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EPA Makes Most Wood Stoves Illegal
First time accepted submitter Jody Bruchon writes "The Environment Protection Agency has lowered the amount of fine-particle matter per cubic meter that new wood stoves are allowed to release into the atmosphere by 20%. Most wood stoves in use today are of the type that is now illegal to manufacture or sell, and old stoves traded in for credit towards new ones must be scrapped out. This shouldn't be much of a surprise since more and more local governments are banning wood-burning stoves and fireplaces entirely, citing smog and air pollution concerns."
And unfortunately for the epa its one of the Easiest stoves known to man to make...........
You only see useless old people using those horrible things.
What they don't know doesn't hurt them.
I would love to know which gas / propane / electric company bought this rule....
barbecue grills that burn charcoal? I love my Q!
He and his clique of fascists will soon be against the wall when the Revolution comes.
Corporatism != Free Market
I live in rural South Carolina where wood stoves are the only source of heat for many many people. There is no gas infrastructure here, and many people can't afford a $10K electric heating system that will cost them HUNDREDS per month to heat their homes in the winter. At ~$4/gallon, Propane and Oil are similarly prohibitive for the rural poor.
The busybodies in our government have no problem throwing the poor under the bus to achieve some feel-good goal so they can go home to their mansions at night and feel good about themselves. They're hurting real people.
...watching slasdotters get bent over, raped, and then say, "thank you sir, can I have some more".
Meanwhile, Diesel trucking rumbles on.
I have lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, which has roughly 100,000 people in and around it, and is basically isolated other than that. During the winter, particulate pollution is insanely bad, and even worse when you consider how small the city is. This is due, mainly, to the amount of wood burning stoves that are used to heat houses. Now, it's exacerbated by the valley that the town is in and the extreme cold, but most of it's terribleness comes from the wood burning in the area. After seeing that, I want to support stronger regulations or even bans on wood burning. On the other hand, many of the people in Fairbanks that burn wood do so because it's the cheapest method they can use to heat their houses, and they can't afford other methods (natural gas is not available in Fairbanks for heating, or at least not cheaply). I don't know what they're supposed to do if these regulations increase the cost associated with wood burning very much... not heating your house when it's -50 out is just not an option.
I live in rural Wisconsin, out here there's not a lot of money. I would say about 30% of the people around here have converted to wood heat since other fuels have gotten so expensive. Does this "ruling" cover wood burning boilers like this?:
http://www.centralboiler.com/
If it does, this is really going to affect a lot of people in a harmful way.
Is it still legal to burn logs made from waxed cardboard. I say these in the store the other day, and wanted to get in on the recycling money..
We gave up our wood stove when fire insurance prices increased to make it more expensive than an air conditioning unit (which can be run as a heater).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You'll get what you deserve.
As someone who lives in a rural area and burns wood as a secondary heat source (oil is primary), I think this may be getting blown out of proportion. For years they've been driving up efficiency of wood-stoves, and most stoves on the market today probably already meet the new standards. Looking at the list, the (non-catalytic) stove I bought 8 years ago (to replace a 30% efficiency old stove) will still be legal to sell under the new rules. I do find the practice of banning the use of existing stoves terrible, but driving up the efficiency of stoves is a good thing, and my current stove produces much more heat than the stove it replaced.
Hey... you live in a big city? I can see a local ordinance banning wood smoke.
But in lots of other places? Give me a break. Does this apply to Alaska, too? When you might easily be 30 miles from the nearest human?
This is none of the FEDERAL government's damned business. It's a classic example of something that can and should be locally controlled.
I am so sick and tired of Fed overreach and having their noses up our asses all the time! This is another example of WAY TOO FAR.
On the other hand, would any of you who are criticizing this care to say whether you would want to live in an environment like China's, which is horribly polluted? Go ahead, justify your position, we can sit back and listen to you equivocate.
if you added all fine particle matter produced by all the wood burning stoves on the planet during the course of a year, would it be significant? It might be but I suspect that the resources going into implementing this new ban could be spent on a higher return source of pollution.
To read here, it would seem like the EPA is effectively outlawing wood stoves, but reading http://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/wood-and-pellet-heating it's clear that there is in fact already an existing certification framework in place, and there seem to be several types of wood stove that fit well within the described criteria.
Also, the legislation only applies to the sale of "new" stoves, correct? Since any newly manufactured stoves probably already take the EPA guidelines into account, this isn't likely to hurt any sales for new stoves, and it's not retroactively taking away any existing stoves that I can tell. Of course, I did not read TFA, so I could be mistaken.
In other news, most fireplaces are inefficient anyways.
http://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/heating-and-cooling/fireplace.htm
Currently home builders have little incentive to put an efficient stove into their buildings. At least in my neck of the woods. This is just a step in that direction: Efficient wood burning devices that pollute less.
Joseph Elwell.
The regulations reduce the amount of particulate emissions by 20%. How hard can it be to come up with a modified design that satisfies the new rules?
They could take a page from wood gasifiers used in some automobile wood burning conversions, and use a cyclone filter to get the ash flecks and stuff out, then pass it through a filter media made out of wood chips and an active exhaust fan to generate the necessary pressure to evacuate the exhaust. The wood chips can then just be passed through the wood stove for another round. Seems like a good system that works well.
Why couldn't they just make an active suction hepa filter for the exhaust, if cost would be a huge issue?
Or is the US no longer a democracy?
Burns good clean PLUTONIUM! Just shovel a couple pounds in in the fall and it'll keep your house nice and warm all winter long! Ask your local heating and cooling store about a plutonium-burning stove today!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
We have a wood stove. We haven't used it much for a couple years; but when we did, we did our best to let our wood dry out for a year before burning, and also to keep our fires hot and well oxygenated. As such, you generally wouldn't see smoke coming out of our chimney, just hot air. (That still releases some particulates, I realize)
But a lot of people around here burn wood that's been cut fairly recently, so it still contains a lot of moisture. On top of that, they often manage room temperature by damping - limiting the air flow to the fire . Both practices throw huge amounts of smoke/particulates into the air. I always cringe when I go by a house with smoke belching out the chimney as if it were an old coal-burning freight train.
People bitch and moan about the government meddling in their homes, but in this case it's their own fault. We all have to breathe that exhaust.
#DeleteChrome
I have a Jotul F500 stove. It is 75% efficient. http://jotul.com/us/products/stoves/jotul-f-500-oslo When I burn dry wood and the stove is hot, there is no smoke coming out the chimney. Everything gets consumed. The stove recirculates any smoke inside the stove until it is completely burned. If you stand outside my house no matter which side you're on, you don't smell any smoke, and the gases coming out the chimney are clear. I'm guessing that many perceived problems with stoves are caused by people who don't know how to properly operate their stoves. They're burning wet wood, they have a very old inefficient stove, they aren't controlling the airflow well, they aren't burning outside air, etc. A modern wood stove is one of the most environmentally friendly ways to heat your house. You're burning renewable energy. I'm bothered by people here in upstate NY who put anti-fraking signs in their hard but who also heat with gas. Hypocrites.
