raygard
Member
COPD huh ?
Well my two little kids don't have COPD yet they do have Cystic Fibrosis (its a terminal illness of the lungs caused by a thickening of the mucus inside the lung). My wife and I have thought long and hard about this one. There are a couple of factors that need to be considered, which have popped up already in this thread, yet I'll reiterate. Smoke, dust, mold, fungus. We have taken precautions to avoid these little time bombs and made a couple of adjustments. Why? has anyone seen heating costs lately?
Smoke
Very damaging to the lungs. I run a Vermont Castings Encore #2550 (this is a catalytic model) which is a "new" EPA stove (new in the fact that it burns the additional smoke). While the model stove is not that important the method with which you load it is. You need to be able to load it without smoke coming out of the stove. This is possible and is relatively easy to accomplish. It doesn’t happen often on my stove (well there is a little white lie, if you search my posts you can see what happens about back-puffing, which is really the only time you are going to get unexpected smoke out of the stove) as long as the air supply is well regulated an constant.
Dust
I don't so much deal with dust from the ashes as they drop down the grate to the ash pan at the bottom of the stove. The ash in pan is relatively stable in moving it outside to dispose of it. If necessary you could wear as dust mask or a surgical mask (there are some real good ones that oncology patients wear (if you can breath those on you have it on wrong). The other point is, you could always spray the ash with a bit of water to lower any dust that may aerosolize.
Mold / Fungus
This is the biggie, in my book. The wood for the stove is kept outside to dry and is stored out there. You can see both Mold and Fungus on any piece of wood that has been out side for several months. So folk on here have wood outside for several years and I'm sure they see significant mold and fungus growth on that wood. It is unavoidable; the growth will occur at the cellular level, even if you don't see it with your eyes. If you are going to do anything to help, it will be the bring of wood from the pile and placing it close to the outside of the house so he doesn't have to take it off the pile. Also asking him to put on gloves (big leather welders gloves should do) and a dust mask if you can get him to. I make all my kids leave the room while I refill the stove. The gloves and the dust mask are necessary as the mold and fungus spores will stick to the glove and the dust mask catches the obvious.
We also have a hospital grade air purifier which chugs away 24/7 at 70cf/m to remove any impurities in the air IQ Air (damn thing cost a thousand bucks but is worth every penny).
You can do it. I would let him burn wood if it brings him a sense of independence. Yet I would ask if he could take a few precautions, Gloves, dust mask, air purifier (you buy it, its Christmas time) and you bring the daily or weekly wood load to the back door. The by product of fungus or mold spores in the lungs (and it's a real bugger to get out of your lungs once it's colonized) is coughing. This is exacerbated (increased) if you get the flu or a chest cold. Mold and Fungus are not good.
Hope it helps
Ray
Well my two little kids don't have COPD yet they do have Cystic Fibrosis (its a terminal illness of the lungs caused by a thickening of the mucus inside the lung). My wife and I have thought long and hard about this one. There are a couple of factors that need to be considered, which have popped up already in this thread, yet I'll reiterate. Smoke, dust, mold, fungus. We have taken precautions to avoid these little time bombs and made a couple of adjustments. Why? has anyone seen heating costs lately?
Smoke
Very damaging to the lungs. I run a Vermont Castings Encore #2550 (this is a catalytic model) which is a "new" EPA stove (new in the fact that it burns the additional smoke). While the model stove is not that important the method with which you load it is. You need to be able to load it without smoke coming out of the stove. This is possible and is relatively easy to accomplish. It doesn’t happen often on my stove (well there is a little white lie, if you search my posts you can see what happens about back-puffing, which is really the only time you are going to get unexpected smoke out of the stove) as long as the air supply is well regulated an constant.
Dust
I don't so much deal with dust from the ashes as they drop down the grate to the ash pan at the bottom of the stove. The ash in pan is relatively stable in moving it outside to dispose of it. If necessary you could wear as dust mask or a surgical mask (there are some real good ones that oncology patients wear (if you can breath those on you have it on wrong). The other point is, you could always spray the ash with a bit of water to lower any dust that may aerosolize.
Mold / Fungus
This is the biggie, in my book. The wood for the stove is kept outside to dry and is stored out there. You can see both Mold and Fungus on any piece of wood that has been out side for several months. So folk on here have wood outside for several years and I'm sure they see significant mold and fungus growth on that wood. It is unavoidable; the growth will occur at the cellular level, even if you don't see it with your eyes. If you are going to do anything to help, it will be the bring of wood from the pile and placing it close to the outside of the house so he doesn't have to take it off the pile. Also asking him to put on gloves (big leather welders gloves should do) and a dust mask if you can get him to. I make all my kids leave the room while I refill the stove. The gloves and the dust mask are necessary as the mold and fungus spores will stick to the glove and the dust mask catches the obvious.
We also have a hospital grade air purifier which chugs away 24/7 at 70cf/m to remove any impurities in the air IQ Air (damn thing cost a thousand bucks but is worth every penny).
You can do it. I would let him burn wood if it brings him a sense of independence. Yet I would ask if he could take a few precautions, Gloves, dust mask, air purifier (you buy it, its Christmas time) and you bring the daily or weekly wood load to the back door. The by product of fungus or mold spores in the lungs (and it's a real bugger to get out of your lungs once it's colonized) is coughing. This is exacerbated (increased) if you get the flu or a chest cold. Mold and Fungus are not good.
Hope it helps
Ray