PowerSmith PAVC101 10 Amp Ash Vacuum,Green / Black

I read every review before purchasing this ash vacuum, so I'm going to address every issue addressed in those reviews. If you are buying this to use on a pellet stove, you will definitely NEED TO BUY the PowerSmith PAAC302 Ash Vacuum Cleaning Kit. (It allows you to get into the small areas you won't be able to navigate with the vacuum's accessories. If you have a regular wood burning stove, or maybe even a more spacious pellet stove insert, you might want to wait and see if you need the accessories kit. PRO: Seriously good suction power. Even if you use the smaller accessories with the optional cleaning kit, it still maintains powerful suction. PRO: It is fairly quiet. Not much louder than a regular vacuum cleaner. Other reviewers complained it was too loud; they have obviously never used a shop vac. This is far quieter than a shop vac. PRO: Lightweight, but sturdy canister. It rolls around like a dream and has a handle on the top so you can pick it up and carry it very easily. PRO: The floor vacuum accessory is AMAZING. I was going to buy another vacuum to sweep up the pellet dust/ash that falls around my living room, but I do not need to. It has great suction on wood, ceramic tile, and vinyl flooring. I don't have carpet flooring, but it has a switch so you can adjust for carpet. PRO: Dumping the canister is easy. YES - it is a messy process. You are dealing with messy ash. The cool part is that the bags that hold the 40 lbs of pellets slides over top of the canister opening. So take the vacuum outside, remove the filter (messy) and shake it out, put the empty plastic pellet bag over the top of the canister, turn it upside down, wait a few seconds for the ash to settle, then remove the canister. PRO: The cord is long enough for most needs. The hose is plastic, but strong enough not to be damaged from normal use. PRO: The unit sets up very easily. (Anyone can put it together.) The canister snaps are easy to use. The unit looks great. PRO: The price is a good value for this highly functional vacuum. NEUTRAL: The "full" indicator is too vague to really be helpful. (You'll only see the red indicator when the vacuum is ON.) But I was able to do 2 full deep cleans, and 5 basic cleans, without having to dump the canister. (By the way, the vacuum will automatically shut off when it gets overheated from being too full.) NEUTRAL: The top of the vacuum will heat up. No, it will not BURN you to touch it. If the unit does overheat, you will have to let it cool off for about an hour. However, you should be able to accomplish a deep cleaning of the ash without it overheating. It doesn't overheat under normal floor vacuuming operation. It only overheats and shuts off under prolonged heavy suction and ash filtering...and that just keeps you from burning out the motor. (DO NOT SUCK UP hot embers unless you want to burn a hole in your filter. Be smart and only use this once your ash is cooled or medium, but without embers. If you have a pellet stove, you'll need to deep clean every few days anyways.) NEGATIVE: Someone reviewers mentioned they get a shock when using it. YEP -- me, too. The manufacturer really needs to put a different plug on this thing. I suspect a 3-prong plug would eliminate the shock issue. (As for the shock, it is not going to hurt you or kill you -- it's a tad more than an static electricity zap, but it really is annoying.) Not everyone who owns this unit is reporting zaps, but it does do this on mine. If you GROUND yourself to the stove with one hand while vacuuming with the other, it eliminates the zap all together. If you clip an alligator clip to the metal on your stove, and the other clip to the metal canister snap, it reduces (but doesn't eliminate) the zap. I will likely buy a 2-to-3 prong cheater/adapter (cheap and available at any home improvement store) to see if this works. I suspect having that extra ground will eliminate the problem. That's it for the negatives. That zap is the only negative thing I have experienced and I can work around it. For all the PROS this vacuum offers, it is well worth the money. It has made pellet stove ownership far more enjoyable for me.

Admittedly, I haven't used it long, but I've used it in my fireplace a few times now. This works perfectly if you're not pretending to be a fireball conjuring wizard by vacuuming hot embers into it; exactly like the very first instruction in the book says not to do. This provides the proper amount of suction for removing fine ash from your fireplace without pulling so hard on anything thicker that it might clog your tube. This bit is perfect. If you're new to these and wondering if it is normal for the top part to get warm/hot even though you're vacuuming ash that has cooled for a while, the answer is yes. That is normal and it's expected you'll need to let it cool after use. The filter inside of this is very good quality and not one bit of ash escapes through it. If properly sealed, this will not blow ash into the room. Another thing I noticed was that I was getting tiny static shocks from time to time if I touched the metal tube. Thankfully, this was also addressed in the accompanying documentation and is normal/expected due to dry ash rubbing past the metal tube as you vacuum. To avoid this, I don't touch that part and will occasionally tap it against the metal frame of my fireplace to let it discharge. They've included a dangling chain on the unit to help with this, but depending on what kind of flooring you have, this may or may not help. Overall, it performs very well. I'm happy with the purchase.

