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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."
I would love to know which gas / propane / electric company bought this rule....
barbecue grills that burn charcoal? I love my Q!
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.
Meanwhile, Diesel trucking rumbles on.
Or maybe you see huge swaths of people in the northern states use them just to stay warm. Get out of you bubble much?
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.
Apparently not. He doesn't know that I can pay $1,000 for a tank of oil... or $200 for a cord of wood. And the cord of wood heats better. Turn the heat down? Yeah, I tried that... and the guy who came to repair my pipes pointed out that up north, water freezes when it gets below 32F.
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."
I burn 6-8 cord of wood per year and have a very, very small natural gas bill. The stove at the moment is burning three or four logs and the house is nice and warm--it stays warm at night until about -15C if the wind is up or -20C if calm and is fed about every 4 hours.
I'm not old and burning wood efficiently is not horrible.
I guess power's never gone out at your place, eh? You should get out of your basement more often.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
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.
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.
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?
What I want to know is how a person can change the amount of smoke coming out of the same volume of wood being combusted.
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.
Bingo
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.
News for teabaggers, stuff that keeps you angry and afraid.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
we could learn from the Chinese regulation of fine particulate :>)
http://www.adn.com/2011/09/29/2095361/wood-stove-smoke-scrubber-gets.html
That solution doesn't quite solve the problem, plus it costs more than a lot of poor people will be able to afford.
So the EPA wants us to replace renewable wood fuel with non-renewable fossil fuels for domestic heating? Isn't this a step backwards?
Would specific cultivars of trees burn more efficiently - thus to plant lower emission trees?
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.
How efficiently? I'm burning wood right now too, but I don't have any delusions that it doesn't cause pollution. I'd have difficulty quantifying how much exactly, but that's what the EPA is for. Apparently, it's too much. If they really want to make a difference, they're going to have to crack down on coal burning stoves too: wood stoves are designed to burn hot, to make the fire more efficient and less polluting, but since coal doesn't have that problem you can get a coal burning stove that will happily maintain a very low fire. And there's no reason you can't just put your wood in there...
Burn it more efficiently.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
But isn't that what the EPA is saying? You can have your wood burning stove, so long as it isn't a crappy one.
Just like 10 SEER AC units used to be legal, now they are not, 13 is the minimum. Frankly it should be higher, the cost to go from a 13 SEER to a 16 SEER isn't that much, this past summer our downstairs AC unit went out, compressor failed. We replaced both units (upstairs and downstairs) with new 16 SEER dual stage units and our AC bill went down 30%.
The price difference between the 13 and 16 SEER units? Total of about $4000, that will be paid back in less than 2 years with the power savings (our old units were 13 SEER models).
up north, water freezes when it gets below 32F.
Come to Canada, this far north water freezes at 0C!
Trolling is a art,
"implies"? Cite chapter and verse where it says you can't refurbish a busted unit or STFU.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
The issue is that older models of wood burning stoves often burned at the wrong temp and of course the owners didn't allow the wood to dry out first.
As I posted upthread: So two years ago one particular design didn't solve all the problems (clearly it could never be developed further), and it happened to cost money... that's what tax subsidies are for.
You're bitching for the sake of it, boyo.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Nope, its pressure and impurity dependent. For one example, see oceans. Troll better.
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.
The price difference between the 13 and 16 SEER units? Total of about $4000, that will be paid back in less than 2 years with the power savings (our old units were 13 SEER models).
For an awful lot of people, $4,000 is a lot of money and not something that they'd say it "isn't that much".
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The price difference between the 13 and 16 SEER units? Total of about $4000, that will be paid back in less than 2 years with the power savings (our old units were 13 SEER models).
It's a damn shame that apartment owners don't care how much you spend on heating and AC. Idealy there should be higher standards on rented units especially given how many properties are being converted to rentals.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
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.
The stove is about 80%. I burn good wood in it and we use it for base heat. I also have a Tulikivi centrally located on the main floor of the house, which can get to 90% efficient. We use that for 1-2 burns a day on the coldest stretches and let the soapstone radiate the rest of the day.
A neighbor of mine uses coal. It's a different heat than wood and very nice and much less finicky than wood.
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.
Bah. Wisconsin might not be as far north but our water freezes at 273.15k!
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
Combustion temperature.
Anyone using a rocket stove? They burn SUPER hot and are very efficient. Banned too?
ZOMG PEOPLE I DISAGREE WITH ARE IN CHARGE WHAT HAPPENED TO DEMOCRACY GET THE GUNS.
You clearly don't understand what democracy /is/. Hint: sometimes you don't get what you want.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
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.
As a Washington State resident, there are many counties that are wood only heating. Pierce and Tacoma have large suburbs and are not exactly off the grid living. They are bigger and can force the smaller population to upgrade. The counties like Stevens, Ferry and Okanogan are mostly wood heated homes. I have no real numbers but out of the 39 counties in Washington, I'd say at least 1/2 have majority of wood only heated homes, we still are a big wild state.
My mothers county has many people that are wood only, and if they went around giving $1000 dollar fines for people burning, they would tar and feather and hold a recall election. Those urban counties are gray haired monsters who know each other and would put pressure to any elected official.
Those poor gray haired women are the Majority of voters, tell them they cant heat their homes. Most of these people live in urban areas that dont have fire departments, police or or trash pick up. Tacoma I'd say is much different, its urban sprawl.
Look at the source? Alaska
Now you tell me where someone who lives off the grid there who relies on wood year to keep warm that a subsidy at tax time all the way after April will help when it is -40 outside! In Fairbanks Alaska it can get down to -40 for weeks on end. A modest house even with a furnace which is around 1200 square feet can cost $2000 a month to heat!
Unacceptable and time for the guys with guns to tell the EPA to fuck off.
http://saveie6.com/
That being said, the payback on my power bill is about 20 months, that is the break even point, after all it is pure profit.
I financed the thing over 60 months at 4.9% anyway, so the monthly payment isn't actually that bad and the lower power bill offsets about half of the monthly payment, so my actual out of pocket costs isn't all that high each month, less than our family cell phone bills, and we just made a big cut in our carbon foot print.
