Product Description The fire keeps you warm, but if cleaning up the ashes leaves you cold, the Cougar+ Ash Vacuum is just the thing. The Cougar+ is made by the Love-Less Ash Company right here in the USA. It features a patented dual filtration system that captures the smallest of ash particles found in wood stoves, pellet stoves, fireplaces, corn stoves, barbecues and pizza ovens. Designed to remove fine ash, this vacuum is capable of removing cool to warm fine ash, not hot ash or coals. Attempting to suck up large pieces of ash or coal will result in a clogged hose or damaging the unit. Simply use the metal nozzle to break down any larger pieces of ash before vacuuming them up. The filters and hose are flame resistant, so don't fret if you suck up a hot ember or two. An external agitator rod allows the user to clean the filters without opening the unit. The Cougar+ has a thicker motor housing than its predecessor, the Cheetah II Ash Vacuum, making it quieter during use. It has a 6 gallon canister with 3 gallons of capacity. This vacuum has a ten-year limited warranty. Included with this ash vacuum is (1) outer filter, (1) inner filter, (1) 5' metal flex hose, (1) metal nozzle, (1) round horsehair brush, (1) crevice tool, (1) pellet stove hose, (2) miniature brushes, (1) miniature crevice tool, (2) miniature extension wands, (1) adapter, and (1) drawstring tool kit bag. .com The Dustless Technologies MU405 Cougar Ash Vacuum lets you clean your fireplace, wood stove, or barbecue without making a dusty mess. Designed to remove warm-to-cold ashes, the Cougar is fire resistant and features a unique double filtration system that traps even the smallest dust particles. The Dustless MU405 Cougar Ash VacuumAt a Glance:Vacuums ash without creating a messUse with stoves, fireplaces, or BBQsClean filters without removing the lidQuiet and dust-free operationFlame resistant for safe removal of warm ashDouble filtration captures sub-micron particles for thorough cleaning. See it in action.Double filtration captures sub-micron particles for thorough cleaning. View larger.Flame Resistant for SafetyThe Cougar is designed with safety in mind. It features a steel nozzle with a five-foot flame-resistant hose and a fireproof three-gallon steel chamber. The patented filter system uses fire-resistant fabric rated up to 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, and the remaining parts are all made out of thermo-plastics to withstand high temperatures.NOTE: Never use a household, or shop vacuum to clean a fireplace, because warm embers can be hidden under ash, which acts like an insulator and can keep embers hot for days after you think the fire is out. The combination of swirling air and debris inside a flammable paper bag filter is an extremely dangerous fire hazard.Filter System Captures the Smallest Airborne Ash ParticlesThe Cougar features a double filter system that ensures no ash escapes the vacuum. This system leaves your air ash free and makes the process of cleaning your fireplace simple, clean, and healthy.Each of the system's filters is designed to trap the finest ash, and the second filter even captures sub-micron particles. This double-filter action effectively traps ash, so your air stays clear.Clean Filters Without Removing the LidYour Cougar's filters can be cleaned without removing them from the vacuum, eliminating any potential mess. For a quick dust-off, simply remove the brass cap from the lid and jiggle the agitator rod from side to side to shake the filters and make ash particles fall off.After you have vacuumed up 60 to 80 gallons of ash, your Cougar will be ready for a thorough cleaning. Just detach and vacuum the secondary and primary filters to clean them.Three-Gallon Canister Requires No BagsThe Cougar Ash Vacuum features a cold-rolled steel canister that will hold up to three gallons of ash. This fireproof canister safely contains your ashes without bags, so you'll never need to worry about expensive and annoying replacements. Just remove the canister's lid when it's time to empty your ashes.Removes Ash Quickly and QuietlyThanks to its powerful, six-amp electric motor, the Cougar can suck up ash quickly and easily. What's more, specially designed motor housing makes operation as quiet as can be. In fact, the Cougar is the cadillac of ash vacuums, operating with 60% less noise than the Dustless Technologies Cheetah II.To help speed up ash removal, the Cougar's crimped steel nozzle is designed to quickly pick up ash and leave larger debris behind--for burning at a later time. To use, just place the vacuum nozzle directly on the hearth and swipe it in a circular motion. Ash will flow smoothly through the hose without clogging.WarrantyThe Dustless Technologies MU405 Cougar Ash Vacuum is backed by a one-year limited warranty for home use.What's in the BoxDustless Technologies MU405 Cougar Ash Vacuum.
