Before the cold weather hit this week, I decided it would be a good idea to clean out some of the ashes from my fireplace. I just had the chimney swept in August, and I have a filter and debris bag inside my ShopVac. So while not entirely approved for such purposes, I figured I’d be able to use the ShopVac to suck up the relatively small pile of accumulated ashes without a problem.
On that point, I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Things seemed to be going well at first because the vacuum was making short work of the ashes. Unfortunately, when I turned around to look at the ShopVac, it became evident that the appliance was not only vacuuming, but was also actively redistributing the ashes into the air and around my living room. Yep, there was a column of dust spewing from a 4 inch vent on top of the ShopVac. Not cool.
The room was polluted to the point of being un-inhabitable. The extreme turbidity required me to fully open the front door, and enlist the service of an oscillating fan before complete removal was accomplished half an hour later.
Although, “complete” is a relative term in this situation, because everything is now covered, Mount St. Helen style, with a thin layer of dust. I was going to clean it up right away, but now I’m considering a “lemons/lemonade” approach in which I claim that the dust is actually a holiday decoration designed to simulate everyone’s favorite winter precipitation.
What do you think—let it snow, let it snow, let it snow?
4 comments:
I know it doesn't do much good at this point, but I think they make special filter attachments for ShopVacs for that specific purpose. I always wondered why...
Well, I guess it's good that if you had to open the front door completely, you didn't have to worry about the cat getting out!
The funny thing is...I have been considering doing the same thing with the ashes in my fire place. I guess I'll go looking for that filter Shaun's talking about. Let it snow!
I heard a small stick with sorf bristles and a small flat pan work well for this purpose. I do like the decoration aspect very much!!!!
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