As a side benefit, the system does a better job cooling the house and keeping it even, since it is a 2 stage unit, it has a slower speed to run at to maintain the temp and be more efficient.
Republicans are the fascists, Democrats are the socialists . You really should learn to shut your ignorant lie hole. Then we wouldn't know how stupid you are.
Actually Republocrats are the fascists, and Surprise! Demicans are the fascists too. You really don't understand how "good cop, bad cop" is played, do you? Polarization and transfer (or confusion) of identity are key components. It shuts down critical thought and scrutiny by drowning it out in a frenzy of "us against them" tribalism. It's really very simple for something so terribly effective and generally unnoticed.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
You bet your ass that renters care what they pay for heating and AC.
Obviously. They care a great deal about how much they spend.
They don't give a shit, however, about how much their tenants spend. That's why the parent wrote:
It's a damn shame that apartment owners don't care how much you spend on heating and AC.
Required reading for internet skeptics
Yes, the renter wants a lower power bill, but the power bill is a direct reflection of the age and efficiency of the HVAC system. The person paying to install the unit isn't the person paying the bill.
That is the problem.
The kinds of stoves and fireplaces that the EPA is banning are the bullcrap kinds that builders put in new homes. These are not serious devices for heating homes, they are purely entertainment, so people can watch the pretty flames. Some fireplaces are so poor that they actually have negative efficiency. The house would stay warmer if the fireplace was not used.
Most people don't understand how bad a typical fireplace is. They're hung up on the romance of it. People don't remember what it was like 100 years ago, before we had central heating and A/C. Heating a home with a wood burning iron stove in the kitchen and fireplaces in half the rooms was hugely labor intensive. Takes a lot of wood to keep all that going. Have to gather wood and chop it into small pieces. Have to clean the ashes out regularly, and check on the fires frequently, make sure they are under control. There's nothing romantic about all that labor to those who lived that way. They were glad to be done with fires when alternatives became available. And fire is dangerous. An accident can easily burn the house down. Burns from accidentally brushing against the stove were another danger. Finally, they don't heat a house that well. Heat doesn't circulate that readily. The iron stove can keep the kitchen too hot while the bedrooms remain freezing cold.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
You tell me about the "intellectual" leap you made to equate "new stoves must pollute 20% less" with "ZOMG KENYAN SOCIALIST GUNNA TAKE MAH STOVES".
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
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.
Paying $4,000 extra every two years is also a lot of money for those same people.
Stoves create smoke therefore I can build my home with one. Fairly simple
http://saveie6.com/
News for teabaggers, stuff that keeps you angry and afraid.
No, it's news for snarky statists who see the headline and immediately think of a sex act. Funny how that pops into some people's heads no matter what the issue is.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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
IHBT.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I get warm four times from my stove/fireplace.
First is cutting the wood and hauling the wood.
Second is splitting the wood
Third is stacking the wood.
Fourth is burning the wood.
BINGO!
* it was "statist" that got my Libertarian Bingo card filled out this time.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
And fifth is getting laid for making the romantic fire, no?
"I can pay $1,000 for a tank of oil... or $200 for a cord of wood"
Did you know that in some areas, wood even grows on trees, so its free.
(well you have to saw it up, and split it, snd store it so it dries...)
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.
Wood produces less or more smoke depending on the conditions when it is burned.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
First, based on the temps you use and where you live, you might not have been actually using all that much to begin with.
Second, you might want to have it inspected by a third party to make sure it is setup right and not over/undersized for your home.
Third, you might have not actually gotten what you paid for, or have a dud unit, if it is still under warranty, I'd have it checked to make sure you got what you paid for.
Finally, regarding my own example, I'll provide a few more details.
1. I live in Texas, it gets to over 100 in the summer here and tends to stay there for 2 months.
2. I have a large 2 story home, about 4,000 sqft, 5 bedrooms and 5 of us live here, so we use all of it.
3. I keep the house cold in the summer, usually set to 72 degrees. It takes a lot of power to lower the temp from 104 outside to 72 inside.
4. Our power bill in 2012 for August was over $700. In 2013 for August, $430. Nothing else changed, same numbers of computers/TVs/etc., same 72 degree setting, just $270 lower electric bill.
5. The units we replaced were 12 year old builder grade (our house is 12 years old) Carrier 13 SEER single stage units. Our cost to install the new ones was $17,200 and they are 16 SEER dual stage/dual speed TRANE units with a 10 year warranty. (5 ton downstairs, 3 ton upstairs)
Perhaps that helps put it all into perspective a bit. We won't see such a huge change in the winter, but since our furnaces were also upgraded to similar efficient units, we should save $100 or so a month in the winter.
So the $4K higher cost of 16 SEER units over the 13 SEER units has about a 20 month payback, give or take a month. It will save us the cost of the entire upgrade over the life of the HVAC system.
Dude: You -saved- $2000 a year on air conditioning?
What were you paying before?
What are you paying now?
WTF are you doing wrong, where "saving" $2000 on air conditioning is even -possible-? That's $166 a month less! Where are you, Ecuador?
(Disclaimer: I've never spent $2000, or $166/mo, on air conditioning in a year, and therefore it is impossible for me to save $2000, or $166/mo on air conditioning in a year.
But I also open my windows when it is nice outside, especially at night, and close them and the drapes in the morning before it gets hot outside, and I choose not to air condition my entire house during the hot months, but instead just the few rooms where it is actually important.)
Kid-proof tablet..
No where in the summary does it say anything about the EPA banning anything.
It mentions local governments banning them so maybe it's just a reading comprehension thing, I for one blame our schools.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
So you have no real solution, only opinions.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
and it happened to cost money... that's what tax subsidies are for.
Lots of things cost money...
Let me translate what you just said: "Its too expensive, so we should make it so everyone pays for it so that it doesnt appear to be too expensive.. because appearances matter"
"His name was James Damore."
You mean Fairbanks, with the 9th worst short term particulate pollution in America. At times in the winter the air is worse then in Beijing. So, no, don't tell them to fuck off, ask them for fucking help.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
(copied from another post in this story)
I'll provide a few more details.
