Uses for Wood Ash in Your Home and Garden

Have you considered the least pleasant part of having a fireplace to be scooping ashes and handling them properly to avoid an accidental fire? What if the uses for wood ash in your home and garden make it all worth it? At Chimney Solutions, we are happy to share some good news with homeowners who don’t already know the secrets of wood ash. Note: Use appropriate caution due to the toxic qualities in wood ash.

Yes, wood ash has multiple extremely effective practical uses. However, perhaps the best thing about wood ash is that you can save a significant amount of money by taking advantage of the information we are providing below.

What are the Secrets of Wood Ash?

Ash isn’t just a sooty mess. Wood ash contains potassium and calcium in significant amounts. It also has smaller quantities of aluminum, sodium, magnesium, and phosphorus. Plants love these nutrients—more about that will follow. In the home, you can use the nutrients and alkalinity in wood ash for some practical and creative purposes.

Cleaning Applications for Wood Ash in Your Home and Driveway

In addition to the effective ingredients in wood ash, it is mildly abrasive. You can stack up the savings on cleaning products if you put wood ash to work for you in the following ways:

Glass and metal polishing. Create a paste by mixing water with wood ash, and you have an excellent product for buffing tarnished metals and cleaning soiled glass surfaces. Be sure to test a small area first, to be certain the mixture doesn’t damage the surface with scratches.

Remove sticky residues and adhesives. Wood ash paste is ideal for removing label residues from metal items.

Make DIY soap. Find the instructions on this link for making soap with wood ash.

Remove odors such as pet smells. Place bowls of wood ash in musty or smelly areas of your home. The ash will neutralize the bad smells. In areas where pets mark or sleep, sprinkle on some wood ash and leave it for several hours before sweeping it up or vacuuming.

Remove oil from the driveway. Layer wood ash over oil spills and let the ash soak up the oil in your driveway. Simply sweep the area after the ash has done its work.

Lawn and Garden Uses for Wood Ash

Successful gardens begin with the right soil, and ash is a great help in balancing the pH levels in soil by minimizing its acidic qualities. The nutrients in wood ash will enhance your crop of corn, alfalfa, and other plants such as rhododendrons and blueberries. The following are other ways wood ash can help with your lawn and garden:

• Wood ash is excellent for enhancing your indoor compost bin or the outdoor compost pile.
• Create liquid fertilizer using wood ash.
• Ash is an environmentally friendly alternative to chemical pesticides when deterring snails and slugs.
• Wood ash also repels ants.

Contact the Chimney Solutions Experts for the Dirty Work

At Chimney Solutions, we realize that many people imagine our technicians might be soot-covered chimney sweeps like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Even though we work with dirty chimneys most of the time, we wear uniforms and manage to stay fairly soot-free. Although there is risk in working with the ashes, isn’t it nice to know there are so many uses for wood ash in your home and garden? We think so!

Give us a call if you need chimney cleaning, a chimney inspection, flashing repair, masonry repair, chimney cap installation, a chimney crown or flue liner replacement, fireplace installation, or anything else pertaining to your fireplace and chimney.

Call today or fill out our online form to schedule chimney services.