Wow with 5 minutes of research I found that the EPA has not made wood burning stoves illegal or 'banned' them, rather they have set regulations on new stoves. I used to feel like /. readers were smarter than the average bear, sadly this is seems to be less true over time.
The same wood burning stove rules would apply to both heavily air-pollution laden major cities and far cleaner rural regions with extremely cooler temperatures. Families living in Alaska, or off the grid in wilderness area in the West, will most likely have extreme difficulty remaining in their cold, secluded homes if the EPA wood stove rules are approved.
But it wouldn't be nearly as inflammatory (*rimshot*) if the post was titled "All new wood stoves will now come with air filters."
we could learn from the Chinese regulation of fine particulate :>)
So the EPA wants us to replace renewable wood fuel with non-renewable fossil fuels for domestic heating? Isn't this a step backwards?
Most coal fired power plants are illegal by EPA standards today. Very few buildings in America's inventory would comply with 2013 building codes or zoning regulations.
Wood burning stoves emit pollutants that we all breathe. The EPA already regulates wood stoves. As technology has improved, they've ratcheted up the standards, just like they do with lots of regulations.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
I worked on the railway in the Rogers Pass -- half way between Revelstoke & Golden. At a camp that helped push the trains over the big grade. Had two sets of 6 locomotives either sitting at idle in camp or pushing trains up the hill. Around 30 to 40 below, the trains, at idle, created a massive cloud that socked in the whole area. No doubt mostly steam. Just as wood burning probably leads to mostly steam. And that steam turns into a big nasty cloud when it is cold. Maybe we should outlaw clouds next.
So instead of harvesting a renewable resource that is growing not more than a quarter mile from the point of use, I have to rely on a massive mining, transportation, refining, and re transportation network that belches untold amounts of toxins into the atmosphere? Government logic never ceases to amaze me.
It's possible to assist the poor with buying better stoves, and the up-front costs of doing so would probably be lower than the residual Medicare and Medicaid payouts for respiratory diseases caused or worsened by their old stoves. A higher quality stove with better fittings would also produce an incredible increase in heat output; replacing an old model can truly make the difference between shivering around the stove at night and being perfectly comfortable anywhere within 25 feet. If they pay for the wood, the stove will definitely pay itself off eventually; even if they cut wood themselves the time savings will be substantial and that time could be put to higher value activities like work, study, or even hunting.
But I guess it's easier to denigrate every federal employee as a rich, do-nothing "busybody" who drives home to their "mansion" after "throwing the poor under the bus" than it is to see an obvious solution where the poor are healthier and more comfortable for less money than we're already putting out, and everyone breathes less soot.
In a city or suburb, burning wood for space heating, is a waste of wood. Wood can be used to make paper, or build houses. Space heating could be taken care of by efficient heat pump, geothermal stored heat, or a local steam district. Wood burned in a modern thermal power plant, using a modern heat pump, can get over double the heating of a simple wood stove. For those people, the city can, and should ban wood burning stoves.
On the other hand, there are poor people, in the middle of nowhere, that need only a small amount of heat. Yes, it's a waste of wood, but the heat demand is small, and transportation costs are high. Yes, the EPA is going to screw them over.
That's a health plan they will gladly sign up for.
It's just like pollution limits on cars, or when they started requiring unleaded gas. If you have a stove, nobody is coming to take it away.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Entirely apart from the flamebait article, he's foe'd me so he doesn't have to answer my rebuttals to his bullshit assertions.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Wood burning stoves - Banned
Big rigs and trains putting out black smoke so think you cant see through it - No issues found.
Oil wells blowing up dumping thousands of gallons - No issues found.
Basically, by heating, we are compensating for the heat that is lost through the walls and windows of the house. Using double or triple pane windows, and effective thermal isolation on the walls, can dramatically reduce the loss of heat - ideally, one could use no heating at all and still have a perfectly pleasant temperature during the winter.
Check out if the oil, gas, and electricity companies are lobbying about this. I bet they are. This is about monopolized reliance and the current administration is just as guilty of it as previous.
Anyone using a rocket stove? They burn SUPER hot and are very efficient. Banned too?
Shit in an arctic climate you have electric bills that cost $2000 a fucking month for a tiny 1200 square foot place when it hits -40 for weeks on end at night.
Take away their wood stoves and you have a rebellion. That is not acceptable period! Sure in NYC who cares right? But, in cold climates people even with grid electric and gas rely on wood stoves to cut down on costs as heating a modest home some 110 degrees above what it is outside 24x7 cost a shit ton of money.
http://saveie6.com/
I get where you're coming from on this. The townhouse I'm renting now winds up costing me a small fortune in utilities when it gets cold and the family wants it to remain comfortably warm, or to keep it tolerably cool in July and August.
I was promised "because it has a heat pump", my bills were going to be really reasonable. Well, maybe that's better than not having one at all ... but I'm sure the landlord used the cheapest one he could get his hands on when it was new, and it's been repaired and patched up to keep it going for many years now. So it's not giving anywhere near the savings one would see with a good, updated model.
I'm not a big fan of legislation forcing people to make changes like this though. What would probably be smart is if some landlords got a clue and voluntarily made properties very energy efficient, and then used that as a selling point when advertising the property for rent. I don't think I've ever seen this done yet, which strikes me as a little bit odd.
http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/pdfs/fireplacefactsheet.pdf
In places where it gets very cold, the way to do it (as others I think are pointing out) is retrofit-assistance and (probably more importantly) insulation assistance programs, like we have in much of New England, so that people can still burn wood, but burn a lot less of it, and actually be more comfortable. Our small house has been well insulated recently and I expect to go from using around 600 gallons of oil a year to around 400, maybe even 300 if I'm careful. If I was using wood, there would be a similar decrease in the amount of wood I'd need to burn to stay warm.
In the 21st century, it just makes plain sense that building envelope and R-value should be every homeowner's first and second thoughts when heating any home, especially when doing so with the intent to keep from freezing to death. In a (very) well insulted home, it's possible to (easily) keep from freezing to death with little more than a few warm bodies, good clothing and maybe candle or two -- so a high-efficiency heating device, much smaller than you'd need in a conventionally-insulated house, will easily keep you very comfortable in such a home.