1. I live in Texas, it gets to over 100 in the summer here and tends to stay there for 2 months.
2. I have a large 2 story home, about 4,000 sqft, 5 bedrooms and 5 of us live here, so we use all of it.
3. I keep the house cold in the summer, usually set to 72 degrees. It takes a lot of power to lower the temp from 104 outside to 72 inside.
4. Our power bill in 2012 for August was over $700. In 2013 for August, $430. Nothing else changed, same numbers of computers/TVs/etc., same 72 degree setting, just $270 lower electric bill.
5. The units we replaced were 12 year old builder grade (our house is 12 years old) Carrier 13 SEER single stage units. Our cost to install the new ones was $17,200 and they are 16 SEER dual stage/dual speed TRANE units with a 10 year warranty. (5 ton downstairs, 3 ton upstairs)
Perhaps that helps put it all into perspective a bit. We won't see such a huge change in the winter, but since our furnaces were also upgraded to similar efficient units, we should save $100 or so a month in the winter.
So the $4K higher cost of 16 SEER units over the 13 SEER units has about a 20 month payback, give or take a month. It will save us the cost of the entire upgrade over the life of the HVAC system.
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.
Were the old units actually broken beyond repair, or were you told that they were FUBAR, or did you just decide to upgrade?
(I mean, in terms of perspective: $17k is close to a third of what I paid for my 2,700 ft^2 house, and the land it sits on. I simply cannot imagine spending $17k on HVAC, ever...and I have rooms in my house that I don't see for months at a time.)
Kid-proof tablet..
Those folks know how much wood to put up for the winter. An important consideration in places where the infrastructure breaks down often in the winter. Air quality doesn't suffer much.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Frankly , Yes!
I do want to see more people use wood burning rocket mass heaters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSN0E87eKu4&list=PL5QAC2bkSOuIYuBObCP4bllBEFea_8uJ0
Because it takes a whole lot less wood and the output amounts to some steam, the heat from a few handfuls of wood can heat for a couple days at 30F in some cases.
A lot like dome architecture for tornado and hurricane states, local official morons need to be educated about the " cutting edge" antiquities at our disposal.
Rocket mass heaters would easily save loads over gas, coal oil, electricity, and have the advantage of not being a polluting, costly mess like the aforementioned.
Of course it doesn't drive commerce, so you get to pay for electing idiots or do some very hard convincing, because after all, we're talking about bureaucrats.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
He's saying your landlord (who decides what quality of A/C to put in) doesn't care how much you (who have to use the A/C the landlord chose) have to pay for A/C.
I burn a couple cords a year in an open pit for backyard ambiance. I'm pretty sure that is worse than a wood stove.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"I can pay $1,000 for a tank of oil... or $200 for a cord of wood"
Did you know that in some areas, wood even grows on trees, so its free.
(well you have to saw it up, and split it, snd store it so it dries...)
But how long does it take to go out yourself saw up that cord of wood, then bring it home? (at which point, there is often a teenager in the house that gets coerced into splitting and storing it). Would you rather spend that time getting the wood, or paying someone else to bring it to you?
This space unintentionally left blank.
Turn the heat down? Yeah, I tried that... and the guy who came to repair my pipes pointed out that up north, water freezes when it gets below 32F.
You seem to have confused "down" with "off."
Try reading again. It's a $4000 investment that pays off in 2 years. Damn good investment. After that you get the $4000/2 yr savings for the life of the unit. If people are so poor, saving $167/month would seem to be something they'd want to do, even if they're paying a loan to do it.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
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?
The person paying to install the unit can rent at a higher rate because a: it's a new AC unit, and b: it will save the renters money. When you can say you're average heat/cooling bill is X dollars/month which is cheaper than everybody else, you'll get more renters.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
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.
I like to season it, then split it, so I don't break my back whacking needlessly with the maul. Storing in a dry place decreases the amount of stress you have lighting it after seasoning.
Personally I just like a little vinegar and pepper, learned that from Euell Gibbons.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
You paid $51K for your 2,700 sqft house? Where do you live? My house is worth about $350K. The cost is partly because it is a nice big house with tall ceilings and fancy everything, but the other part of the cost is to keep the riff-raff out. (that isn't politically correct to say, but it is the truth)
After all, my property taxes are about $7,000 a year, I suspect yours are just a tad less. :) But that does pay for a first rate police and fire dept, first rate schools, and very low crime.
........
side note, the above is just a reminder that we all come from very different social-economic places in life, perhaps we should have this info in a profile to better understand people's comments. I don't consider $17K for HVAC to be all that much, but others clearly do, neither one of us is "wrong", we just come from different points of view.
Is this something that you actually see happening, or is it just a technical point?
Look into Rocket Mass Heaters, you could heat a very large house in a northern state all winter on 1 cord.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
He's quoting Henry Ford.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Licensed? There is no license required to operate or own a stove.
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.
> Want to kill babies?
You are free to try and adopt one of those "babies" and care for it yourself if you can.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
Another problem is that unless it is to repair and replace something, often apartment buildings lose any other grandfathered code items. For instance, I used to own two 6 unit rental properties located right beside each other. If I wanted to install more efficient heating and cooling in those units, I would also have to update the wiring to the entire lot because the code change about 10 years after they were built, I would have to add fire escapes to every one of the second story levels of the unites with 2 stories, I would have to replace the stove and refrigerator with new energy saving models, and I never could get a complete answer, but I think I would have had to replace the windows to be up to code.
When looking, and this was a good couple of years ago, I sold them since, it was going to be cheaper to evict everyone and rebuild with new 4 unit apartments because the zoning code and building code required costs less in a new construction than retrofiring existing buildings. That is of course, is if I did anything to bring everything up to the current code that wasn't mandatory and grandfathered in. But if I waited until the AC and heating units failed, I could repair and replace them without having to go through the rest of the costly code updates.
So not only is the person paying to install the appliances not the one paying the bill for their usage, they are often encouraged not to change things or be penalized if they attempt to upgrade any of it out of concern for the residents, environment, or whatever else tickles their fancy through the loss of being grandfathered in one other code changes.
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.
Did you know that in some areas, wood even grows on trees, so its free.
Did you know that in some areas, oil just gushes up from the ground, so it's free.
