Cougar+ Ash Vacuum - Powerful Black Ash Vacuum Cleaner Made in USA | Ideal for Fireplace, Wood Stove & BBQ Grill Cleanup

Background:If you read the companies description, all of the information you need is there and I can vouch for its accuracy. There is even a video put out by the company showing exactly how to use this vac. Why am taking time to mention this? Before I purchased my Vac, I read many reviews on this one from many different sites. The biggest complaint was a seemingly how weak the suction is, and that the hose plugged frequently. There were a few other complaints, but I'll get to that in a moment. So even though all of this information is available up front, I wanted to lay out exactly what you can expect from this vac, and what you can not expect in plain terms.The Good:This IS NOT a shop vac. It is an ASH VAC. Designed specifically to pick up FINE ASH. And the manufacturer, several videos, and others who have rated this vac favorably all say just that. To that end, this Vac works flawlessly. But most importantly, it does it without putting even one micron of ash into the air. That's what you are buying this vac for. Absolutely NO ash is exhausted out. And after having used a shop vac with special filters and even some home made filtration adaptations, the difference is night and day. If you need to pick up fine ash, and you need to do it without exhausting any ash into the air, there is no other vac on the market that I know of that does it any better then this one. And that is what you are paying the premium price for.The Jiggler rod to knock off the ash on the pre-filter is brilliant and brings back a substantial amount of suction when used. As far as noise, it's on par with any shop vac. Not quiet, but not outrageous.As you would hope of any "Ash Vac", this one is quite comfortable sucking up the stray red ember. You would not of course want to suck up red hot coals, that would be stupid in any case. But a stray red hot ember here or there is safe with this vac. What this means is, once the pellet stove has cooled enough where it wont melt the flesh off your hands, you are free to start cleaning up the ash. I can clean out my pellet stove and have it back in operation before the room temp has lost more then a degree or two.Used with a pellet stove, this vac is indispensible. It makes the task of cleaning my Pellet stove, if not pleasant, at least easy, fast and efficient. No other Vac that I have owned, or heard about from others works for cleaning fine ash out of pellet stoves better then this. A+++++++++++ for pellet stoves.The Bad:The suction, compared to a "Shop Vac" is substantially less. And to be certain, the opening at the business end is only about 1/2"-5/8" wide. So, for use as a "Shop Vac", this Vac is pretty much useless. This covers the majority of complaints I have read,Although you can get away, (With much effort), with removing the fine ash from a fire place, or from a wood burning stove, anything that is larger then say the size of a pea will start to give this vac an issue. Which you would expect, because pea sized and larger bits are not exactly "Ash", and the company specifically says this vac is not meant for such work. So with that said, this vacs primary use is with Pellet Stoves, regardless of what the company demonstrates in the video or what YOU may wish for it to do. I can not stress this enough. If you buy this for a fire place, wood burning stove or coal stove, even though the company demonstrates how it can be used for these applications, in reality this vac is just not very practical.C-------- for wood stoves and fire places, F--------------- for anything else. All of which is information that the company gives you UP FRONT, and you are reading again here.The Ugly:As much as I love this vac, there are some flaws that keep it from being five stars. The attachment point at the can is a plastic nub. Seems sturdy enough at first glance, but, moving the hose around, which you do a lot, will work the house off the plastic nub. Not to mention after I have put the hose on and taken it off the nub a number of times, I feel like the connection is going to quickly succumb to wear and tear. This connection between can and hose is just... not very good frankly considering the cost of the vac.At the other end of the hose, you have a metal tube that fits into the rubber/plastic fitting on the hose. Again, with moving the hose around, the metal tube wants to work itself lose. Not a big deal to keep the thing put together, but still, a very poor design.Moving on, the company sells an "Accessory Kit" separately from the vac that includes a crevice tool, a horse hair suction brush (Indispensible), and a clear plastic hose with a rubber fitting on one end for getting into those otherwise impossible to reach crevasses. I don't know about your Pellet stove, but this too is an indispensible aid. I want to say the kit was like $30 off the top of my head. For the price of the vac, these "Accessories" should be included. No question. I thought I could simply use the existing tools off one of the three shop vacs I own. No dice though as the diameters of the Ash Vac fittings are not "Standard" with other shop vacs, small or large. To add insult to injury, the accessories that you pay extra for, although they work and you would be lost without them, do not fit on the hose well. The metal tube that comes with the vac fits inside the plastic/rubber fitting on the end of the house. But the other attachments fit around the outside of the plastic/rubber fitting. Once the metal tube has been in the hose for a while, the orifice is stretched out some making the other accessories difficult at first to fit over it. Once the other accessories have been on the hose for a while, the orifice is contracted, making getting the metal tube back in a pain. I tend to switch between attachments frequently during the cleaning process and I have found it to be an unpleasant task. Again, it's all functional, but it's just a lousy design especially considering the price you have paid. The rubber/plastic fitting on the end of the hose is taking wear that most certainly will ruin it within a few years, and then I'll be buying a new hose no doubt. I can't express