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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....
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.
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.
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.
Just about everything I find on that are temporary bans due to wildfire hazards. Hardly think that counts as liberal fascism.
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.
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...
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,
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.
Nope, its pressure and impurity dependent. For one example, see oceans. Troll better.
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.
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.
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!
Shh. Don't let facts get in the way of teabagger fear and resentment.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Poor libertarians had to make up a word to distinguish themselves from "liberals".
Don't you worry. There's a concerted, intense, yet subtle effort to make the general (uninformed, won't do their own research) public believe that each and every "libertarian" is the exact same thing as an "anarcho-capitalist". Got to make sure the whole freedom-loving movement doesn't catch on and become popular, you know, and to make sure of that it must be demonized as emotionally and unreasonably and quickly as possible. When people otherwise sympathetic to the desire for freedom are hesitant to call themselves (small 'l') "libertarian", the job is done correctly. Various political and monied interests will take care of that, not openly through argumentation, but through portrayal, framing, and association. It's the same way any smear campaign is done.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Anyone using a rocket stove? They burn SUPER hot and are very efficient. Banned too?
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.
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.
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
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"
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.
"liberal fascists". Utter language abuse.
Not so much, no. Apparently there is some history you aren't acquainted with. As used in contemporary America, liberal politics are associated with "progressive" politics. Fascism was also aligned with progressivism.
Rich Lowry on Liberal Fascism
In his brilliant new book Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg (a colleague of mine) demonstrates how the opposite is the case, that fascism was a movement of the left and that liberal heroes like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were products of what Goldberg calls “the fascist moment” in America early in the 20th century. ...
Benito Mussolini was a socialist and earned the title “Il Duce” as the leader of the socialists in Italy. When he founded the fascist party, its program called for implementing a minimum wage, expropriating property from landowners, repealing titles of nobility, creating state-run secular schools and imposing a progressive tax rate. Mussolini took socialism and turned it in a more populist and militaristic direction, but remained a modernizing, secular man of the left. ...
On the other hand, the progressive movement of the early 20th century looked to Mussolini as an inspiration and shared intellectual roots with European fascism, including an appreciation of the “top-down socialism” of Otto von Bismarck. Goldberg eviscerates Woodrow Wilson as the closest we have ever had to a fascist president. Wilson and his supporters welcomed World War I as an opportunity to expand the state, instituting “war socialism” and a far-reaching crackdown on dissent.
FDR picked up where Wilson left off. The crisis of the Great Depression was the occasion for reviving “war socialism.” The man who ran the National Recovery Administration was an open admirer of Mussolini, and the alphabet soup of New Deal agencies had their roots in World War I and the classic fascist impulse to mobilize society and put it on a war footing.
Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change
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 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
(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.
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!
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!
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
"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.
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.
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?
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."