Posted on 10/03/2013 7:05:49 AM PDT by thetallguy24
With the Government shut down going on and winter approaching, we were wondering who was going to protect us from woodstove smoke now? With less than 7% of EPA employees deemed essential, roughly 15,000 EPA employees are sitting at home during the furlough. This means that highly important jobs like regulating your wood burning stove smoke and dust emissions will go undone.
If you own a wood burning stove, you may or may not know that the EPA deems any stove built before 1990 as being inefficient. According to the EPA website, older stoves waste firewood and pollute the air in your neighborhood, so newer stoves are regulated to prevent this. How did our forefathers, who depended on wood to heat their homes, ever survive without knowing this information? All new wood heating appliances that are now offered for sale in the United States are subject to the New Source Performance Standard for New Residential Wood Heaters under the Clean Air Act and are required to meet these emission limits. Wood burning forest fires were left out.
However, because of the government shutdown, the Office of Compliance for Wood Heaters is closed for the duration. A prerecorded message will direct you to the EPA website if you have any questions. However, no one is currently updating the EPAs website, so how are we to know that we are getting up to the minute information? In the mean time we will have to rely on the labels that are required for all modern wood stoves. All EPA certified wood stove can be identified by a temporary paper label attached to the front of the wood stove and a permanent metal label affixed to the back or side, just like the ones on water heaters and air conditioners.
EPA employees were instructed to go to the office for up to four hours on Tuesday when the government shut down, set up voicemail and email "out-of-the office" messages, and secure work documents. They are not allowed to check their accounts from home or conduct any work that is pending. Government cell phones and computers are also not allowed to be used.
Hopefully, with 93% of EPA employees gone, well be able to manage our wood burning habits without them. Future generations will thank us.
Another odd fact is that wood, left to rot in the forest, will decompose to its basic elements, producing greenhouse gasses as a byproduct.
Yet EPA lets one ship dump 700+ tons of coal ash into Lake Michigan each year. Priorities.
http://www.epa.gov/r5water/npdestek/badger/
FWIW, small mountain towns develop quite severe pollution during winter nights from wood stove operation. Temperature inversion and all that.
Degree of pollution is a measurable fact. Regulatory response is a decision that is, or should be, based on the facts.
Well, all that coal ash helps negate the effects of acid rain...............if you believe in such crap...................
Thank goodness we have folks living in big cities working for the EPA who are able to regulate our lives in small towns.
They would really the one I use to heat my garage, it is an old Franklin stove and on really cold days I add some coal to the wood and watch the big black clouds billow out of the chimney.
I have a wood stove about 10 years old.
It is an amazing piece of technology.
Once I have it going (30 minutes or so)...
There is NO smoke coming out of the chimney.
I feed it a few split oak logs every once in while (every 1-2 hours).
And it keeps the house nice and toasty.
If I were the Saudis - I would ban them and cut down all the forests!
I thought the EPA had plans to ban wood burning stoves altogether and that the stoves would have to be destroyed by being cut up like in the cash for clunkers program.
I used to prefer a fireplace to a wood stove but that was before I had a wood stove. Now, it’s no contest. The wood stove is so superior in every way. It’s the best thing about winter and cold weather! (that and skiing)
Perhaps you've heard of the Sahara Forest?
***older stoves waste firewood and pollute the air in your neighborhood,***
So does prescribed burns and forest fires. What’s the big deal!
Regulators must regulate. If they can’t find something to regulate they will make something up.
We have a small Lopi Answer wood stove that we bought back in 1998. It is on the EPA “approved” list, but who are we kidding? They’ll eventually ban ALL wood burning stoves and use drones with IR sensors and Hellfire missiles to root out and destroy the recalcitrant ones who won’t just sit there in the dark and freeze.
I agree with your statements but you didn't go far enough!
When the EPA makes rulings that affect the entire US they don't consider the disparity of locations. The decision to allow non-compliant stoves should be made on a local level that better represents the local needs. The availability (or lack of) non-compliant stoves is a back door way of controlling the flyover population by drying up a source of inexpensive heat and taking away an option to lead a more independent life.
I agree! My new stove is going on three years old, and the difference between it and the ones I grew up with is dramatic. Excellent draw, starts with minimal kindling or paper, and as you noted nearly no smoke-- this despite it being designed to heat 2200 sq ft. Note that the EPA is not forcing anyone to upgrade (yet), they will just limit the new stoves available as they have done in the past. I do not agree with this, I don't even think there should be an EPA, but they are not coming to take our stoves (yet).
We heat exclusively with a wood stove. It is six years old and, thus, EPA-approved. It really is quite amazing how efficient that thing is. Once it’s generating properly, there is no visible smoke out the chimney yet plenty of heat is emitted.
A non-EPA stove in a separate building uses more wood and makes more smoke to generate the same amount of heat.
The EPA approves the use of coal fly ash for mixing with concrete to seal water wells.
Ash is a great component for concrete. The Romans used volcanic ash...............
I have a 50 year old pot belly stove that does the same thing I think it has more to do with the pe3rson operating it. Damper setting is very important.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.