Works very well. Good suction and air filtration. It seems to filter all the air, returning only clean air out the exhaust port. The interior fiberglass type filter is relatively easy to clean. I like the accessories that are included for doing other chores. The only draw back is the size of the hose and nozzle. Fine ashes get pulled in with no issues, but any chunks of wood, or partially burned wood (charcoal) plug the nozzle quickly. This means you have to shut the machine off and unplug the nozzle and hose. The instructions do tell you how to avoid this but it will take forever to clean out the ashes. I will probably make a screened nozzle that will prevent larger pieces of charcoal from getting picked up and plugging the nozzle.

Works so much better than our other cleaner. Much stronger suction. Makes cleaning of the pellet stove so much easier. Filter non clogging. No ash escapes into the room.

Our wood burning fireplace does not have an ash trap below the firebox floor, so in order to clean it out, we have to remove the ashes through the main doors. We burn a lot of wood during our six consecutive cold months and have to clean out the firebox almost every day. Our PowerSmith has made the job easier and saves time so we can get maximum use out of our fireplace when we need it to heat our great room and kitchen. The bulk of the ash is removed using a shovel and we use our PowerSmith for the remainder, as well as any ash that's fallen out of the firebox on to the hearth or is clinging to the door gaskets. We will also use it while clearing out the bulk to keep the dust down as it's dumped into our ash can. The canister has plenty of capacity for our needs and we are careful to avoid live embers, but when we have vacuumed them up, there's never been an issue with burning the filter because we dump the ash into a galvanized steel trash can as soon as we are done. The noise level is no worse than a regular shop vac but the unit tends to get warm when running it for an extended period of time. It only stopped running once due to overheating, but putting it outside in the freezing temperatures for about ten minutes was sufficient for it to cool down and run again. Although the casters make it easy to move the unit around, the handle is convenient when it comes to picking the unit up to get it over the door threshold and the Velcro strip on the power cord makes it easy to keep it wrapped up and out of the way when it's not in use.

They are NOT fireproof. Hot embers burned thru the filter, melted the plastic basket on the bottom of my vac, passed thru the motor and foam motor filter and shot hot embers and ash all over my living room! Don't trust it to pickup warm embers! Keep an extinguisher handy!!! Feb. 22, 2014 This item and the PowerSmith PAVC101 vac and PAAC301 filter have been grossly and dangerously misrepresented. from the start!! The company video asserts the danger of how warm ash can burn thru a conventional vac but not with there's? Warm ash contains small glowing embers that are not always evident in daily use. Here lies the danger! You can vacuum warm ash and when the added air flow thru the hose (which I must add is fire proof) mixed with unburned carbon in the ash, the warm ash will quickly turn to white hot sparks and burn thru the filter, pass thru the motor and be ejected strait up in the air thru the exhaust port while your happily looking at the wonderful job your doing on your stove and not seeing what's going on behind you!. Then consider the erroneous assumptions from some users such as--- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Filter caught Fire? Impossible! It cannot catch fire - I do not believe the Reviewer - I vacuum warm (Sometimes glowing Hot) ashes all the time with no problems ever! Q: Can you vacuum up warm ashes/ potentially sparks and have them safely stored in the can? A: Yes, it works great for that. I do it often with my pellet stove. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This can contribute to deadly outcomes and everyone should be aware of this. THIS SYSTEM IS NOT FOR USE WITH ANY WARM ASHES potentially containing even microscopic invisible embers! When my 11 months old vacuum and 3rd filter burned thru, it melted the plastic basket surrounding the motor intake, melted the foam filter surrounding the motor, (which is NOT HEAT or FIRE PROOFED and not replaceable) and ejected embers and hot sparks straight in the air in my living room. After a lengthy phone conversation with the parent company - Richpower Industries, Inc for a replacement plastic basket, I also suggested to there RD department they incorporate a metal spark arrester and use a better grade of plastic components such as DuPont(tm) Zytel® PLUS nylon or HTN92 Series PPA, good to 230 deg. Centigrade. When there customer service told me the plastic basket was not covered under warranty and tried to charge me $14.95, I was about to pack it all up and send it back to Amazon (2 year warranty) they relented and sent a replacement basket free of charge. Here is the bottom line on why I am keeping it. It has a robust 10Amp ball bearing motor with a cast aluminum fire proof impeller. The hose is fire proof with metal lining. Metal canister with good casters (great on a carpeted floor). Easy to clean with great pulling power. I intend to upgrade it with a metallic spark arrester on the motor intake and replace the foam motor filter with nonflammable fiberglass. The basic design is sound, but it appears quality took the hit from the drawing board to the production with there overseas "manufacturing partners" (China). Should Amazon pull this for safety concerns? Not yet, but the company Richpower Inc. should at least be called to task on there deceptive, contradictory advertising. (140 deg. ash filter verse fire resistant hose and canister) after asserting other Vacuum can "potently become a fire hazard"? (like the PowerSmith PAVC101 won't do the same thing???) I am a qualified professional as a retired engineer from the US Department of Energy and a contractor / owner of a successful HVAC company for over 40 year.