(well you have to refine it...)
Well, studies have shown that increased socialism makes water freeze closer to 0C than to 32F.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
$4k is more than I pay for my entire electric bill for 4 years, and my AC is 12 seer.
The same thing that happened to the land of the free.
Your destiny is determined by the powers to be now, not your own free will. Now quit trying to save money and find some money to get insurance else be fined without due process of law because even though you have never been to the emergency room in your life or failed to pay your medical bills, we all know you go to the emergency room and charge up a huge bills then not pay it so it ends up costing everyone who already could afford insurance more and we cannot have that- except we are fixing it by doing just that.
You idiot, now you got me confused.
Thank you for sharing... a great example of good intentions gone wrong...
As the AC says, denser wood generally burns hotter and better. Hotter fire means less pollution.
Where I am, the best is cherry, followed by birch and then maple. Maple would probably be the best to plant for firewood as it is fast growing, burns well and can even be poltoraked (sp?), cut the tops off and let the lower stems resprout new wood. As the roots are already there, the tops grow fast.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
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.
You are going to pay the expensive heating bills? You cant stop smoke and carbon monoxide as smoke backtracks in the home with a filter or circular air system
http://saveie6.com/
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 ----
Questions:
1. How big is your house?
2. What temp do you set your HVAC to?
3. What is the average temp in the summer/winter where you live?
4. What do you pay for power where you live?
Those all effect the price of power that you pay, it is quite possible that it would make little sense for you to spend that much money. Perhaps you only have a single HVAC system, in which case the price would be $2K more instead of $4K more (since I have 2 units).
Aren't pointless rambling posts like yours an early warning sign of carbon monoxide poisoning?
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.
Why would they be paying an extra $4000 every two years?
That $4000 is the difference between the 13 SEER model and the 16 SEER model. He said he would recoup that money in two years, so every two years after that would be a savings of $4000, or $2000 every year by switching to the more efficient model.
~~
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?
Depends on the other sources of income that exists. If you live in a forest cabin and have just enough to live on it may make a big difference to cut the wood yourself.
Firewood heats at least twice - once when you make it, once when you burn it.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
There are still people that have the kitchen stove as central heating for their house.
Of course - there are still people that just have a pit in the ground when cooking.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
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...
Actually another name for fascism is national socialism - everybody working for everybody to provide strength in numbers for the power of the state. The symbol for fascism is a bundle of sticks with an axe head.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
And they're both corporatists.
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.
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?
I'm not sure that after a hard, long session of wood splittin, your hand is in a state to jack you off.
You have a 4000 sq ft home and you like a temp delta of 40+ degrees. Well, congrats to you on having a super-efficient system. A shining example to us all.
Oh wait, you were being funny...
On a more serious note, I recently looked into solar panels as well, but those make zero economic sense. I'd love to install them, but there is just no way, it would be throwing money away, the pay back is more than 15 years...
Oh well, such is life...
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.
"When you're considering the effects of wood burning on the overall amount of carbon compounds in the atmosphere, the effect of burning wood is almost immeasurable, since the carbon released came from the atmosphere originally and will be reabsorbed by other trees, anyway."
It's not about the carbon, it's about the fine dust that gives people cancer and emphysema.
To those living in the house too.
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.
You keep your house set to 72 degrees F? Holy crap! No wonder your electrical bill is so high in the summer. Here in Toronto our summers are not as hot (low to mid 80s on peak season) but they are quite humid. I keep my thermostat set to 79 just to pull the moisture out of the air and it's quite comfortable.
Adding another 12" of insulation in the attic is my next project.
I don't know how to compare natural gas to oil heat, we keep our home at 74 degrees in the winter, it snows here, but usually doesn't get below 20 degrees. Winter gas bills run $250 or so, in the summer they run about $75, so the difference is the furnace heat. In the summer, the $75 covers hot water heaters, clothes dryer, and cooking (gas stove).
All I can say is that the electric bill went way down the month after we installed the new HVAC system, so clearly the promises made regarding energy efficiency were true.
Any carbon you release from burning wood is only there because the tree sequestered it when it was growing. For most trees that's probably somewhere in the region of 20-50 years. In geological & ecological terms that's nothing, and the net effect is no additional carbon dioxide.
The problem with burning fossil fuels is that it releases carbon that was sequestered millions of years ago over a period of hundreds of thousands of years; so what we're doing is very rapidly re-introducing a bunch of carbon dioxide that wasn't in the atmosphere for several million years. From a geological & ecological point of view, it looks like a net increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
It was a 12 year old cheap unit that was run all the time, it finally gave out. I could have fixed it, but it had other minor annoying issues, it was time and I knew it.
The truth is, for my usage, the new system will actually cost me nothing over 10 years of owning it, that isn't a bad deal. The odds of the old system running for another 10 years, even with repairs, would have been slim.
Your comment of "spoiled with too much money" colors your comments with envy, green is nice in the wallet, not so much in a person's heart. Money doesn't make me better than anyone else, I've just been blessed in life with the chance to do well. But I work hard for it, so I make no apologizes for it either.
Fascists have mottos like "E Pluribus Unum" -- "One out of Many". If you want to see what a real fasces looks like take a close look at the Lincoln Memorial sometime and notice what the Republican President depicted there is resting his hands on.
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.
Nothing but liberal ignorance. It makes you ''feel" good that the EPA is doing "something". We don't need to consider the unintended consequences of over regulation. Wood is a renewable energy source. But hey let's replace it with coal power to heat my home. Tell me again how that reduces emissions?
nope
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
To HELL with the EPA and all Obamahshit.
Fata viam invenient.
Many old houses had only the kitchen stove and the kids took a brick heated on the stove to bed with them.
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.
I have.
In the upper midwest an energy efficient 4500 sq ft house one will require 100 MBTU over the course of a winter if the average temperature raise is 50F. Wood contains at most 30 MBTU per cord if perfect, dry, and no loss (which does not happen)
So a 100% efficient system in that situation would consume a little more than 3 cords.
Rocket Mass Heater is not going to invent heat. Further, there were no building codes for it when I built the house. A quick check says there still are no building codes addressing the design which is not a trivial point. Even further, the exhaust gas is very low temp, which means there is a CO danger.
