Wood burning pollutin

[Ed Pawlowski]

This was in the Hartford Courant today as a sidebar to an article about wood burning stoves. People are complaining they are being made sick by the pollutants. Gas sure comes up as being very clean.

POLLUTION

Environmental officials have analyzed.how much soot -

particulate matter - home heating devices produce.

» One home heated by oil produces as much pollution as 39 homes using gas. » One home heated by an EPA-certified indoor wood stove

produces as much pollution as 2,000 homes using gas.

» One home heated by an outdoor wood furnace produces as much pollution as 3,000 to

8,000 homes using gas.

Source: DEP

[Steve]

I know it's probably a matter of time but I'll keep burning wood to heat my house until it becomes illegal...... I can see it would be a big problem if it was done in a very crowded neighborhood. Also, the type of wood being burned can produce varying degrees of irritants. Steve

[Ed Pawlowski]

I know it's probably a matter of time but I'll keep burning wood to heat my house until it becomes illegal...... I can see it would be a big problem if it was done in a very crowded neighborhood. Also, the type of wood being burned can produce varying degrees of irritants. Steve

*****************************************************

It is becoming illegal in a lot of areas. I've not used mine in a few years but may resurrect it if oil goes to $4.50 again.I stopped because the price of wood was not as beneficial as it once was. If I can get free or cheap wood the labor is worth it. Nice to have in case of power failure too.

[Pete C.]

It's all propaganda aimed at permitting and taxing wood stoves and / or cord wood, since the government already has it's taxes on other heating fuels.

[RBM]

What's the comparison between nuclear power and gas?

[David Nebenzahl]

On 2/16/2009 2:37 PM Ed Pawlowski spake thus:

Reminds me of when I used to live in Flagstaff, AZ. Lots of people thought it nice and cozy and "simple living" to burn wood in their stoves and fireplaces. I remember cold mornings driving up Hwy. 89 and nearly being asphyxiated from all the goddamn smoke.

Wood burning, as romantic and "back-to-the-land" as it may seem, ought to be banned (and is being banned, slowly). We're not cavemen anymore, needing to throw more chunks of wood on the fire to stay warm.

[David Nebenzahl]

On 2/16/2009 4:01 PM RBM spake thus:

Apples and oranges: that's the comparison.

[Pete C.]

Wood is renewable and carbon neutral, we should be burning more of it for heat and less gas and oil. We certainly have the technology to control the emissions. Of course we should also use solar heating as much as possible so the wood is only minimally needed for cloudy days.

[HeyBub]

Whale oil is renewable, too.

If there were just a government whale-breeding program...

[ransley]

With gas supplies from Russia cut recently many cities in Europe has bad pollution that made people sick and slikened the streets from ash from wood and coal. London hardly had sun until wood and coal was banned.

[George]

The new wood issue in my area is the outside hot water boilers. According to my friend who just installed one before winter there are 3 common manufacturers. Two of them produce big box quality cheepo units that don't have firebrick and basically the wood burns right on the water jacket. The problem with this is that the cold jacket makes for really poor burning. Also they regulate it using only a damper. So when the house calls for heat the damper opens followed by lots of smoldering and the unit emits huge quantities of acrid, stinky smoke. There are a couple people who have the big box quality units not far from me and on some days it looks like fog from the ocean has rolled in only we aren't near the ocean.

My friend bought a unit that has firebrick and also a fan forced draft. The firebrick allows for more uniform burning and the fan forced draft quickly brings the fire up to temperature. His unit emits considerably less smoke.

[Van Chocstraw]

Soot and particulate matter are not harmful to anything. Otherwise a forest fire would kill all of mankind for hundreds of miles.

[Ulysses]

Wood is a renewable energy source. Many renewable energy sources cause lots of pollution during manufacturing. Perhaps we simply need to put smog devices on our chimneys. Then we could dump the pollution into land fills instead of the air.

[norminn]

When did you retire from rocket science?

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Incredible logic.

[trader4]

Yes, just because the matter from a forest fire, which is a relatively rare event, doesn;t kill everyone for hundreds of miles doesn't mean that constant exposure at some level won't cause disease.

[George]

You might want to review your logic..

[Ed Pawlowski]

Comes down to the payback I guess. I'm sure the pollution can be reduced with technology and there may not yet be a big enough market to pay for it. If the government comes into our homes and taxes the woodpile, that may change things. I've not kept up with wood stoves, but I do know they made improvements about 15 or so years ago and some use what is essentially a catalytic converter.

Years ago when most homes used coal, pollution was far worse than it is today.

[Bob F]

Logic???? What logic?

[Stormin Mormon]

One is government loved, other one is government hated? is that the difference?