And we're worried about it NOW?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
citing Interpretation of CO and PM Emissions Data from TLUD Gasifier Cookstoves, by Paul S. Anderson, in particular, and also based on what i have gleaned from many larger studies, it would seem that the bulk of particulate matter produced when burning wood occurs in the charcoal reduction phase.
any stove modified to burn wood gas alone (secondary combustion) and specifically to not reduce charcoal to ash should pass new EPA regs easily, and this is easily done by (a) providing a suitable source of heated secondary air, to ensure proper wood-gas (smoke to the layman) combustion, and (b) carefully limiting the primary air supply to ensure that charcoal reduction is minimised.
if you then return the charcoal, intact, to the environment, the net result is carbon negative.
if you rely on and/or prefer wood for fuel, please learn to use it wisely.
Wow, even catalytic stoves? That's bad. Alaska valley communities are going to be rather hard-hit by this ruling.
Kriston
The reason I mention is is because valley communities in Alaska have some of the poorest air quality in all of the United States.
Have a look at the following link. There aren't any current advisories, but in an area the rest of us might assume is some sort of pristine wilderness, in terms of air quality, Alaska it is anything but pristine.
More here:
http://dec.alaska.gov/air/
Kriston
Any good H.E. wood stove provides compliance with this new ruling. There are a TON (metric butt-ton even) of really crappy Chinese stoves for sale in the US today (U.S. Stove Company being one, Vogelzang, Wood King, etc.). They should absolutely be outlawed (as they apparently have been) as they are not only incredibly inefficient but also quite dangerous. A good wood stove is expensive (Woodstock, Regency, Blaze King) but will meet all EPA regs, though they are expensive. Here's the bonus though, if you get a stove that meets EPA regs, it also heats your house so much more efficiently (ie uses so much less wood) that it more than pays for the difference. You can get a Woodstock Progress Hybrid (double burn and catalytic combined) for well under $3k with tax rebate and it would easily heat an up to 3k sq ft home in most any part of the US. In the midwest (where I live) it will turn your house into an oven on even the coldest days.
Cash for Clunkers, anyone?
Enslave yourselves to the bankers for a NEW CAR!!! or buy an old one that will still get you around. Oh wait, can't do the latter anymore, and you put the used car dealers out of business. Ha ha!!!
capcha: horses
But I guess it's easier to denigrate every federal employee as a rich, do-nothing "busybody" who drives home to their "mansion" after "throwing the poor under the bus" than it is to see an obvious solution where the poor are healthier and more comfortable for less money than we're already putting out, and everyone breathes less soot.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanriper/2013/04/25/americas-richest-counties/
The shoe fits, wear it.
I thought we were supposed to be moving to renewable sources of energy. Wood would be a renewable source of energy. This system is so full of contradictions it's ridiculous.
The more of these contradictory regulations come out the more I think the whole thing is being set up to eliminate all but a few people and they'll finally allow the production of thorium reactors so they can live with virtually unlimited energy.
When there were no burn nights in Albuquerque, I turned off the TV and threw another log onto the fire. F.it.
No they won't as they probably already have them and this regulation does not effect the ones in place. And if they have to get a new one it will be more efficient.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I wonder about the facts presented in the TFA. For example, it says:
That means that even if you still have a stove or a fireplace, you can’t burn it for fear of a fine. Puget Sound, Washington, is one such location.
Well, first, there is no city called "Puget Sound" in WA, so, they are presumably referring to the Puget Sound region. For the Puget Sound region, the EPA page says:
Air-quality burn bans temporarily restrict some or all indoor and outdoor burning, usually called when weather conditions are cold and still.
So, when there are burn bans, they are temporary. Except during a burn ban, one can use a stove or fireplace without fear of a fine. Looking at the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency web site, there is no burn ban in effect now, so there is no problem with the fire that is burning in my wood stove now (or, judging by the smell outside, the fires going at my neighbors' houses).
Under a burn ban, you can still use your fireplace or wood stove if it is the only adequate source of heat in your house.
So, what else does the article get wrong?
In the US? Liberal laws:
You not have health coverage that works for you, you must get Barry approved coverage for drug addiction, maternity, psyche, and routine doctor visits you'd rather pay cash for. You have your tubes tied? Sorry, we're still forcing you to pay for maternity coverage.
You must slowly destroy your car's engine by putting whiskey in the gas tank.
You must have lower standards for black people than white people, and lower standards for women than men. They're too stupid to meet the normal standards. Damn that one is OFFENSIVE!
You may not have a large soda.
You may not work hard in school and as a result be more successful than the potheads you went to high school with. Try it and we'll just take most of your paycheck so you're not able to provide your kids with anything the stoner doesn't provide his.
You may not recognize the 2nd amendment.
You may not build your retirement house on that lot you just spent your life savings on. A half mile down the road there's a spider that's a slightly different color than most of the spiders around here. The neighborhood now belongs to that spider.
Compared to US conservatism:
Get whatever health coverage you want. We suggest INSURANCE, which means coverage for things you can't pay out of pocket, aka "major medical". It's cheap, but if you want some other plan, that's cool, do what you want.
Newer cars are more efficient, but if you have a gasoline car that you don't want ruined, feel free to put gas in it.
If someone wants to work for you and you want to hire them, cool. Do the work you want, and if you need help with the work, hire whoever you think will do the best job.
Eat what you want. If you're hungry after working hard, our favorite is bacon wrapped anything.
US style liberalism is all about the nanny state telling you what you can't do.
But I guess it's easier to denigrate every federal employee as a rich, do-nothing "busybody" who drives home to their "mansion" after "throwing the poor under the bus" than it is to see an obvious solution where the poor are healthier and more comfortable for less money than we're already putting out, and everyone breathes less soot.
The shoe fits:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanriper/2013/04/25/americas-richest-counties/
You make some good points about stove efficiency and money, but as a (rural) poor person I'll disagree with your idea of assisting the poor. Eligibility requirements are kinda like Ron Jeremy, you never know if he is going to get lucky or if you are. If you want to enable people to upgrade their stoves for free or cheap, good. Don't outlaw all the existing stoves and then offer new stoves to who you deem eligible. That is tyranny.
i thought wood stoves were a thing of the past. never heard of a wood stove in this decade until now. all i've seen are gas and electric stoves.
I support raising the standards for new stoves, but since many people with not much money depend on the things, I think they over did it by banning trade-ins unless rendered inoperative. If they feel that strongly, there should be a tax credit on the trade-in to compensate for the lost value of that trade-in. That would make it perfectly reasonable.
To be fair, I should acknowledge there are some things liberals will allow you to do. Want to kill babies? That's fine as long as you don't drink a large soda afterwards.
You want to know whether or not someone is going to kill your baby? You're not allowed to find out.
Most people don't realize, but wood-burning is the sleeping giant of renewable energy. It's the largest form of renewable energy consumption in the U.S. If you look at the EIA's energy source breakdown, wood falls under biomass. It comprises about half the total renewable energy we produce, and accounts for nearly twice as much energy as hydroelectric (the next largest renewable). Even for electricity generation which isn't wood's forte (heating is), wood is third after hydro and wind, and far ahead of PV solar.