D**E
Not for everyone
So I wanted to love this vacuum ... but it just wasn't for me. First, it does pick up fine ash very well in short bursts. If all your stove produces is fine ash (like a pellet stove), then it will probably suit you wonderfully.If, however, you have a large wood stove or other fuel type, you may be less satisfied.The vacuum tends to clog frequently and the motor got very very hot on my unit.Note: Embers can stay hot for a long time so, knowing this, I made sure before starting that everything was cold. I also took the time to remove the large leftover pieces first and pushed aside any middle sized ones, focusing on the ash as much as possible.After five minutes the unit choked on the ash and stopped working well. It took a long time to get the ash vacuumed up and the hot motor forced me to turn it off before the stove was really clean. I realized at that point that it was not for me. Prepping the stove for clean-out and vacuuming (not to mention cleaning the unit afterward) actually took way longer than using the good old ash pail and scoop.I think the only thing this vacuum might be good for are end of year clean outs to get the fine ash from the corners. But for my money - I want something I can use for daily clean outs, not once a year.
M**E
The best there is... with minor flaws.
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.
C**R
Still needs improvement
The Cougar vacuum is better than the first one I had, one of those Tack Life $50 models.When the Cougar vacuum is new or has recently been cleaned out of ash, it provides adequate suction power. Many people have complained that the hose ( a narrow hose, about 1 inch in width) easily gets clogged -- it does. The best technique is to keep the metal nozzel pressed against the bottom of your wood burning stove to try and prevent larger chunks of charcoal from getting sucked up and blocking the flow. Even this is not fool-proof and I have to remove the hose and use a metal drain cleaning cable to bust up the blockage. Maybe someone can invent a clog resistant attachment that sucks up only dust and small charcoal pieces. The little hose that comes in the accessory bag didn't have sufficient suction, and just didn't seem to work as well as the steel tube attachment.Fine ash dust clogs the filters. That seems to be an issue with all these vacuums. The dust-cleaning shaker tool doesn't work all that well. You'll have to clean BOTH filters by hand after a while, which means loosening up the hose clamp to take off the outer filter -- not a pleasant task. No noticeable dust comes out the exhaust.That said, it does work. I can vacuum the wood-burning stove 5-10 times before it becomes time to take it outside (wearing a dust mask and protective outerwear). I empty the can, shake the outside filter, then brush off the remaining dust with a soft bristle brush.The quality of the hose, accessories (You DO get accessories), the steel can, and the motor seem above average, and it is made in the USA. The motor is not all that quiet as advertised.Is it worth six times the price of a TackLife vacuum? You be the The Cougar vacuum is better than the first one I had, one of those Tack Life $50 models.When the Cougar vacuum is new or has recently been cleaned out of ash, it provides adequate suction power. Many people have complained that the hose ( a narrow hose, about 1 inch in width) easily gets clogged -- it does. The best technique is to keep the metal nozzel pressed against the bottom of your wood burning stove to try and prevent larger chunks of charcoal from getting sucked up and blocking the flow. Even this is not fool-proof and I have to remove the hose and use a metal drain cleaning cable to bust up the blockage. Maybe someone can invent a clog resistant attachment that sucks up only dust and small charcoal pieces. The little hose that comes in the accessory bag didn't have sufficient suction, and just didn't seem to work as well as the steel tube attachment.Fine ash dust clogs the filters. That seems to be an issue with all these vacuums. The dust-cleaning shaker tool doesn't work all that well. You'll have to clean BOTH filters by hand after a while, which means loosening up the hose clamp to take off the outer filter -- not a pleasant task. No noticeable dust comes out the exhaust.That said, it does work. I can vacuum the wood-burning stove 5-10 times before it becomes time to take it outside (wearing a dust mask and protective outerwear). I empty the can, shake the outside filter, then brush off the remaining dust with a soft bristle brush.The quality of the hose, accessories (You DO get accessories), the steel can, and the motor seem above average, and it is made in the USA. The motor is not all that quiet as advertised.Is it worth six times the price of a TackLife vacuum? You be the judge...
C**T
Dustless Technologies Cougar Ash Vacuum
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
A**E
Five Stars
The Cadillac of ash vacs there is nothing better.