I like the theory of the design which is why I have a Tulikivi. It weights 15 ton which is kept about 110F radiating, 90% efficient if I run it correctly, and does not have the nasty flue issues. And I have the bake oven which makes the best pizza and bread.
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.)
Some examples in my link report up to 700 percent efficiency. Don't worry about buying so much wood.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
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.
Free? No it has value, that can be taxed.
My cousin, out in the sticks, was ranting about how he was going to rip up every one of his if some tax passed that was going to count the lumber value of his trees in his property value. He still has the trees so I imagine it didn't pass.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Inverted flame furnaces have the chimney at the base, and the smoke from the fire has to pass through the burning flame area again. This captures any unburnt emitted methanol in the smoke as it passes a second time and reduces the smoke output to boot.
ANd as others have said, drying the wood helps a lot, and makes it more efficient. Wet wood uses 40-60% of the energy contained therein just to dry itself out during combustion.
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.
A couple of cords? That's an awful lot of ambiance.
The kinds of stoves and fireplaces that the EPA is banning are the bullcrap kinds that builders put in new homes. These are not serious devices for heating homes, they are purely entertainment, so people can watch the pretty flames. Some fireplaces are so poor that they actually have negative efficiency. The house would stay warmer if the fireplace was not used.
Even the best fireplaces are inefficient crap compared to a stove. Ben Franklin realized that. The German settlers mostly used stoves, but the English settlers stuck with fireplaces. He tried to get them to switch because the stoves were 2x as efficient.
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"?
if the payback is over 20 months, shouldn't the power bill savings offset more than 100% of the (amortized over 60 months) payment?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Some like it hot...
"Some fireplaces are so poor that they actually have negative efficiency."
Almost all fireplaces are negatively efficient. They radiate in only one direction (while a stove radiates in six), and most of the heat goes up the chimney. Meanwhile, cold air is being sucked in to replace the hot air going up the chimney. Stoves are designed to draw air from the outside of the house, rather than the interior.
Plus, if your house is well insulated (which means few air leaks), the fireplace can't draw well and you get a smoky house.
Well really its more about the heat in the areas where the pipes run inside the walls than the heat inside the living space. We can have it nice and toasty and still have a pipe that will freeze because it runs through one spot between the wall and roof that gets too cold.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
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.
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.
Yup. They're not banning all wood stoves, just the egregious polluters. Which is most of them.
Stuff like this is genius: http://www.soapstones.com/soapstone_masonry_heater.html
Soapstone has this weird property - it sucks up heat faster and gives it off more slowly than any other stone and the best type of this stuff comes from Goa. 8 years ago I ran into a guy in Germany making these things. Looks like he found an importer.
They've used this design for hundreds of years and the soapstone is just the latest and possibly most clever refinement.
We had a cheap wood stove. It leaked so much ash and smoke it gave one of my kids a chest problem that took years to get rid of. Fuck those things. Do it right or don't do it, you have no right to pollute and make barely safe forms of heating; in this area once a year some house goes up in a chimney fire because of these dangerous pieces of shit.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Tulikivi? /me - impressed as hell. You did good. Real good.
Need Mercedes parts ?
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
No, because the 20 months just pays back the $4K, it doesn't cover the remaining $13.2K cost of the whole system. That will take another 66 months to pay off, for a total payoff of 86 months, or about 7 years.
Because public health matters, idiot. It's worth everyone's while to not have polluted air.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
If utilities aren't included in the price, yes I see it fairly commonly that they specify what the monthly utilities would generally cost. (I would also assume most prospective renters would ask this question if not provided too!) Perhaps not for apartments as they are usually significantly smaller and won't see significant savings. I guess I'm mostly thinking about renting full houses/townhouses.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
If they are truly 'poor' they likely aren't owning the residence in question and as such wouldn't be the ones spending this money. If you 'own' the house, then it's entirely possible to get a loan as you have the collateral in the house.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Except it's cheaper to not put in an AC unit and still say your average heat/cooling bill is X dollars/month which is cheaper than everybody else.
When I moved into my current place having no opportunity to see it beforehand (long distance move in a hurry), everyone from the apartment locator service to the landlord lied about it having A/C in the first place! It's a low information market.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"But how long does it take to go out yourself saw up that cord of wood"
We mostly heat with wood, if you were really ambitious you could chop up an entire seasons worth of wood with two to three people over a weekend. We're a bit more layed back, a few hours every other weekend or so. Even from a small 10 acre family owned woods cutting only pre-seasoned (already dead & mostly dry but still sill standing) trees you could probably heat 3 homes or more sustainably.
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 are a batshit crazy chill-addicted man, like many of my relatives. I wear a coat when it's 72! (Yes, I have issues here, but still, 72? I bet it would cost you half as much at 74. Ever heard of a ceiling fan?)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Many larger houses in the south have 2 separate HVAC systems because that's just easier to build than one larger system. Because it used to be a sign that you were wealthy, the "2 systems" thing crept down into far smaller houses than could possibly justify it as a status symbol.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Now when did I go and insult you?
how well insulated is your house? we've just had double glazed windows installed and have already noticed just how much longer the apartment stays warm with less heating.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
You forgot the link part of your link. Also, 700% of what? Morbo says efficiency does not work that way!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"E Pluribus Unum" was inscribed into the official seal of the US several decades before we even had the constitution, never mind a Republican party.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
Also a fair point. The problem is with liquidity. A lot of people do not have 4 grand lying around (often because they are buying useless stuff all the time, but that is another point), so even if it is a good investment, people just can't afford it. People need to be educated in making investments not purchases. But try explaining that to the consumerist public.
Well, the GP's argument was that the savings would pay for it in two years, so presumably those on low incomes would benefit from this.
That said, I live in Florida, have a moderately large home, and my entire electricity bill comes to around $2,000-$2,500 a year. It's hard to see how a better A/C would save me $4,000 over two years, given that's around 80-100% of my electricity bill! 16 SEER would be an improvement over my home's (which is so old I'd assume it's probably a 10 SEER unit or worse) but this would require greater than 100% efficiency out of the unit. Not friggin' likely.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
As a Washington State resident, there are many counties that are wood only heating. Pierce and Tacoma have large suburbs and are not exactly off the grid living. They are bigger and can force the smaller population to upgrade. The counties like Stevens, Ferry and Okanogan are mostly wood heated homes. I have no real numbers but out of the 39 counties in Washington, I'd say at least 1/2 have majority of wood only heated homes, we still are a big wild state.