I'm all for cleaner wood-burning stoves. But it has to be done in a cost-effective manner, lest you drive people to dirtier options like coal or oil.
if you continue to burn wood carelessly you only make the problem worse for the rest of us.
the point you are missing is that wood can be used responsibly, but it has to be burned correctly. it's all a part of remembering how to behave in a closed ecological system, now that we've burned most of the coal and oil. wood stoves have been more of a fashion industry than a technology, per se, for far too long, and all that is happening here is that we are being forced to remember how to burn wood wisely.
none of the technology the EPA now insists you use is new, it simply fell out of fashion.
if you rely on wood, please take the time to learn about biochar (terra preta) and wood-gas (producer gas, syngas).
we will all be glad you did.
The effects of this are local, not national. Northern states and towns should be able to make these tradeoffs locally. There is no reason for the federal government setting rules or the entire nation.
But not just the poor have to buy these stoves, everybody does. So the costs are much higher. And you don't assist "the poor", you make them poor in the first place by increasing the amount of money they need to get by. Furthermore, the cost/benefit tradeoffs of this rules are unclear. Most particulates don't come from wood stoves. And the number of lives saved is unclear as well.
This isn't the federal government's business. And there is little that is "obvious" about this solution; whether its cost/benefits are worth it, whether it is effective, and who benefits and gets hurt by it are far from clear.
Get a brain. The biggest single contributor to fine particulate matter air pollution in the many areas of the U.S. and in Canada during winter is from wood burning stoves. Fine particulate matter is very bad for your health as it is of a size that gets deep in the lungs. Don't believe me? Look up London Fog. It wasn't really fog.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
This is way out of line.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm not sure what you're saying in this context.
The position of US liberals is that you may NOT care for your child, not if your ex-gf would prefer to kill your kid. Neither parent may teach their child anything requiring discipline - only government schools can discipline your child.
My wife and I started to adopt a baby once. After talking to the birth mother and HER mother, I worked out an arrangement to keep the child with their family while mom worked out her issues. Last I heard, mom is sober now.
This is the worst summary ever. Here's the real situation:
* EPA is tightening existing standards for new wood stoves. Wood stove makers will adopt new control technology to meet these standards.
* these standards do NOT apply to stoves already in use
* they're NOT making it illegal to burn wood
nobody's trying to tear your wood stove from your cold dead hands. simmer down, internet.
Those of you defending this specific EPA ban on the *abstract* basis of limits of a persons right to pollute how does your position square with the following hypothetical?
House A has a 500sq ft home with a family of four.
House B has a 3000sq ft home with just one person living there.
Both homes use wood stoves exclusively for heat. House A spews 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air.
House B spews 10 micrograms per cubic meter of air.
Who is the bigger polluter?
Efficiency and sustainability is ultimately best achieved when there is market pressure behind them - preferably by consumer deriving value from lower operating cost.
In case of wood stoves cleaner air translates into less wood consumed and less gunk to clean out of the system. It should be something buyers are naturally looking for when purchasing a stove and a point of market differentiation for manufacturers.
If energy efficient stoves must be more expensive then offer a subsidy to help people of limited means make the better choice. It is clearly in everyone's interest to get the more efficient model.
While there are problems which can't be solved without government threat of violence to "internalize externalities" did anyone even try before invoking EPAs blunt instrument?
Was this regulation only written for federal lands, dockyards, forts and buildings over which the Federal goverment has exclusive jurisdiction, or have they included specific language to say that it also applies in States of the Union? Were they saving ink when they failed to list the names of the 50 states in the definitions section?
Organization: alphabetical, sometimes numerical or messy
I wonder if this will have a mini ice age effect like in the 1500 -1800. (long story short, between the black plague in Europe, native american population collapse from disease in the Americas, a huge amount of C02 stopped being dumped into the atmosphere. That, combined with natural re-forestiaton due to a far smaller human usage, we experienced a general cooling. Of course, there is some debate about other contributing factors, like volcanic dust and solar activity, but the effect of all those people stopping using wood was definitely a major contributor.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
What would probably be smart is if some landlords got a clue and voluntarily made properties very energy efficient, and then used that as a selling point when advertising the property for rent. I don't think I've ever seen this done yet, which strikes me as a little bit odd.
why don't you look around for another home then?
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
You just siad why... They lie and make you sign a fucking lease and you get all your crap in and then it's a fucking pain to move you and your family so you just stay and complain and the landlord doesn't give a shit. I'd think they should have to be honest and upfront about utilities. Most of these things can be checked every few years and a basic calculation done by any half ass compadent contractor but then you gotta police them for fruad and no one ever thinks to do that.
It's easier to just let greed do its thang...
This makes sense. The efficiency of older stoves is just terrible. By fine-particular matter they mean smoke, or unburned wood gas. Newer EPA stoves have some steel tubes, with holes drilled in them, which introduce air into the top of the firebox. Given the stove's internal temp is high enough to cause ignition, this oxygen mixes with the unburned wood gas and ignites, providing more heat, less pollution, and greater efficiency. One thing that also needs mentioning is that burning wood is carbon neutral, if you're harvesting wood and letting it grow back. This isn't a fossil fuel, global warming issue.
But I guess it's easier to denigrate every federal employee as a rich, do-nothing "busybody" who drives home to their "mansion" after "throwing the poor under the bus" than it is to see an obvious solution where the poor are healthier and more comfortable for less money than we're already putting out, and everyone breathes less soot.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanriper/2013/04/25/americas-richest-counties/
The shoe fits, wear it.
Do you think those counties around DC are rich because of federal employees or could it be that all of the highly payed lobbyists and lawyers that DC attracts have something to do with it?
Yeah, I love a good warm fire as much as anyone. Spent my fair share of my childhood years throwing wood in the back of a pickup or stacking wood in the shed and warming up by a hot fireplace on cold winter mornings and evenings. It's a very efficient and inexpensive way to heat a home. There is a lot of emotion attached to it, and for good reason. But there are a ton of people out there who are still using stupidly inefficient wood fireplaces that were already outclassed by fireplaces invented over a hundred years ago, including completely open fireplaces which waste ridiculous amounts of heat and burn too cool to properly burn wood cleanly.
My father became a dealer for a line of fireplaces back in the mid-80s. These things were amazing. You start it, let it get hot for a few minutes then seal the door, damp the flu and turn down the incoming air and then you could watch the smoke recirculate and reburn inside. It put out massive amounts of heat for several hours on just two quarters of a log, and when you walked outside the only thing that gave away that the fireplace was in operation were the telltale heat waves coming out of the chimney. No visible smoke whatsoever after it got started. And these highly efficient and clean-burning stoves were available in the 80s and probably much earlier.