This vacuum is quite powerful and cleaned my wood stove thoroughly, in a matter of only a few minutes. The motor does run "warm" (as other have mentioned) but that's probably a reflection of its high output. The only problem that I've had so far is in emptying it -- static causes ashes to cling to the every part of the vacuum's surface , inside and out, when it is opened for ash disposal -- which I now do outside and with a brush and damp rag handy! The clean-up of the unit took much longer than the actual stove vacuuming. There is a small chain that hangs from the bottom of the unit, apparently to provide a "ground" to bleed off any static charge, but this is only useful if it is truly grounded, which it's not inside the average living room. An edit a year later: I'm still quite pleased with the unit, but I came across an issue that may explain some other users' complaints of the motor overheating and subsequently shutting down. Small chunks of charred wood can clog the hose at its two coupling points. They can go unnoticed since they are inside the couplings. The unit still vacuums and sounds the same, but then the motor suddenly shuts down from overheating, a consequence of the markedly increased resistance it must now work against. I removed the hose, removed the constricting chunks, then reassembled the unit which resumed working as it should. So, keep your hose clean.

After searching and looking at very expensive ash vacuums; I settled on this one due to the reviews on Amazon. We burn firewood to heat our ranch house and dust from the ashes is just part of winter.We have 3 wood stoves so cleaning a wood stove and dealing with the dust is part of life here. I ordered this on Amazon and received it in just two days. Used it today for the first time on cold ash... NO dust in the room!!!!! It did it's job properly and was easy to use and set up. I am thrilled and think this little vacuum will help curb our dust problem this winter. As to using it for hot ash I am not that brave! I was after a vacuum that did not spray the dry cold ashes all over my house when I clean up around and in the wood stove. I cleaned out the wood stove with it and there was a lot of ash in the stove. Never once did it plug up or spew dust! It worked GREAT!....5 Stars I will leave an update after using it all winter. For the low price a I am thrilled with this wonderful find! I have used this now for several months. I have vacuumed up some hot coals and lots of ash. I still am thrilled with this little ash vac. This is the most dust free this log house has ever been! I dump it after every use because I am paranoid about fire. When it gets to hot sucking up hot ash it will automatically shut down for about 10 minutes to cool down. The filter works great just remember to bang it out when you dump the ash out. I have seen these for sale at Big R and a couple other places. Still very happy with the price I paid on Amazon and will buy another if this one dies.

This ash vacuum was purchased to replace another model of ash vacuum that was nothing but problems from the start. Since receiving the vacuum, it has work flawlessly. It is considerably quieter than the other model I had, and it does not lose suction after using it. The filter is easy to clean and keeps the dust from getting up into the motor which the other one I had did. The only thing I would suggest is to get the cleaning kit with the smaller adaptor for the hose because the metal tip that come with it is a little long and that make it hard to get into the corners of my pellet stove. Other than that, I highly recommend this ash vacuum.

Unlike some others, I vacuum up glowing embers out of my wood stove with this vac. Works amazing! I can get most of it empty before the heat sensor kicks out. I never let my woodstove go out all the way in the winter, so emptying it is a pain, this allows me to take out the light/white ash and of course I get glowing embers in at the same time. LOVE IT!

I've had this vac for a year now for cleaning my pellet stove and I must say it's a great unit. The suction is more than adequate. The filtering of the exhausted air is super clean as there is no trace of ash dust anywhere and I clean my stove once a week. The supplied tools are nice and I've them all. I did buy an extra filter but I have yet to use it as the supplied one is still doing its job very well. The only thing I wish they had done different was to have a longer hose and it would have gotten 5 stars. I do recommend this vac for others

Good vacuum. Much quieter than the last one. I ordered the accessory pack based on other reviews that said the hose was too large to fit into their stove, but I never even opened it. I think our pellet stove is a pretty typical size and the hose, even with the metal piece and the brush attachment both installed, fits to clean it just fine. So I recommend getting this vacuum and not getting the accessory pack unless you find that you need it later. The vacuum even comes with a floor attachment, which I did not expect, so I can vacuum the floor around the stove more easily. It also has a top port where you can attach the hose to blow air instead of drawing it, so you can blow dirt and dust out of the motor and other areas of the stove. Let me say again: it is MUCH quieter than the last ash vacuum we had. I used to work as quickly as I could because the noise of the last one made my ears hurt, but this one doesn't bother me at all. The lower noise level alone is worth one star.

This worked great for all of a month and then suddenly mid vacuum it shut off and wouldn’t turn back on for more than a few seconds. We followed all manufacturer instructions. Don’t waste your money.