Nothing like the smell of burning plastic in the morning

So things didn't really go as planned this morning.

You'll probably know by now that we get our heat from the woodstove in the cabin. No other heat source, except for this electricity gulping electrical heater, which I don't want to use unless absolutely necessary.

The cold predicted next week will make it absolutely necessary, but that's another story.

Every morning, we shovel out the ash from the day before and dump it in a small waste bin to make room for a new fire. Sometimes though, not all coals have lost their heat from the night before yet.

We usually try to wait that out, but sometimes we don't notice it in time and the coals enter the waste bin. This way, we had a hole burned into the side of it one day, so since then, we take care to not let them touch the sides. That worked out again this morning. No holes in the sides!

Then, I tried pushing it out of the way...

Oops!

Yeah, no holes in the sides. Just a big, gaping hole in the bottom!

The stove is surrounded by a bit of stone, so I put the bin up on that and started shoveling all of the ash (with coals still burning!) onto the stone. I didn't want any accidents with the hardwood floor!

Then, I grabbed this big plate we still had lying around and used it to take out the smelly plastic bin. Once I dropped that outside, I started gathering up the coals and ashes onto the bin to drop them outside. I took them to a large puddle of water in the grass and dumped them into the water, just to make sure nothing would catch on fire.

I then opened up all of our doors to let the aweful plastic smell out and let my boyfriend know what happened. I asked him to check for a metal or steel bin at the shop during his break and I send him links to a few I found online, in case he couldn't find any in the shop.

Now, I'm waiting to make sure every bit of the mess that's left inside is cooled off enough before I clean that up.

What a mess, huh? I'm just glad the only thing left on the floor is a bit of molten plastic. That could have been a lot worse I imagine!

My plan for a while now had been to buy a metal or steel waste bin and today just moved up that time frame... No more plastic bins next to the woodstove!

Fair warning: Copy/paste comment and obvious bot comments will get flagged.

lol take care you >.< :)

When I started reading the title, I was convinced it had something to do with the smell of bacon in the morning, And I was like "plastic?" lol Yeah, that's one hefty hole you got there,

By the way, I tried your Macaroons. I wrote a short post about it, redirecting people to your recipe, but I show a picture of how the macaroons turned out. I couldn't find condensed coconut milk, so I used regular and added sugar. They were good, Frank had many, we each had about half. There are none left :p

Haha, yeah, I'd rather have the smell of bacon to be honest ;-)

I'm so happy you tried the recipe and you both liked them! good to hear you finished them all. I think I'll make them again for a family weekend next month. It's an easy recipe and they'll be good for the whole weekend :D

It's also an easy recipe to multiply and make double or triple the amount with no extra effort required.

Yeah I use a new never used paint can, pop the ashes in and close the lid to suffocate... you would be amazed at how many stove de-ashings it can hold... or an old paint can would also do the trick.

Ooh, so many good ideas coming up in this post, thanks so much!

Try to find a heat resistant bin, i have one at home, don't know whats made off, but i know it's really resistant

Yeah, we have now ordered a heat resistant bin. Well, it won't keep all of the heat in, but atleast it won't melt on us. I think I'll let it sit on a little heat risistant platform to make sure the floor is safe.

Get a metal bucket for future use and put the coals in it to cool off or if you want it to go faster throw water in the bucket as well.

Yeah, we'll go for metal or steel from now on. No more use of plastic near the woodstove :-)
The water is a good idea!

It's just my imagination, of course, but it seems like I can smell it from here.

Excellent blog, very nice post, thanks for sharing

Thank your posted, I vote you.