pic comes up on the 3rd or 4th page....next to the "babe".....honest

As promised, This is the only reference I can find to the Pitaco or Pita! The pitaco is the shoot (so to speak!) There are some quite long latinish style words in this, that I followed up and ended with some bunch of flowers type of thing so, I will keep up my search and leave you with this!

pita¹.

(De or. inc.).

1. f. Planta vivaz, oriunda de México, de la familia de las Amarilidáceas, con hojas o pencas radicales, carnosas, en pirámide triangular, con espinas en el margen y en la punta, color verde claro, de 15 a 20 cm de anchura en la base y de hasta 3 m de longitud; flores amarillentas, en ramilletes, sobre un bohordo central que no se desarrolla hasta pasados varios años, pero entonces se eleva en pocos días a la altura de 6 ó 7 m. Se ha naturalizado en las costas del Mediterráneo. De las hojas se saca buena hilaza, y una variedad de esta planta produce, por incisiones en su tronco, un líquido azucarado, de que se hace el pulque.

Sorry it's in Spanish but you can't say I haven't tried!

Ok so it was only 6 or 7 meters but I have seen higher!

Ok, Ok and maybe it took various years, but they have a mad growing spree!

Nice hide out man, admire your taste.

Those trees are weird, they are dead straight, no wonder they use them as beams, you don't need to do anything with them.

Thanks Case, The local hippies use the upper root to make bongos aswell! We have our fair share of culture here aswell which adds a kind of twist to it all! I fell on my feet here!

Ash is the minerals that once was in the biomass. These minerals are good for plants, though because they are alkaline, you might throw off the ph balance. No matter where you live, you can have your soil tested to determine if ash would be good for it. Or just risk a couple of crops to see for yourself. Mix it into the manure to make a good top dressing.

Super insulate your house with fiberlass, rock wool, even cellulose. You will burn less wood, make fewer trips with the truck, less hauling and carrying, and lower air conditioning costs, and a small fire is more romantic. Use the money you would spend on those extra cords of wood to put in double glazing.

A properly insulated house should burn very little fuel...my workshop in Ottawa pretty much heats itself from the lights. I recommend the University of Winnipeg's R-2000 system. Unless you LIKE paying for all that fuel of course.

http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/residential/personal/new-homes/r-2000/standard/advanced-wall.cfm?attr=4

Regards.

The wood is free, I hope, the double glazing is the next project!

I though that spanish air conditioning was an open porch with no doors or windows.

At least that is in my friends house. Mind you that house is not finished yet so maybe......

Fill old plastic bottles with it and use these to build a fall out shelter for WWIII.

This will also serve as a sectret shed to go and hide in and consume booze when 'her indoors' is giving you a hard time .

Del

Wood is never truly free...either it uses up chain saw blades and fuel, or time which would be better put to engineering that monorail to get you to Madrid. Or the really fancy one to get you to Malta.

Nothing deliveres like fire wood does.

1) you get warm hauling it into your truck

2) you get warm hauling it into your yard

3) you get warm chopping it

4) you get warm burning it

5) you get warm spreading the ash out over all the garden

most defenitely a net gain here I would say

Who needs for free when you can have all that warmth

I don't know any details, but it seems like I saw recently that someone was turning ash into bricks.

I've be sprinkling mine around the garden for 37 years, and it always seems to disappear...

Dick

excerpt from a Thai website.

<<

EGAT turns fly ash into bricks

Phitsanu Thepthong

Researchers from the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) and academics drawn from Thailand's universities have found a use for lignite fly ash in Thailand: using it as a core component to make light-weight bricks that can even float on water.

The technique uses 70% fly ash, 20% cement, almost 10% lime and water, and 0.1% aluminum powder to make the brick, said Surachate Jungkasemchokchai, a researcher at the EGAT Research and Development Office. It took his research team and scientists from the Science Service Department almost two years to come up with the lightweight brick.

This fly ash is found in large amounts, as waste product of the Mae Moh lignite mine and thermal power plant in Lampang. Each year, up to two million tonnes of fly ash are released by the plants, added Surachate. This fly ash generally pollutes the environment, is a health hazard and spreads contamination to the surrounding areas. However, the research group has developed a new technology that changes the fly ash into a product of high value, usable in industry, as well as being commercially saleable.

EGAT researchers found that concrete made of 70% fly ash has a strong resistance to erosion caused by sea water, and EGAT now sells more than one million tonnes of fly ash a year as a major ingredient for making concrete.

According to Assoc Prof Dr Chesada Kasemset, director of the Institute for Science and Technology Research and Development, Chiang Mai University, who is one of the successful 13-member team of the Utilized Lignite Fly Ash Group, lignite fly ash has been successfully developed in Thailand and has a very high potential for further application.