Contrast that with walking around the neighborhood or driving around my small town in Alaska on a cool morning or evening. The whole place is full of wood smoke from obviously inefficient wood-burning fireplaces. And because of downdrafts and inversions it tends to stay very low and hang around. We often have smoke coming in our house from houses blocks away whenever we open the window for some "fresh" air. There's really no excuse for this when I could have a stove decades ago that basically had zero detectable particulate output when it was running properly. Plus it made the wood last a lot longer.
Burning wood is air pollution no matter how you slice it, and people need to be strongly encouraged to do it as efficiently as possible. Just like vehicle regulations this only applies to newly manufactured stoves, and all those rural conspiracy theory fruit loops ranting about EPA SWAT teams coming to break down their door and take away their fireplace are just that; fruit loops. This is really much ado about not very much.
The EPA is saying you can't heat your homes. The EPA is mandating fuel economy standards based on the fact they release danerous carbon (a pollutant according to the EPA). Human beings also release carbon. Isn't it a logical step they could madate U.S. fertility rates based on the same logic. Better have your kids now while you still can.
My courtry has become the evil empire that we were warned about in school. Well I have got to go find my papers and make sure they are all in order.
Wood stoves are still sold around here. EPA has no authority to restrict such devices.
I would say about %25 of the people around here get wood delivered each year for wood stoves. It is prob higher because of all the workshops people use in winter months when bored.
Stop believing everything you read.
People get to keep their stoves. It's just that stoves that are sold new have to burn cleaner. It's not a witch hunt to find polluting stoves and have people freeze to death.
Yes, new stoves will probably start at a higher price point because of this. People building an open fire place in their new home will have trouble getting a permit for their building. That's about a far as this law will go.
People in rural communities might have to pay a bit more if they want to buy a new stove, but it will be less polluting and probably require less wood to burn to keep your home heated and your food cooked as a bonus. Yes, rural communities suffer pollution too. You may not be directly polluting breathing air for as many neighbours as in a city, but humans breathing particles aren't the only thing that suffer from the pollution. Also, these particles travel a long way, so just because someone isn't huffing on your chimney, doesn't mean they don't get to breathe what came out of it.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
No.
The result will be the law is unenforceable and the government will look stupid for trying to pass the law.
At best you'll hurt communities that weren't causing a problem in the first place and annoy people that will find ways to make you pay for it.
So that is the result.
In short... it will backfire. Like prohibition and many other laws in the past that were ill considered.
You have excuses for it... and that's fine. People always make excuses for stupid ideas. It won't make any difference. Excuses are worthless. It will backfire. Rural communities will continue to use wood burning ovens. And you can actually just make them yourself. They're not complicated. You have no means to tax or stop it short of knocking on doors and you won't.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
why cant i burn batteries for heat next to a hospital?!?!! its my FREEEEEDOM
So, because people live in a rural area, and some are old, it's ok to dump carbon into the atmosphere, and fuck up the planet for everyone? I'm sorry, rural residents don't get a pass on doing the right thing because it's tradition to 'shit in the town well'.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I put a wood pellet stove in my house (New Hampshire) and couldn't love it more:
- Highly efficient
- Power vent out of the wall. No chimney, no chimney sweeping.
- Denser + drier fuel, yet still grows on trees.
- Carbon "neutral" as it gets if you like your house at 70F.
I'm saving $1400 a year in heating fuel costs over oil.
Hell building an open fireplace jacks home owners up so high (at least around here) most people don't tell the insurance company about it (say they buy the house from another owner and the insurance doesn't send someone to check it out). I know people who have done just that.
A local "village" also set an ordinance that even outdoor burning units must be something like a minimum of 30' from a house... But a lot of the lots are too small to meet those requirements (and any that are closer cannot be used).
In both cases its not even about the smog, although in the village the air can be so thick with smoke that while it smells good it also makes it hard to breath, andits not just me nor do I have any asthma issues or anything. In both the cases I listed its because of the increased risk of flue fires and structure fires. If you listen to a scanner here once temps start to dip, you'll hear at least a page a day in this county for a possible structure or flue fire, or for a verified structure or flue fire.
Want to verify me? Just go to radioreference.com (or whatever their new site is) and find huntingdon county, pa med/fire dispatch
It's not rocket science to build a clean-burning wood stove. The first manufacturer to come up with an inexpensive solution will be rewarded with lots of revenue.
When firestone tires were drawn off the market, which typre manufacturer bought that rule?
Or are all of these and yours just paranoia?
Even up in Scotland, the payback time for Solar PV is better than 15 years. It's around 5 years for most of the UK and Northern Europe and less than 5 for Southern Europe.
PS your house loan doesn't pay off for in less than 10 years now. I.e. buying vs renting takes about 10 years to pay off in savings on rent payments.
And since the costs are ~1/3 the wood stove to run, it pays back in 3 years.
Seems like you'd prefer to be ill and poor than to have anything done by government be a good thing for you...
Hot air rises. Remember?
Now do you have under-floor lighting to heat your home?
No.
And a light buld will "produce" 100W of heat. Enough to keep your hands warm as long as you stand with your hands cupped around the lightbulb.
Meanwhile, in summer, that 100W would have to be vented or cooled.
Something the EPA should look at is huge health (bill) implication for veterans exposed to dense acrid smoke from open-air burn pits on military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is a seriously appalling way to run garbage disposal: 10 acre open pit fires going 24/7 burning all camp waste.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/28/4771164/the-next-agent-orange-why-burn-pits-are-making-soldiers-sick
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
The EPA regulations in question are more than 20 years old. This is just a pile of nonsense that's been going around a certain set of blogs for a while.
This gives a good summary of the actual situation:
http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/hoepareg.htm
They did a buyback for old wood stoves years ago in Canberra. Only $300 per stove, but enough to invest in something else. Anything else.
There are suburbs in Canberra that turn into smoke dens for the winter months, although it is far better these days.
Gas is cheap..
To HELL with the EPA and all Obamahshit.
Fata viam invenient.
Because we heat with a pellet stove this article caused me great concern, so I followed up by visiting the epa.gov site. This is a voluntary program wherein manufacturers may elect to have their stoves tested at an independent lab and then be added to a list of EPA recommended stoves if they meet certain standards. I like the idea, much as I like our energy-saving appliances and LED bulbs. It makes sense and moves us toward less wasteful, cleaner air conditions.
Check it out. http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/pdfs/fireplacefactsheet.pdf
I thought we were supposed to be promoting renewable energy sources. Wood seems to be one of those, does it not?
It's not rocket science to build a clean-burning wood stove. The first manufacturer to come up with an inexpensive solution will be rewarded with lots of revenue.
