Dealing with fireplace ashes.

Worztron

Hi.

How do ye deal with fireplace ashes? What's a good procedure for disposing of them? Someone else in the house loves lighting the fire - I hate fires as coal ash contains mercury, lead, and arsenic. Breathing in that crap can't be good. I much prefer using the central heating.

Cheers.

Worztron

Anyone?

Worztron

Bump.

Markcheese

I've a fair bit of coal ash too, I gonna check out putting some in concrete, (i've a bit of diy). Other than that its the dump...

Andy From Sligo

when we had an open fireplace years ago we used to tip the ashes in the garden/ground - someone told us it was good for fertilizer or something. - it cant be bad to be put back on the ground seeing as it comes from the ground in the first place can it?

Im with you there though lovely having an open coal fire but the hassles that go along with it, choking fumes, emptying out ashes, cleaning chimney, lighting the bleeding thing - sure at the end of the day cleaner and easier to just flick a switch on the central heating!

Worztron

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

when we had an open fireplace years ago we used to tip the ashes in the garden/ground - someone told us it was good for fertilizer or something. - it cant be bad to be put back on the ground seeing as it comes from the ground in the first place can it?

Im with you there though lovely having an open coal fire but the hassles that go along with it, choking fumes, emptying out ashes, cleaning chimney, lighting the bleeding thing - sure at the end of the day cleaner and easier to just flick a switch on the central heating!

Hi Andy. Not a proper comparison -- the coal was dug from far beneath the earth. Coal ashes are terrible for gardens. It contains mercury, lead, arsenic, etc.

Andy From Sligo

Worztron wrote: »

Hi Andy. Not a proper comparison -- the coal was dug from far beneath the earth. Coal ashes are terrible for gardens. It contains mercury, lead, arsenic, etc.

blimey I didnt realise that it had all that stuff in it. Years ago, others used to put it on their gardens or let it cool down and put it into normal rubbish bin so thats what we used to do too.

Worztron

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

blimey I didnt realise that it had all that stuff in it. Years ago, others used to put it on their gardens or let it cool down and put it into normal rubbish bin so thats what we used to do too.

Wood ash is ok for gardens though.

McGiver

Worztron wrote: »

Wood ash is ok for gardens though.

What about peat/turf? I read it has a heavy metal problem, the vegetation in bogs and the soil there seem to accumulate heavy metals.

Probably not so bad as coal which contains mercury, cadmium, uranium, thorium, fluoride, all of which are quite toxic.

Wanderer78

Coal is dreadful stuff but sadly I think we 'll flock back to it as we drain our oil and gas reserves, also it seems there's still massive coal reserves available.

Ash heads for landfill here

Andy From Sligo

what about smoke-less coal is that just as bad as ordinary coal? ... thats what we used in our open fire it burnt to nothing but ash. we even used to spread it onto our 'tiny' vegetable patch in the back garden

Uncle Ben

Markcheese wrote: »

I've a fair bit of coal ash too, I gonna check out putting some in concrete, (i've a bit of diy). Other than that its the dump...

Its going to cost a fortune later in the year when it goes to pay by weight.

Wanderer78

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

what about smoke-less coal is that just as bad as ordinary coal? ... thats what we used in our open fire it burnt to nothing but ash. we even used to spread it onto our 'tiny' vegetable patch in the back garden

id be very wary of spreading ash on land thats used for the growth of food. theres a reason why the ash from incinerators and coal fired power stations ends up in landfill. seen a documentary last night on the pollution of the ganga. theyre using highly polluted water from the ganga system on their farmland. water is highly polluted with chromium from the tanning business.:eek: god love those people

Day Lewin

If you burn wood, it is only releasing carbon that was sequestered before: and the wood-ash is excellent for gardens, especially fruit. (Potassium, named from potash!)

And by planting trees, you can grow more fuel.

Peat ash can be used for filling in holes in the garden...it is fairly acid and forms a sort of slimy clump when wet, but can be mixed with grass clippings etc as a mulch.
Whereas coal-ash is a dense mineral with toxicity and hard to get rid of;
In olden times it was used for putting under the foundations of pathways and roads...as part of the aggregate underlayer.

Carawaystick

katemarch wrote: »

If you burn wood, it is only releasing carbon that was sequestered before: and the wood-ash is excellent for gardens, especially fruit.

And ash-wood is excellent for fires for several reasons, but a big one is that it produces very little ash