Director Chesada noted that at present, domestic cement production totals 27 million tonnes annually. This leaves about 3 million tons of fly ash still unused. If more utilization is possible, this will greatly help in pollution control. This cement is of a high quality. Therefore, more studies on its utilization should be carried out. At present, government agencies are working on uses such as filling or pavement material, as well as soil stabilization improvement.

>>

That is neat I think although one should look carefully at the energy balance first.

Free patents on line also does an article

<< http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5358760.html >>

Have fun

Just watch out for fly ash from coal...

(It is a little tidbit that the operators of coal burning power plants don't make much mention of):

Here in the USA, in the past there have been problems with "cinderblocks" as well as fired bricks made from coal fly-ash. The problem is the fact that these bricks and blocks ARE RADIOACTIVE. (Most native coal has a low concentration of Uranium and other radioactive elements).

This can be a cause for concern with respect to direct exposure to the radioactivity, as well as the products of radioactive decay (including Radon & "daughters")

Please Truman: whatever you do, don't make an ash of yourself.

LOL! Too late for that!

Be satisfied that you only have a small amount of ash! The eruption of Mt. Pinatube, in the late 1990's, converted 1 cubic mile of mountain top into ash, plus what ash the volcano spewed out. I have pictures of small airplanes flying thru the ash canyons that are hundreds of feet deep/high. Have you concidered giving the ash to neighbors for their gardens, or to local farmers?

The original explosion of the super volcano below the present Lake Taupo, in the North Island of New Zealand, caused over 50 cubic miles of rock etc, to be spread into the stratosphere within a few seconds.

The later volcanic explosion in the same crater, caused over 4 cubic miles of rock etc, to be spread into the stratosphere within a few seconds.

There is no human records of that first explosion, which would have plunged the earth into the equivalent of a "Nuclear Winter" or several.

The second explosion left pumice layer some 7 metres thick, across much of the North Island - and was recorded as being heard in China and India at the time.

Today the crater is filled with a lake, the caldera throat has been filled with an "island" rock plug.

In wintertime, you can look out across the lake, and see steam rising, for over 1/2 a mile, showing the energy still lurking below the surface.

In the early days, NZ was called "The Shaky Isles".

Ash beds here often exceed 600 feet thick, now mostly covered by well-fertilised forest......

It's full of minerals and can be used on some soils as a fertiliser. Of course, those with no home garden used to have the "dustman" take it away (these days the traditional role has been transmogrified into the "refuse collection operative").

On an industrial scale it is sometimes used as a filler in some types of concrete, for other civil construction work and for the manufacture of lightweight building blocks.

How about the grass put it in a spreader and spread it out.

Stinky Pete could use some more dirt to roll around in and spread it around for you.

<splutter>

Really?

No solution for you, but I was surprised to discover what a hospital with an incinerator did with their ash. The local electric utility would haul it away free and reburn it, getting more energy from out of it from their more efficient furnaces.

hi everyone,

fly ash, and wood ash, are two completly different animals. fly ash is glassine spherical and very small, is cementatious, makes excellent additive to concrete. in california, the road people mandate that 30% of the cement for concrete roads be fly ash. it also does not disolve in water. because of its glassine nature, it is a poor additive to garden, because the mineral release takes forever.

wood ash does disolve in water. great for gardens. BUT, loses most of benefits, when exposed to sunlight or moisture. so for gardens, you either have to turn it in immediatly, or store in a tight container. it does make lye when boiled with water, then when added to fats, makes lye soap. (very hard on hands, but cleans clothing really well).

Hello Artbyjoe. Wondering if you know about potassium hydroxide vs. sodium hydroxide in regards to wood ash. I have been reading up on making a co2 scrubber and found that since c02 will tend to create hydrocarbonic acid in water that alkaline water would neutralize that acid and therefore scrub the co2 ( at least to some extent?) out of the water. This is the question: In reading other articles on other sites i find that poeple seem to use potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide interchangeably in regards to wood ash as though both came from it. I am not clear on this. Can you clear this up? Thanks.

Mix it with the compost.

If you don't have compost, keep a metal ash bucket to alow any embers to cool for a few days then just put it in with your garbage.

Not quite ash but!

Years ago there was a big marijuana case. After the guilty were sentenced it was found that store room was too small and the official were ordered (by court) to dispose of it.

After careful consideration he decided the central heating burner would be the best.

He apparently had a nice bond fire going and introduced some marijuana. After consulting his watch he increased the input. terrible smoke and smell followed.

I think it was the first court approved community smoking party.

I wonder if the ash were any good. Maybe a dentist could use it for mixing a filling.

No snow in 50 years?........2 words: amusement park.

'Nuff said.

This is an old one (I just scoped somebody reading it, but haven't read all). What was the final decision ?

I'm curious because what we think of as waste one day is a valuable resource the next.

Without having read the thread, I'd have gone for briquettes. Possible future use for construction ?. When this thread started I was binning stuff that I now much regret. Horders of the world unite !