Dustless Technologies MU405 Cougar Ash Vacuum, Black
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Dustless Technologies MU405 Cougar Ash Vacuum, Black
Customer Review: Overpriced Poorly Designed Product
Summary: 1 Stars
This review is for the Ash-less Cougar Ash Vac. I used it only three times. I bought this to use with a pellet stove. Even new this has little suction compared to shop vacs. I bought it for the special ash filters which did seem to work. If it only had good suction. But shop vacs with a good HEPA filter work just as well in that regard with a lot more suction. I used mine only a few times when I decided to use a shop vac. What a difference. I was going to sell it on ebay when I noticed the inlet mount for the hose was cracked. So I kept the couple of big filter clamps and threw the thing out in the trash. Those were expensive clamps. You can't suck up hot ashes with either vac so the Ash Vac is unnecessary for 3 or 4 times the cost. Plus you can get the shop vac filters cheaply anywhere but the Ash Vac has exclusive expensive filters. Hope this prevents somebody making the same mistake I made.Customer Review: Perfect for Pellet Stoves
Summary: 5 Stars
It's been a brutal winter here in the NorthEast, and as my main heat source the pellet stove has been running nearly all day, every day. Keeping it clean is essential to efficient heating, and the Cougar makes the job easy and neat.
A number of reviews here mention a clogging issue. This must be specific to the much larger ash and charcoal left by a woodstove, because the super-fine ash that a pellet stove produces hasn't once even come close to clogging my Cougar.
The Cougar is has powerful suction--you can suck up big piles of fine ash almost instantly. It's actually kind of fun to stick the hose in a big pile of ash and watch it disappear. The filter shaker lets you knock ash off the filters without opening the unit. This is a very good thing, as anyone who has taken the lid off an ash can indoors can attest to.
The filtration is excellent. Before I got the Cougar I used a double-filtered shop vac and you could see, smell, and taste this haze of ash through the whole house for an hour. Using the Cougar I get nary a glimpse, whiff, or nip. Much healthier!
Before purchasing the Cougar I read the reviews here at Amazon, and one thing that comes up again and again is the noise, to the point where the first time I turned it on I was half expecting burst eardrums and broken bones from being thrown against the wall by the sheer force of massive sound waves. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the noise factor has been severely overstated. It sounds like...a vacuum. That's it. I mean, I wouldn't use it next to a colicky baby who just fell asleep, but it's really not a big deal.
The one annoyance I have, and it's been mentioned here many times, is that for the price they really should include a tool kit. It can't cost more than a few cents to produce, and I've got to think the profit margin on this product is fairly high. It is, afterall, just a metal drum with a couple of filters and a vacuum head. The flexible tube in particular would be very useful for the nooks and crannies of a pellet stove.
Overall I'm more than satisfied and have recommended it to every pellet stove owner I know who still scoops or uses a shop-vac. It's not cheap, but it's solidly built and designed to do one thing and do it well. On this count it more than delivers.
Customer Review: Success is in the technique
Summary: 4 Stars
I use my new Cougar with a stove and a fireplace insert, both burning cord wood.
First, you can't expect this - or any - vacuum to go right in at the end of a fire and suck everything up, hot coals and all. It's meant to be used in tandem with a metal bucket and shovel that can take out most of the glowing coals and set them aside for restarting the fire after you clean the stove.
Once you've removed the coals, I've been successful pushing the Ash Vac nozzle to the floor of the stove and moving it quickly around tight to the floor, in effect stirring the ash. It will clog a couple of times, but if you move it fast it clogs less, and clearing it is easy if you just tap the nozzle a few times. Occasionally, I'll have to shut it off to clear a coal out of the bend. In a minute or two all I have left is the remaining coals and all the ash is removed.
I was following the advice of other posters and moving the wand slowly, but it wasn't nearly as effective. All in all, the value is definitely there with the right technique.
Customer Review: This is exactly what I was looking for!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was using my shop vac to clean out the pellet stove and the filter was constantly clogging up. I have used the Loveless ash vac several times now and it is very efficient. Quiet might be a bit of an overstatement but it gets the job done!Customer Review: Useless for coal stoves...
Summary: 2 Stars
With a fat Amazon gift certificate burning a hole in my jammies, visions of a clean coal stove danced in my head. I had been lusting after one of these ash-vacs for years, and now finally, it would be mine...
Boy do I wish I had read a review like this one prior to purchasing this vacuum (which I will return tomorrow). Didn't even have to dirty it, reading the instructions was all it took. Unfortunately, it required getting in to my livingroom to figure this out, since in none of the online descriptions at various sites, including Amazon, did it mention that this unit is for FINE ASH ONLY. In other words, the steel nozzle opening, approximately the diameter of a nickel, is designed to admit fine powder ONLY, and even that in small bits with the nozzle pressed against the firebrick in a "small circular pattern", allowing the ash to "sift" into the hose incrementally. (The instructions went on to detail all the various ways the thing could get itself plugged up...)
HELLO! Has anyone out there ever heated with solid fuel full time? It would take all day to suck up ash in that manner, not to mention that burning wood/coal does not produce exclusively fine ash. For coal especially, clinkers - the molten residue of trace minerals found in anthracite coal, are part of the bargain, and are produced in such abundance that it would render this tool effectively useless for coal burners.
In addition, though the hose is metal, intimating that the odd live coal is no biggie, the filter system in this thing is CLOTH - ie. you can burn holes in it with live material. Then it leaks. Right.
I'll have my 200+ bucks back and suck my ash chamber out with my shop vac, thanks - especially since the stuff would have to be cool anyway. (You can buy fine particle filters and bags at Home Depot). So much for my simplified stove cleaning fantasies...Oh well.