Of course, if nobody can afford to purchase one...
Now let's abolish oil, gas, coal and nuclear. I mean how bad was the Dark Ages, really.
The EPA's no longer about worrying about the Environment. It's about control. The coal fired plants that they're shutting down didn't pollute like you'd be led to believe nor was the lead plant they closed for that matter- when they allow Monsanto to sell glyphosate by the ton still, it's not about the Environment. The particulate levels are also a non-problem (the wood stoves are nothing compared to the coal fired plants, etc.- and they're pretty clean themselves. This is a fabrication to get you to sign off on being DEPENDENT on the Government, pure and simple.)
And these highly efficient and clean-burning stoves were available in the 80s and probably much earlier.
And the thing is, you'd be shocked how much more efficient the ones available now are than the ones from the 80s! I replaced one, hoping for a 5-year payback, and it took just a bit over 2 years instead. (When we bought the house, the one from the 80s was not only less efficient, it was undersized, and after a few fires we realized that it could not effectively heat the house, and so we gave up on it, and got to experience what it's like to pay for all-electric the first winter. Ouch! Anyway, it is literally shocking how much heat the new one put out from a small amount of wood.)
Frankly, most people replacing a 20 year old HVAC system with a new 16 SEER unit would probably find that a 10 year low interest loan would cost the same or less than the reduction in their monthly electric bill, making it a "free" upgrade.
Three years ago I replaced my 30 year old HVAC system with a new 16 SEER unit. Coming from an even older, so much less efficient, unit than your example and with three years of real-world bills I can say your example is pure horse hockey. At the rates I've seen it would take 20 years of the bill reduction to pay for the replacement. MOST people would derive significantly greater savings by following the sage advice President Carter gave in 1977: "put on a sweater" or following the more recent summer-time examples from Japan http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14024250
I don't think this was bought, but it is a stupid regulation.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
The certification rules only apply to new stoves. There's even a tax break if you replace your stove this year, and it's been in place for the past two years. The EPA is exploring ways to help people change out their old wood stoves—those things are not healthy.
Some cities have rules that restrict the use of wood-burning stoves when air pollution is high.
And that's about it. As one store page I found puts it: "When the EPA first started looking at woodstove particulate emissions, the front pages were emblazoned with headlines screaming, WOOD STOVES TO BE OUTLAWED!! When the regulations which specifically allow wood burning were subsequently passed, the story got maybe one paragraph on page 23."—The Chimney Sweep Online
Please, folks, stop posting scare stories. The Washington Times, where this piece of crankery comes from, is paid to scare you—by the Unification Church yet. So is Fox News. Just 'cause these guys want you scared doesn't mean you have to go along with the program.
I'm not a big fan of legislation forcing people to make changes like this though. What would probably be smart is if some landlords got a clue and voluntarily made properties very energy efficient, and then used that as a selling point when advertising the property for rent. I don't think I've ever seen this done yet, which strikes me as a little bit odd.
In a good portion of cities, it's a landlord's market.
Around here, if you do not apply the moment you find and find acceptable (not ideal, just "can deal with this") place it'll get snapped up from under you.
Units stay on the market and "toured" for about three or four days, maybe longer if the landlord is slow about booking appointments. They don't need to advertise much if at all beyond a simple sign out front, or maybe Craigs list.
"Better advertising" from "but but they are efficient" would only be needed on new, highly over-priced or poorly located units.
We could accomplish this by using a very successful precedent: the president announces, "no matter how we reform HVAC systems, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your ductwork, you will be able to keep your ductwork, period. If you like your woodstove, you’ll be able to keep your woodstove, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”
(Four Pinocchios -- the most that are ever given) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/10/30/obamas-pledge-that-no-one-will-take-away-your-health-plan/
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Whenever I am interested in signing a lease I call the power and gas companies and ask them for an idea on what those properties have cost over the past year. I've turned down "energy efficient" places that had sky high utility bills. In fact I have had the best luck in places built in the 70's or 80's. Older places tend to be draftier, and newer places tend to be built on the extremely cheep.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Let's burn coal instead. Cause that's clearly so much better for us.
We had a wood burning stove and fireplace growing up. No one in my family has asthma or any lung-related problems. People have been burning wood as fuel for eons. This is so fucking ridiculous. Seriously, the EPA has nothing better to do than go after people who choose to not give their money to big oil/coal? Gee, I wonder who paid for this "study"?
I see the left leaning loonies that inhabit /. dropped in from the first word to accuse people that don't agree that this is a good regulation of being right-wing thugs. I love the left loonies as their version of "tolerance" is if you don't agree with me you are some sort of knuckle dragging, neanderthal idiot who needs to locked in a gulag or executed. Now that I have done the general ad hominen to relieve my anger at leftist loonie elitists, lets talk reality. The current EPA loaded with members of the Anthropogenic Global Warming religion are constantly overstepping reality with ridiculous regulation. They don't ban things outright; they just make a regulation that is impossible to meet in reality so that things are in fact banned. This is similar to the imagined problem with coal fired power stations that this same EPA crowd dreamed up under the influence of the current political leadership which has lead to the outright banning of them in many places rather that equipping them with pollution control systems that would solve the problems and allow an abundant and less expensive source of energy to be used. It just isn't good enough for these elitist. The fact that there may be particulate pollution in Alaskan cities may not mean that the current regulation is insufficient; it may mean that there are too many older inefficient wood burning systems being used. You know people may want to stay warm rather than freeze to death for the sake of the environment since they don't have the money to obtain more efficient systems because of such an unfunded mandates as this regulation.
You have to be joking. Are you the same left-wing that is calling murder of a genetically unique human being OK simply because it hasn't been squirted through a vagina yet? The same left-wing that demands fingerprints, registration, licensing, background checks before a citizen can exercise a Constitutionally-enumerated right to own a tool, but will let anybody with a pulse (sometimes even without) cast a vote without any identification whatsoever?
That left-wing?
my other option (if we remove government) is to come over to your house and shoot you.
Not only is shooting your neighbor unethical, it doesn't even result in the leak being cleaned up. Cleaning up the leak does result in the leak being cleaned up.
So it would seem that not only are there other options, there are far better options.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
they fucking ruin any place they live.
Those few acres of woods could provide for about ten homes' worth of nearly free heat, and the only pollutant would be carbon.