My mothers county has many people that are wood only, and if they went around giving $1000 dollar fines for people burning, they would tar and feather and hold a recall election. Those urban counties are gray haired monsters who know each other and would put pressure to any elected official.
Those poor gray haired women are the Majority of voters, tell them they cant heat their homes. Most of these people live in urban areas that dont have fire departments, police or or trash pick up. Tacoma I'd say is much different, its urban sprawl.
I think that in some parts, the stoves would smoke cloudier for some days, and then they would not be seen again.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
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
Yep, fascism was a big thing with the Founding Fathers -- "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately" was (reputedly) said by Benjamin Franklin, for example. The preamble to the Constitution talks of "a More Perfect Union", more "strength through unity" ideology.
Educated folks of the mid-18th century were fascinated with the history of the Romans from the Republic through to the Empire and of course this is where the fasces concept came from. Not surprising the nascent rebels thought it was a good idea, along with slaveholding, expansion and conquest and ruthless suppression of internal dissent and rebellion.
The average person doesn't actually know how money and capital works, they just know to pay something towards their credit card each month.
Some people of course do know, but way too many don't. I personally think that a money course (covering investments, capital, credit, etc.) should be provided in school to everyone, it would do a lot of good.
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!!!
Actually, no they won't. What they don't tell you is that a RMH will only heat the (small) room it is in, and things in close proximity.
I've done the math on rocket mass heaters and there is not enough energy in the amount of wood they claim to burn and heat a whole house the way they claim to. There is only so much energy in wood, a RMH is not a Mister Fusion. If a RMH is heating a whole house it is because they have managed to insulate the whole house very well. The key then is in the insulation, not in the form of heating.
The fact is, commercial wood stoves like the Burley range (and I don't work for Burley, but I've looked at what I would buy if I was going to buy a wood stove) heat at ~90% efficiency, burn very cleanly, and are inexpensive to buy. There is only one stove I know of that has a higher efficiency, but is many times the price.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
$4000 is more than the _price_ of my previous 10 SEER unit (I now have an 8 SEER and will not replace until it dies) For a $4000 difference between a 13 and 16 SEER unit to pay off in two years, you'd have to be spending over $8500/year in cooling costs. Well, if you live in Death Valley or the Everglades, go ahead and buy that 16 SEER. For most of us it's not likely to pay off within its lifetime.
Also for a lot of people, the alternative to paying the extra $4000 would be to be hot and uncomfortable. This is even better for the environment. Hooray for hair-shirt environmentalism.
"Soapstone has this weird property - it sucks up heat faster and gives it off more slowly than any other stone and the best type of this stuff comes from Goa. 8 years ago I ran into a guy in Germany making these things. Looks like he found an importer."
They are great, but the thicker ones are for continuous heating, meaning if you are cold today, you have to make a fire yesterday.
The problem with (some) wood burners is not that they emit too much CO2. Rather the opposite, they do not emit enough. They emit too much plain C or CO or various interesting carbon-containing molecules other than CO2.
If wood burners always turned those compounds into CO2, no one would have a problem with them. CO2 is odorless and invisible and mostly harmless.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Or maybe you're just lazy.
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.
If a RMH is heating a whole house it is because they have managed to insulate the whole house very well. The key then is in the insulation, not in the form of heating.
A well insulated house cannot use a regular wood stove. A regular wood stove puts out heat in the kW range, and that would make the house unbearably hot, after which you would have to let the house cool down uncomfortably until you go back to making it uncomfortably hot.
I wish I lived in a well insulated house.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
I'm not sure why I should try reading again. You just made the same point in reply to me that I made.
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.
Long summer nights telling tales by the bonfire.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
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,
Because you're assuming it's a $4K payment *every* four years which is, as you say crazy. It's not that, it's a one time payment of $4K that simply returns the investment in 4 years. The frequency of the payment would be the lifespan of the AC unit, which is usually measured in decades.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
'lack of insulation' - one of THE cheapest things to upgrade in your house that will net you almost instant return.
I'm pretty sure that the completely unemployed, but entirely mortgage free and clear, homeowner is quite the minority. Exceptions prove the rule.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Well that's it, then. No solution to that is even remotely possible.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
From the OP, it's 2 years, not four. But that's pretty minor to the point.
If they fail to make the one-time investment "because $4,000 is a lot of money" then they will continue to pay that extra $2,000/year every year. It will only stop once the air conditioner dies and is replaced at that time.
and I'm apparently dense :) Missed the subtlety of your original post. I blame....well I'll get back to you when I run out of things that aren't my brain ;-)
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I've asked about average utilities cost at about half the places I've rented. All of them were wishy washy about the answers. In other words, they don't know/care.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
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.
Well it's good to know that you're more interested in rhetorical scorekeeping and thinking you look especially sophisticated by saying "teabagger" than you are addressing the actual substance of the matter.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
OK, but how long does a cord of wood last vs. 250 gallons of oil? I remember as a child living in upstate NY, after we got our woodburning stove, we would go through 2-3 cords in a winter (at $45 a cord if you were willing to cut it up yourself).
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
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.
Say, that's kinda sexy. I could see that in my house.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I know, but he went on for a few minutes till it sort of made sense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4usXIAoy9us
It was this guy, he has many videos from many builds. But, I think this is the one.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Admittedly, it would have to be something like a dome for the average heater on the 'tube, or a small house. There are some though, suited to task, like the guy in Connecticut with the 60' dome greenhouse. His mass heater is under the sand/pebble floor, and he is regulating temp. for an aquaponics system
So to keep fish, banana trees, vegetables happy in Feb. he goes through a 40 lb bag of wood pellets, daily,But then that is the dead of winter in Conn. and it is a greenhouse and he's running a lot of fan assisted pipe under that.
