Our pediatrician asked if we burned wood ...

BrotherBart said:

Don't be silly Grisu. If your kid has respiratory problems, which I suspect was the reason for the Doc visit, and you burn wood you need to give it some thought. I don't care how many kids are killed by falling asteroids in this context.

You can have the cleanest burning stove on the planet and burn nothing but natural cord wood and still put pollution in your house. Impossible not to. This site isn't the wood version of the NRA.

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When you do a search you will find plenty of posts from me that point to the dangers of woodburning and my support of the new EPA limits. As I did also in my post above. Nevertheless, I also know how "fashions" in research work and how such studies have to be interpreted. Just because woodburning has been linked to asthma etc. you still need to take a look at the studies to understand the issue here. The study I linked to shows that EPA-stoves are much less harmful to human health than the old smokedragons. Thus, the OP IS doing the right thing. When looking at the literature you will find quite a few studies linking woodburning to respiratory problems. However, I have not seen one that links properly used EPA-stoves to respiratory problems. Instead, we are talking about open cooking fires in 3rd world countries, improper fuel, "smokedragons" etc.

The particles the researchers are concerned about are especially the ones below 2.5 mikrometer (PM 2.5) as they are so tiny that they can go deep into the lungs and cause an inflammatory reaction there. That reaction can lead to asthma in the long run. To get those particles into the house you would need smoke escaping to the inside (e. g. while reloading) or the house pulling in the smoke again from the outside. When you have a well installed stove with good draft the level of PM 2.5 in the house is not a cause of concern (see the study). The fly ash you can find on the furniture is pretty large by comparison and much less of an issue.

Since I am not from the woodburning NRA I don't paint a black-or-white picture. Emissions from wood fires can be harmful, no doubt. Thus, burn dry wood in a low-emission stove that was properly installed. Then there are plenty of other dangers to your child's health you could worry about.

Would it help to get one of those electric fans the pulls air up the flu. One could turn it on during reloads to prevent wood from being released into the home.

Of late, I'm starting to smell a bit of wood smoke off the top of my stove again. Major bummer; I thought we were done with that problem. Really frustrating. Blaze King tested it and found it tight. I don't know what the problem is this time.

BrotherBart said:

They ain't talking about what comes out of the pipe. They are talking about in the house the dang stove is burning in.

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Not sure who you mean with "they" but when you look at this paper, table 1: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445774/ you will see how the installation of an EPA-stove cut the indoor pm 2.5 levels essentially by half compared with a "smokedragon". They are barely above ambient (outdoor) levels anymore. Does that mean a kid there won't get asthma? Certainly not. But just putting it into your car will expose it to similar if not higher levels of pm 2.5: http://aaqr.org/VOL10_No6_December2010/7_AAQR-10-07-OA-0054_581-588.pdf

In the end, if your kid is has a genetic predisposition that makes it highly susceptible to asthma it will be almost impossible to avoid. As a parent (and I am one) you can only try to minimize risks; total safety is impossible to achieve.

Parallax said:

Would it help to get one of those electric fans the pulls air up the flu. One could turn it on during reloads to prevent wood from being released into the home.

Of late, I'm starting to smell a bit of wood smoke off the top of my stove again. Major bummer; I thought we were done with that problem. Really frustrating. Blaze King tested it and found it tight. I don't know what the problem is this time.

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Really sucks to hear that. You've been through everything with that stove. I think it's fair to assume that the problem this time is the same problem as last time, and could very well be something not directly on the stove itself.

pdxdave said:

Really sucks to hear that. You've been through everything with that stove. I think it's fair to assume that the problem this time is the same problem as last time, and could very well be something not directly on the stove itself.

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I'm going to call Chris at Blaze King and find out if any of their techs ever come up this way. They're in Walla Walla and I'm in Bellingham so maybe someone will come through on his or her way to Vancouver. I'd like one of those guys to evaluate in person. Maybe we can finally figure out what the heck is going on.

Parallax said:

I'm going to call Chris at Blaze King and find out if any of their techs ever come up this way. They're in Walla Walla and I'm in Bellingham so maybe someone will come through on his or her way to Vancouver. I'd like one of those guys to evaluate in person. Maybe we can finally figure out what the heck is going on.

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I'm going to throw a crazy idea your way. I know you've been through everything else so here's a thought - could your chimney be too tall ? I believe you said it was 26ft ? Maybe at low burn it's struggling to maintain draft as the stack gets cold. I say this because I have the bare minimum 15' and both stoves I've run have had no issues maintaining draft, even when running the cat stove at really low rate, and we live in near identical climates. I think most stoves are listed to require between 15-30', so maybe something a little closer to the middle of the range would perform better at low burn rate.

pdxdave said:

I'm going to throw a crazy idea your way. I know you've been through everything else so here's a thought - could your chimney be too tall ? I believe you said it was 26ft ? Maybe at low burn it's struggling to maintain draft as the stack gets cold. I say this because I have the bare minimum 15' and both stoves I've run have had no issues maintaining draft, even when running the cat stove at really low rate, and we live in near identical climates. I think most stoves are listed to require between 15-30', so maybe something a little closer to the middle of the range would perform better at low burn rate.