Wrong. Wood is the ultimate carbon-neutral energy source. The carbon released into the atmosphere was pulled out of the atmosphere just a few short years earlier. If you don't burn the wood, its carbon will be released into the atmosphere anyway, via a slightly slower process know as rotting.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
When I was a kid, we heated with wood, I used the fireplace and stove in my college house, lived in Maine for seven years burning wood by the cord. It definitely affected my lungs...my hematocrit was over 55 at my physical last month, my VO2max is north of 50, and I run half-marathons in well under 1:30 and getting close to a sub-6-minute 5K. That pack-a-day COPD inducing toxic brew I grew up in was sure horrid, uh huh. Come to think of it, we pretty much all had woodstoves growing up (small town in CT) and our running teams were state elite, bred a couple of national-classers. I'll say that breathing all that smoke and doing sprint workouts outdoors in the winter at 15F actually developed our pulmonary systems.
That being said, woodburning on a large scale can be a particulate pollution problem, and if you have a really smoky, leaky stove I can see a problem. I know there's massive issues in the 3rd world with respiratory disorders from nasty sooty unventilated indoor cooking fires...but really, developed-world woodstoves don't fill your house with noxious fumes any more than an oil or gas furnace.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Sounds like a good place to build/convert new "highly over-priced" efficient apartments. Given how quickly the real estate market adapts to profit opportunities (often wildly overshooting the mark), I'd bet there are significant government hurdles to doing so distorting the market.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You mindlessly spew every right wing lie, without a bit od irony. This is not an "unfunded mandate".
There's a pretty decent tax credit they could get for upgrading I believe. When I replaced my old one and did some other work I got a flat $10K credit which made a huge difference - some utilities will also give you kickbacks to help you do it. I too saved a pile upgrading my stuff and am thankful I did it.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
If the companies of the US are competing to sell a better, cheaper product to the "poor" of America, the whole world will benefit.
http://www.voanews.com/content/cookstoves-acs-diseases-death-environment-/1653850.html
it's about control of the people. When I lived in Denver, CO we had a huge snowstorm one year and we lost power for 3 days. It was the wood burning stove we had that kept us warm and was out source for cooking food. We didn't have natural gas to the house. F*&% the EPA! I'll own a wood burning stove for emergency purposes. The rest of the dumb @$$ liberal people in the world can freeze to death and die of hunger with their electric everything! If they control what you can and can not use to heat and cook with - what else will they control in your life? Hey I have and idea - they want to control carbon emissions too. Lets make a law/rule that says you are only allowed to breath 2 times a day - the rest of the time you have to HOLD YOUR BREATH! That would solve 2 problems. 1) control carbon emissions 2) control how many people are getting sick from breathing air pollutants!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
I wonder if such stoves would meet the standards if SmartBurn was used:
http://www.smartburn.com.au/
Their pitch sounds like the usual snake oil, but the things really do work. My parents have been using them for a few years now and the change is incredible (and was noticeable within a few days).
All the baked-on sap, etc on the inside of the glass went away, there is noticeably less obvious smoke (smaller particulates) and more complete combustion inside the fire, and my parents haven't had to empty their chimney since they started using it.
I have no idea what is in the things (it's a Trade Secret) and no association with the product other than having seen them in action.
You have no means to tax or stop it short of knocking on doors and you won't.
I think you're missing one of the key concepts of wood stoves, namely that the smoke generally goes outside the building.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Or, a relatively small pool of individuals and organizations owns the majority of the land and finds it in their best interest to artificially restrict supply. That's the case here, at least. Building more housing would allow renters to rationally negotiate, and that's not in the property owners' interests. Though, your willingness to assume facts not in evidence to support an ideology is noted.
No its not. You have no idea how bad grafting is. Anti-bribery laws simply aren't enforced anymore. They will not get a new and better $700 stove. Instead they will be directed to a brand new stove company owned by one of the senator's second cousins, the stoves will cost $1200, of which $700 is subsidized, but the stove is actually not as good as their old one and will break down after two years,
" The same right-wing that is calling for anti-abortion law..."
Yeah, the right in America is for individual freedoms and that's perfectly consistent with a pro-life stance... because the right is opposed to individuals murdering each other and views this prohibition of murder as one of the few legitimate roles of government. A woman can do what she wants with her body but when she decides to kill somebody else (somebody with his/her own body), she has no more right than a man would have if he ordered the death of an innocent child.
Oh, and the right in America is not "taking away the right to vote in the same states" rather it is insisting that American citizens not have their votes nullified by the "votes" of illegal aliens, dead people, people voting multiple times, etc and that this be done by showing photo ID (like even Canada requires). It's absolutely amazing that people cannot buy a beer without photo ID, cannot drive without it, cannot travel on a plane without it, and yet the left are pretending that some significant portion of their voters cannot get a photo ID.... probably because they've been stealing elections for years using illegal votes (and claiming there is no evidence because they have opposed any laws that would have required the ID and documented the fraud attempts)
Why do you think a lot of the resurgence of construction is for "multi-family homes" (aka apartment buildings)?
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
The problem here is that the landlord doesn't pay the utilities. They might realize a tax credit to upgrade ancient decrepit units that no longer meet efficiency standards, but you are still guarenteed to get the cheapest appliances allowable by law.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Yep - in many areas it's self correcting. There are only a few places where local government is so crazy that no one's building despite shortages and high rental rates.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You apparently don't know that in rural communities you won't see their house most of the time much less their roof.
Furthermore, who will report on them? The local Sheriff? They're elected by residents. So they're not reporting on people for anything that everyone does.
A good example would be marijuana cultivation in Humboldt county in California. Very rural area where everyone grows weed. They just plant it in the backyard. They have so much of it that they literally cannot sell it. Its worthless because everyone they know that wants weed grows their own. They just give it away. No really.
Do you think the Sheriff doesn't know about that? He does. He doesn't care. In fact, he probably does it himself.
That is what you're dealing with in rural communities. You pass STUPID laws that no one likes and they will be IGNORED because NO ONE will enforce them.
STUPID
IGNORED
NO ONE.
No offense. Just making the point clear. These are the sorts of communities that when alcohol was banned were brewing their own by the hundreds of gallons within a month.
You will NOT get them to follow any rule that the majority of them find unreasonable. Unless you want to station state troopers all over the place to inspect them. And have fun with that because they'll figure out your inspection schedule. Again, my uncle has all this brush and he actually has a lot more then he can burn in a wood stove. He has to burn literally tons of wood on a regular basis just to keep his property clear. Most of it is leaves, fallen branches, etc. Anyway, there are restrictions about if and when he can make bonfires. Guess what... Everyone in the community figures out when the park rangers and state troopers are inspecting... when they're gone... the fires burn.
You see the same thing with wild wolves and cattle ranchers. They made it illegal to kill wild wolves even if they were killing a rancher's cattle.
So ranchers don't kill the cattle. The wolves just disappear. The ranchers have no idea where the wolves went. Its a mystery.
Get me?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Why didn't this happen decades ago?
Just a small reminder that wood is a renewable resource (you can grow new trees - that capture released carbon again). Gas, oil, coal and other fossil fuels (as well as fossil fuel generated electricity) don't do that.