The radiant energy from this IS nice and if you noticed the drum in the video, that part DOES supply immediate radiant heat until the cob can dispense its supply.
I have a friend heating a garage/shop with one this year and so far it's pretty damn amazing, on a concrete floor, cinder block building. But then it hasn't gotten below 35 F here yet. So far I'm sold.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Just open the draw and roast pigeons on the roof, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. That's your thermostat, as inefficient as it is. I love the Vogelzang cast stoves...
Still want a rocket mass heater though.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
It was a playlist. If you don't like that one , scroll down. Lotta slick ideas there.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The parent post said apartment *owners*, not renters.
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.
Hint: for an awful lot of people, the price difference between buying cords of wood and using some other heating system like oil, gas, or electric is enough to put them in bankruptcy.
You're saying, "Do something more environmentally friendly". They're saying, "I understand what you mean, but how am I supposed to eat tomorrow if I do that?"
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.
My house is 2100 square feet, and when we had oil heat we used 1100 gallons of oil per year. This is in Pennsylvania. My neighbor used to use the same amount of oil for his house, but he switched over to a woodburning stove and uses between 2-3 cords of wood per year. He works in landscaping, so his only expense for the wood is the fuel spent on his chainsaw and his pickup truck to haul it around.
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.
if they went around giving $1000 dollar fines for people burning, they would tar and feather and hold a recall election
There are some people I might consider burning if it was only a $1000 fine!!
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..
Vague anecdote -- I'd go thru about a cord of wood a month, or 80-100 gallons of propane. Even at retail for firewood of around $130/cord delivered, that beats retail for propane at $3.35/gallon.
[Tho I always cut my own, and the source was free scrap that I'd pick up on my way home, so it cost me a few hours with the chainsaw and a quart of gas.]
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Mmm, I used a regular wood stove (nothing special, just a firebox and flue) in a house that was very well insulated -- I only had to heat or cool it about every 3rd day, year round. The walls had been redone, but I think the real key was the 1950s foundation slab -- guy didn't know what he was doing, so he just dug a hole and filled it with concrete -- it was about 3 feet thick. Huge heatsink for the whole house.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Going to light a celebratory fire right now!
You're an idiot.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
That is a fair point, $4,000 is indeed a decent amount of money.
That being said, the payback on my power bill is about 20 months, that is the break even point, after all it is pure profit.
I financed the thing over 60 months at 4.9% anyway, so the monthly payment isn't actually that bad and the lower power bill offsets about half of the monthly payment, so my actual out of pocket costs isn't all that high each month, less than our family cell phone bills, and we just made a big cut in our carbon foot print.
sooo... if its 60 months of payments and the savings each month makes half a payment isnt that a 120 month payback? Actually much worse if you figure you could get a 5% return on that cash if you invested it. soo... 10 years+ on an a/c until which might crap out in 9.... I just cant see a payoff... like ever...
^^ Best analysis of economics and environmentalism in this entire thread!
I expect it to last 15 years, give or take a bit.
As for the payback, it is true that I could have "invested" the money for 5% return, but there is no guarentee you'll get 5%. What I do have a guarentee is that my power bill is now quite a bit lower.
The way I figure it, it will take 7-8 years to "break even", and that assumes that there is no rise in power prices during that time.
Plus the new system works better, and it is unlikely that my old system would last 10 more years, plus it reduces my carbon footprint (all my electricity comes from coal power plants).
If you can't see that it is a good deal, then I don't know what to say, it was an easy decision from my point of view. Not doing it would have been foolish.
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.
I just saw you basically say "20 months and im rich" and said holy shit... I cant keep letting stuff like that slide....
The break even difference in terms of money out of pocket vs. power saved for the upgrade from the 13 SEER units to the 16 SEER units is 20 months.
The break even difference in terms of money out of pocket for the whole system is about 86 months, based on what I'm seeing in my power bills (I did this replacement in July).
Solar makes no sense whatsoever, even as a "green" option, at least from my math, the payback is 15 years, and that is after the various tax credits.
I don't drive a Prius, I drive a GMC Yukon XL Denali. It sucks down gas like no tomorrow. But 400hp (and tons of torque) and the rumble of that beautiful 6.2L V8 engine, and it sure is a nice truck to drive. Of course, I also have 3 kids and we use every bit of it, so it isn't like I'm just driving it around empty. And on a selfish note, it has air conditioned seats, which in the Texas heat, are *really* nice. If you've never had AC in your seats, you should try it. :)
BTW, before you say I should drive a minivan, consider that a fully loaded Honda Odyssey is about $47K, my truck was $58K, so not really that much more, and it hauls more stuff (and I use it). Plus the Odyssey doesn't offer air conditioned seats! :)
Back on topic, what did your 15KW of solar cost to install? That is a pretty big system. My roof will support a 8KW system and when I had that priced out, I about fell out of my chair at the price. Right now installed systems are running about $4 a watt, so you can do the math there. An 8KW system will provide about half of my annual electric power needs (which is about 1/3 of my power bill, since some of it is natural gas that solar wouldn't replace).
I would get more return on my investment by upgrading my windows and attic insulation than by putting solar on the house.
oh hell you were talking about the price delta for the 20 months... i was thinking for the whole system.... there was just no way....lol
the prius is a POS but I drive from my yuma house to my cabin just north of paris,tx so unless I got a load on the f350 (5th wheels, rock crawlers and sandrails or whatever) I drive the crackerbox. I bought the solar panels at around $1 a watt and they will go on the roof of my shop at the cabin when I get it all finished (spring). I had to buy so many since I cant get the the amount of sunlight up there as I do out in the desert but oh well when you are off grid and want to fire up a lathe, tig or whatever you gotta pay.. a lot. Doing a self install so I will save some there but expect at least another 20-30k for the inverters, charge controllers and my initial battery bank. Like I said... various reasons but people have odd needs sometimes.
screw the minivan... sell the gmc and buy a raptor!!!!
Of course, I didn't get a break down on the $4 a watt cost, but of course that included installation and hooking it up to the grid, when I produce over what I require, my local electric co-op buys back the power. What they really do is just have 2 meters, one for my power and one for theirs, they subtract the two and charge me the difference.
