PowerSmith PAVC101 10 Amp Ash Vacuum,Green / Black

Working great. Been using for more than a week. Using it on a pellet stove wgich has very fine ashes. No problems. Seems to be a very sturdy vac...also no blow by of ash which is key using indoors.

Used this once so far and it worked great to clean my furnace. It has good suction and is surprisingly quiet. Bought accessories but did not need them this time

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.

This is a solidly built, good quality product that does what it says, but it could be substantially improved with a couple of minor tweaks to the design. The basics are there: it has good suction, the filter bag works well, and it doesn't blow ash all over the house like a regular shop vac does. It's also somewhat quieter than my shop vac. Here's how to make it work better: 1. It comes with a 3 foot long hose, which is about two feet too short. You can buy a longer hose with an add-on accessory package, but you shouldn't have to. I would have gladly have paid a few extra bucks for a longer hose. 2. The brush accessories that it comes with are poorly designed, Powersmith should ship it with just a couple of better quality brushes. I use a slip-on round brush made for Rainbow vacuums which has a replaceable ring of natural bristles (nylon bristles melt too easily if the stove is still hot). This does a much better job cleaning out the fly ash from our pellet stove. You can get these on Amazon pretty cheap from the vacuum stores, it's worth spending a few bucks on this since it's the only part that really touches the stove. 3. It really ought to come with another filter bag so that you can alternate them in use. This vacuum does not have a provision to shake loose the accumulated ash in use, so its suction is noticeably reduced towards the end of the stove cleaning. If it slows down too much, you can take off the motor/top-unit (while carefully leaving the filter bag sealed to the canister) and tap the bottom of the bag several times to loosen up the ash caked onto it. This will get it sucking well again, at least for a while. If you have a really big job you'll have to take it outside to empty it and shake out the filter bag. If you have a spare filter you can put the dirty one aside and swap a new one in to speed things up. Either way, do not empty the vacuum inside as this will send fine ash and soot everywhere. 4. The hose to canister connection gets very difficult to loosen when it gets gritty and dusty (in other words, after the first use). It would be nice if they at least marked these parts where they connect so you can tell where it should be indexed to remove and install the hose. Molding the connector ring with some finger ridges would help as well, since it's hard to turn. You will end up disconnecting the hose every time you take it outside to dump, since the hose is rigid and awkward. You have invert the canister to empty the ash, and the hose gets in the way. A spot of white paint to show where the hose connector lines up would make it easier to re-install. These are small details, but it would make a difference in the ease of use.

I brought this vacuum because I needed a good vacuum for my pellet stove. The power suction is great. And to clean it is a snap. The only bad down side, is if you are running it for a fifteen minute the vacuum shuts off. I thought it burn up the motor. But after I let it sit for about a half hour it started back up. So it must have a safety feature once the motor gets to hot, it turns off. I to have to admit I did not go back and read the Manuel to see if this is so. Well it takes me a good hour to clean my pellet stove, and I guess while I am scraping the burning pot, I will have to shut it down to let it cool. If in fact it shuts down once the motor gets to hot. If it was not for this inconvenience, I would have given it a five rating. Delivering on anything that I buy from Amazon is the best. I have yet to have late delivery, only one time did I get a damage package, with that said they still get a five rating ok I just read the manuel and it has nothing about the vacuum shutting down during any period of time while I am vacuum. I am getting ready to use it again. if it happens again I will call the company, It has a two year warranty, it is a good vacuum, now I will see if the company stand by their produce. if need be to replace it. like any of piece of material there can always be one lemon in the bunch 2/24/14 I have to follow up on this review: I said after fifteen minute it shuts off, Well I have a few pointers. When I clean the filter I use a power air hose, this is a no no. The pressure cause a small rip in the filter, I then tried to use that same filter, which is a no go, Because I believe the ashes where getting up into the motor which made it shut down, I brought a new filter, and never had any trouble since, with the vacuum shutting down, this is one great vacuum, light weight very easy to clean handles the ash from the pellet stove with a breeze. when I do wear it out I will buy the same brand, keep making this great vacuum. Thanks for a good product PowerSmith

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.

We have a masonry fireplace in an old home. It's amazing and is our primary heat for the winter (we do have mini-splits we can turn on too). Anyway, the fireplace is very efficient and we're left with very little ash after one day's use. That's where this vacuum come in handy. We use it every morning. I read complaints about ash vacuums in general - it died, runs hot, keeps shutting off. For us, this has not been a problem, but we don't use it like a vacuum cleaner or shop vac. We keep on for only a couple minutes - plenty of time to clean out the fireplace. And we make sure to empty the ash outside every week or so. I think if you use it like that, any of these ash vacs will work well. This one does. And it make starting a fire every morning a breeze.

Works wonders on our pellet stove and for the price 0 dust gets kicked up. Before we got it, the HEPA filter would pick up dirty air even after cleaning. Now it reads clean! Compeltey works but is messy to empty. Easy to use. Small which is nice because it's easy to move around. Works well!