As to wood burning efficiency and efficient heating of homes, I recently ran across the concept of a so-called rocket stove mass heater (google it yourself if interested, please). (Un)fortunately, since they are built by the owner themselves (for fairly cheap), calculating efficiency (and regulating it) is a bit more difficult.
This metric may be completely counterproductive. If you just put out enough cubic meters of exhaust fumes that means that you can put as many particles as you want. Perfect for a primitive open fireplace that half burns the wood and throws out 60% of the heat with it's exhaust fumes. Decent masonry stoves use far less wood (thus have far less pollution. Especially less tar). However, they do that by keeping the internal temperature high (1200 C/ 2200F). One of the ways they do that is by keeping the airflow under control, usually not to much. This far smaller airflow means there are less cubic meters of exhaust fumes. In that lower flow there are probably more particles/m3, but since the flow is lower this still results in less than half the pollution.
They should judge based on particles/kw of heat output the room in. That means the pollution is measured based on a useful metric.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
you are the one in needing of a couple neurons to rub together between your ears. The health warnings on that page are nebulous at best. For all anyone knows, second hand cigarette smoke might be causing more health problems in B.C. than your "fine particulate matter".
there are much worse types of pollution in this world
Where yes, burning wood is carbon-neutral, putting soot into the air is one of the worst global warming offenders, and preventing soot is the quickest remedy. Eliminating most of the soot production would give the world a little more time to find alternatives to pumping out CO2. So clean up those stoves, clean up that construction equipment, and clean up those ships burning heavy oil.
How often do you have to replace a wood-burning stove? How often do you need to take it to a shop to tune it up, so you get the most heat out of your firewood? Other than cleaning the stove and the flue, exactly how much maintenance does a wood stove require? I believe the answers are "Not in your life-time", "Never", and not much, if any. But what is the next step for the EPA if they feel the need to ban wood-burning stoves that do not burn as completely as the EPA would like to see? We know they are banning the production and sale of stoves that do not meet the new criteria. The next step is to require homeowners to replace deficient stoves, in order to bring all wood-burning stoves up to the new standard. That is the natural progression for this kind of regulation. I live in any area of West Virginia where I am 20 miles away from the nearest town of any significance. I also know of a large number of neighbors that heat their entire houses with wood stoves, because they cannot afford the cost of anything else. The own the property where they harvest the wood, and their heat is paid-for through sweat-equity. This type of regulation will force them into the role of scoff-laws at some time. And their lack of proximity to others will delay the wood-stove police from visiting them soon. But, that does not change their economic situation. They simply cannot afford Electric, Propane, or Oil heat. So, we are going to force them to be scoff-laws or freeze to death? This type of regulation is bad. It is demonstrating power for power's sake. It will also have a very dramatic impact on those that are already living at or below the poverty level. There are very few that use this as their primary heating source that have the economic wherewithal to use other sources. If you own a cabin that you use for a weekend getaway, or hunting or skiing, you obviously have the economic ability to meet this standard, when it is NOT your primary residence. But, if they are going to create regulations like this, they should stipulate in the regulation that if you have a wood-burning stove that you owned prior-to the regulation, and the dwelling is your primary residence, until you feel you need to replace the stove, this regulation does not and will not affect you.
You just can't buy said wood stoves anymore, according to my take on this new legislation. I think we've had something like this in Canada already for some time, because we needed to repace ours and couldn't with the same model anymore. There's no reason to use a crappy one when the cleaner ones (which also are more efficient) exist. They're not like fireplaces anyways ( which you can still use!) as you can't just sit in front of an open flame That's my take on the new regs..
Actually, cigarette smoke *is* fine particulate matter.
Going to light a celebratory fire right now!
I am currently sanding & repainting my old cast iron number 5. Im also resealing parts of it with high heat muffler caulk. It's a very small stove that I keep in my home with a 3.5 inch flue pipe. It has excellent draw. It's very primitive & effective tech for heat/cooking. ....
I wonder If the EPA will ban garbage burning next.? (a very common practice in rural East Texas). Or maybey they'll BAN FOREST FIRES!!!! Please !
The EPA is unfortunately run by lawyers & not by doctors, naturalists, & biologists. As is my understanding
You're an idiot.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I can build my own stove. Next thing you know they will ban bar-b-ques. Oh wait, they already have.
^^ Best analysis of economics and environmentalism in this entire thread!
I'm sensing a lot of .... er, opposition here. :-)
Depends where you are I guess. Something to note is that - generally - the less-polluting they are, the more efficient they get..... there gets a point where you end up saving on the time and effort of getting wood for it.
We've got a guy that goes around and basically checks out the smoke coming from your chimney. If he comes back your way in 15 minutes or so and there's still smoke, it's fine time.
But we live in a valley that's very prone to temperature inversions and thus smog of the highest order.... and local gov't do a scheme where they'll pay for a heat pump to replace your old heater..... so I dunno.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
The point is that the law is only relevant for communities that use wood burning stoves.
Those are rural communities.
And now you're dealing with trying to regulate something in the homes of rural communities that anyone can make out of spare scrape metal... and once it is made doesn't need to be replaced... ever. The damn thing can be passed on from one generation to the next unchanged and functional pretty much indefinitely.
So again... have fun with the regulations. If they get paranoid about your inspections they'll just not burn anything when the inspector comes... and he won't sneak up on them.
Its a bad idea.
Again...
1. Wood burning stoves in low population areas don't matter.
2. They need wood burning stoves to heat their homes.
3. Many of them have brush etc that needs to be burned since there is no other means to dispose of it. Makes some sense to use that energy rather then just burning it in an open field which is the alternative.
This is a dumb law written by people that don't have to live with the consequences and don't understand what they're talking about.
Its right up there with some 85 year old senator passing laws regulating the internet. People that don't understand something shouldn't presume to regulate it. This of course would invalidate about 90 percent of standing law... but then about 90 percent of standing law is utter garbage. I'm not talking about little things like murder being illegal etc. More along the lines of endless ticky tack regulations that attempt to micromanage everything.
You say your community has a problem with smog? I didn't say anything about your community deciding on its own to regulate something. That's probably fine. But the federal government has no place in the matter.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I really don't see how this is such a surprise.
There have been cleaner wood burning stoves than the proposed EPA regs since the 70s - when I was growing up in BC we used them.
If you can't get your act together in half a century you have no sympathy from me.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I posted this story on Congressman Thomas Massie's Facebook page, and he brought it up in the Congressional hearing with the EPA today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N88Grg2iV4
FYI - Rep Thomas Massie is also a MIT grad ;-)
Libertas in infinitum
but, but, but I love that smell when I'm walking around. :(
Truth, Just Us, And Hatred For All Mankind!