Frankly, if I could get the panels installed for $2.50 a watt, I'd probably do it, but that is just not what the companies in this area are charging right now, and it isn't something I can (or want to) do myself.
Hey, you knocking GM? Ford? Good frame, lousy engines... Call me back when they get a decent engine. :) GM has much better engines than Ford does, but Ford has a stiffer frame and probably a stronger one. If you tow heavy loads (5th wheel) I can understand why you'd buy one, but a F350 probably has a diesel, and those are probably fine, Ford's gas engines suck and have sucked for a long time.
I used to own a Suburban, but my wife liked the look of the Denali, it has a heated wood steering wheel. :) She likes that in the winter. Happy wife, happy life...
I don't need a pickup, would never use it. We often end up hauling our kid's friends, and sometimes we have to take both trucks because everyone won't fit in one. If they made a truck that was a foot longer, I'd be happy, I could use the cargo space. :)
Looking forward to the new designs coming out next year, waiting for my dealer to open up ordering, I'll get a 2015 model, finally they have fold flat 3rd row seats, that has been a long time in coming.
Keep in mind that we live smack in the middle of suburbia, we don't drive to the country, so this works for us.
Oh, and back on topic, I already replaced my light bulbs with CFLs a few years ago, I'm waiting for LED lights to come down in price a bit, then I'll probably replace again in a few years.
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.
Lord, $1 a watt? That is cheap! $15K for all those panels? Are you saying the $20-30K cost is on top of the cost of the panels? If so, that puts it closer to $2.50 a watt, not counting installation.
Of course, I didn't get a break down on the $4 a watt cost, but of course that included installation and hooking it up to the grid, when I produce over what I require, my local electric co-op buys back the power. What they really do is just have 2 meters, one for my power and one for theirs, they subtract the two and charge me the difference.
yes the extra 20-30k is on top of that so I will have around 40-50k when its all said and done. which is kinda silly but my place is in the middle of a million acres of timber and as a result our power goes out all the time. I put all my extra cash into my own infrastructure which I think is a better retirement plan anyway. I dont want to show up with a freezer full of rotting deer meat just because a tree fell on a power line ;)
Hey, you knocking GM?
yes... yes I am :D
Ford? Good frame, lousy engines... Call me back when they get a decent engine. :) GM has much better engines than Ford does, but Ford has a stiffer frame and probably a stronger one. If you tow heavy loads (5th wheel) I can understand why you'd buy one, but a F350 probably has a diesel, and those are probably fine, Ford's gas engines suck and have sucked for a long time.
actually I have two (long story) and both have triton v-10's. They lug down low, they spin up high and never break down (YMMV of course). Diesel didnt pencil out for me and when you add the cost of higher fuel and maintenance I just didnt want to deal with it
Keep in mind that we live smack in the middle of suburbia, we don't drive to the country, so this works for us.
I did that in san diego then woke up one day and put a 5 year plan together and left (my kid is in college now). I spend 4 months at the river (yuma, az), 4 months in the mountains (antlers, ok) and 4 months in the rv camping in the sand dunes and have never been happier. Once you work from home its all gravy from there. I have my west coast income and rural expenses so I can buy silly stuff like solar panels and big workshops to play in. Doesnt work for most people though but for me its the perfect year :)
Oh, and back on topic, I already replaced my light bulbs with CFLs a few years ago, I'm waiting for LED lights to come down in price a bit, then I'll probably replace again in a few years.
I was an early adopter of cfl's and paid the price with tons of them blown out as well as other issues while they were still figuring their shit out but I would do it again. I didnt do it to save power exactly but just so I could leave more lights on for the same power bill (yeah yeah I know). I also got into LED's early with the same teething problems (mostly color issues and regulator boards popping) but in the rv (apprx 1000ah battery bank) I really have to count my electrons when it comes to managing power. I wont buy anything now that doesnt have a cree LED in it. they got that shit figured out... the color is perfect and the reliability is there to back it up
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! --
The thing about masonry stoves is the cost, like $10k, if you can get someone who'll leave Redmond to even install it.
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
Well,it's a good thing that I kept my 60s era Warm Morning stove (Coal and wood burning,made in the USA BTW).I'd like to see any Fed come to Southeastern Kentucky and leave intact after trying to enforce anything like that.The NY Mob tried in the 1970s & couldn't handle the Hillbillies (95% of them were sent home in glorified garbage bags) and the urbanites from the EPA sure as hell can't.We could always shut off the coal supply and then you can do without electric power.Think about it. I can always weld a good stove from old coal truck rims,so WTF
The Geek Hillbilly
Yeah, man. Keep the faith.
Check out those rocket mass heaters though.
They're pretty cool.
My old Vogelzang stove is going out on the patio (on casters) so I can cook right beside my barbeque. Damn I love cooking outdoors.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
When a logging company clearcuts an area, they have to plant trees again afterwards. Which use carbon dioxide as they grow.
Often firewood is low quality wood that isn't useful as lumber, etc., so it would otherwise be left to rot and release greenhouse gases anyway.
When a logging company clearcuts an area, they have to plant trees again afterwards. Which use carbon dioxide as they grow.
I know it's not directly relevant, but this isn't true of the Amazon. Re-planting isn't always possible.
Often firewood is low quality wood that isn't useful as lumber, etc., so it would otherwise be left to rot and release greenhouse gases anyway.
I could believe that; fair point.
That 'going on for a few minutes till it sort of made sense' thing is a tell.
Whenever you see that, you know you are dealing with a bullshit artist.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
When a logging company clearcuts an area, they put all of the branches and scraps of wood and piles of bark and needles/leaves that won't make good salable product into a pile called a slash pile. They light it on fire right where it is. Do they heat anything with it? No. Do they cook with it? No. Do they produce energy with it? No. It is all wasted. Huge billowing plumes of smoke that draw calls to the fire department are the only thing that it produces.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
I'm in Pennsylvania and my electric bill is less than $2,000 per year. Gas and electric for the entire year is somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,200.
I would be far better served by adding additional insulation to my house than I would be by spending an extra $4,000 on my HVAC system.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
but, but, but I love that smell when I'm walking around. :(
Truth, Just Us, And Hatred For All Mankind!