enough just how terrible this aspect of the engineering is. It's like they spent all of the R&D money on figuring out how to keep Ash out of the air and didn't have enough left over to "Finish" the product.The last major flaw with this vac is the lack of any onboard storage. You have but two options. Either store the vac and accessories in a heap on the floor in a closet, or, remove the hose from the vac every single time you're done using it and store it along with the accessories in a bag, leavening the vac with the cord coiled around it.Conclusions:For cleaning a pellet stove of the fine ash while keeping all of it in the bucket and out of your home, there is simply no better vac on the market. If this is the only goal that the company set out to realize, mission accomplished.The real problem is that for the price, the hose, fittings, ease of use and lack of onboard storage is abysmal. Why they can't take a queue from like EVERY OTHER SHOP VAC on the market is quite beyond me. If they were to fix the flaws on the outside of the Vac, this would be not only brilliant, but worth every penny of the asking price. It's a real shame that they won't correct the flaws that are keeping this vac from being absolutely perfect.Why they make the slightly cheaper version of this Vac is also beyond me. From what I have read, it's considerably louder and compared to this one, you would not want it any louder. As well, they say it has less suction. This one is not exactly a power house, it has just enough suction. It works well and I have no complaints. But I certainly would not want less suction. You are saving nothing by going with the cheaper version.If your primary goal using this vac is to keep ash out of your home while cleaning your pellet stove, this vac is the hands down best on the market. If you are planning on doing ANYTHING else, this vac will be a substantial waste of money for you. This is an expensive purpose built tool that excels at what it was designed for, and only what it was designed for.When we first got the woodstove eight years ago we had no idea how much dust would be generated from cleaning it out by hand we quickly saw we needed A better system to Keeps the stove area dust free In fact the ash dust gets on everything It was a little cheaper back then as I recall and there weren’t many options or other brands Full disclosure to get it to One only pick up the fine ass takes more than starting it up and sticking the hose into the firebox There is a little learning curve. It wasn’t uncommon for me to pick up more than just Ash and fill the hole was instantly getting hot because not only has it sucked up a hot coal But you are shooting air at a it Like a little a blast furnace. It has been my experience that less is more I quickly stick the pick up tube straight down so it’s sitting on the fire brick And then quickly move it right to left working my way back the whole process takes me less than 20 seconds there are always going to be times where the hose gets clogged up “mostly user error “” it really is a quick fix I simply disconnect the hose and reverse I have found that works nine out of 10 times sometimes I also have to bang the hose on the hearth a little. and a couple times a year I have to push something usually my finger through the intake hole on the side of the vacuum Now remember the unit is eight years old and it’s used 150 times a year occasionally breathing fire without blowing any ashes into the air not most of the ash but all of the ash !! The hose has grown shorter due to it unraveling and having to cut it. But to tell you the truth I think it clogs less now because the hose is a little shorter The hose is more rigid than one may like but considering it’s task it has done well. Tip I wrapped the end of the hose with electrical tape on and around the area being cut this stops the metal hose from unraveling more I have used a hacksaw , but I think a grinder with a cutoff wheel worked better. The bottom of mine was just metal and it would scratch the wood floor so I put a piece of door edge protector which is made of vinyl or rubber and it fits perfectlyThe filter is only now starting to show wear I wish the clamp and filter was easier to use it can pop off when trying to empty and clean it out or even when I use the agitation rod that helps shake and clean the filter if it is starting to loose suction the lip that the clamp and filter bag are clamped against is simply not big enough we have a wood stove and it works great.Given the alternative of destroying shop vacs or some of the lesser quality or worst of all doing it by hand it’s worth it’s weight in silver “ not gold”. And empty not fullTIP. To keep the hose more organized I put a strong little magnet and this lets me keep the hose wrapped around the vacuum and mount on the side of the vacuum I keep it next to the stove and it doesn’t look that bad Unless Martha Stewart is stopping byeIt’s my experience that the fine ash makes the fire hard to start because it blocks the air flow the larger pieces or coals left behind by the vacuum create voids which helps the fire start.All that said for me and my wood burning stove it rates an A. Even with its short comings how many products do you use as frequently that last as long as this performing such a hazardous task.?This is a quite difficult piece of equipment to review. There is no question that if you follow the manufacturers recommendations for use EXACTLY it works very well. However, it is very unforgiving, if there are any hot ashes lurking in the ash you will be in trouble. On my second time using the vacuum on my wood stove, that is exactly what happened and it burned a hole in the outside. so called flame resistant, filter along with a worrying burning smell. That will cost me approx. $35 for replacement filters.I am mystified as to why in an age we can land men in the Moon and rovers on Mars we cannot design a vacuum that will safely and efficiently handle HOT ash. Come on Dustless Technology, it's not rocket science (pun intended) get your engineers working on something more advanced. How about micro perforated stainless steel filters, or something far better than coated cloth!I would recommend this unit with reservations