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We added four feet to the stack last year to increase the draft. It seems counter-intuitive that a shorter stack would reduce the problem.

BrotherBart said:

All ya gotta do is open the door to feed the damned stove. There is not one wood stove on this planet that does not release emissions into the living space when you open that door when it is burning. No matter how slowly you open that door.

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But how much is really coming out? Assuming your draft is good the stove should mostly be sucking air in when the door is open. If not we would all die the first time we lit an open fireplace.

Speaking of which, we have two open fireplaces in this joint. Not the crappy drafting rectangular boxes they built in the 70s but real old fashioned rumfords. Those things draft like hoovers and when you are burning good dry wood you rarely smell much of anything in the house. They also leave less fly ash around than the Encore does - Its only a problem if you leave ashes after the fire is out and forget to close the damper on a windy day.

The top load door on the Encore is far more problematic for me in terms of smoke spillage and ash.



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Having said that I do take the health issue seriously. My son gets a cough every winter and my wifes very first thought was the woodstove. We shut it down for a month with no improvement. As it turns out its just dust and dry air and starts the moment we close the windows in fall. Gets me too... A humidifier and better dusting cleared it up.

BrotherBart said:

All ya gotta do is feed a stove for a month in the winter and then run your hand over the furniture in the stove room.

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Folks have dust after a month without stoves. How much more in a wood burning home? What's the dust consist of? You should never need to explain your obligation of critical thinking.

Make sure you have a good humidifier and keep the humidity up in your house. I imagine with the wood stove in the play room the air is really dry in that room.
Plus if the air is dry in the house your throat and nasal cavities get really dried out. Once those areas and I imagine the lungs also , once they get dried out they
are easily irritated. Plus really dried out house means more dust flying around. As we all know, wood stoves can add dust to the house. Try to crack the door when opening the stove
before opening the door wide open to limit any little bits of smoke entering the house. Try to keep the dust down as its the dust thats hard to see thats is mostly flying around easily in
the air. Once the nose throat or lungs are dry and irritated then they are susceptible for inflammation and infection as germs are opportunistic.

Obamacare mandates now require doctors to ask a bunch of fairly invasive questions in order to receive reimbursement. Adults will see questions regarding their sex lives, pediatricians will ask questions regarding whether or not mommy and daddy own guns. This data is collected and sent to Big Brother.

Not to make lite of this, but I'm glad we just discovered fire for inside our dwellings, I don't know what man has done for thousands of years.

ToltingColtAcres said:

Obamacare mandates now require doctors to ask a bunch of fairly invasive questions in order to receive reimbursement. Adults will see questions regarding their sex lives, pediatricians will ask questions regarding whether or not mommy and daddy own guns. This data is collected and sent to Big Brother.

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reference? Ive never been asked any of those question - either at my own primary or the kids pediatrician. Ive been to both multiple times since ACA started.

The gun question especially is off the table. Conservatives made sure that there will never be an real data on gun violence when they put that law in preventing any federal funding for research on the topic in the 90s. Funny the rep who sponsored that bill was interviewed on NPR recently after yet another mass shooting and said that in retrospect that bill was the greatest mistake of his life.

I just wonder if the pediatrician asked has ever asked this question " Do you barbeque"?

branchburner said:

Or we could try to reduce some obvious causes of accidents. Every day I commute on a road with thousands of drivers doing 75mph leaving about two car lengths between one another. I assure you, none has ever been cited for "following too closely" until AFTER an accident. (Has anyone?)

I suspect the author of the article BB cited knows very little about stoves, or the article might have mentioned that many stoves already ARE fitted with catalytic devices and many others already ARE designed to burn hot and clean. The author is posing a solution without seeming to know it is already in progress.

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Must viaing for a political posistion eh?

Id honestly be more concerned if your pediatrician did not ask. Ive been to three different pediatricians with my kids over the years and I believe each one of them had on their questionnaire on home environment what your heating source was. Along with pets in the house. Its a real problem for kids with asthma sensitivities. If you have ever been to the ER with a 2 year old in distress its quite the frightening experience.

kennyp2339 said:

Not to make lite of this, but I'm glad we just discovered fire for inside our dwellings, I don't know what man has done for thousands of years.

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Heh for a true eye opener, find a copy of this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Masonry-Stoves-Rediscovering-Warming/dp/1890132098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445004678&sr=8-1&keywords=the book of masonry stoves

Out in the British Isles and maybe elsewhere some of the folks used to live in "black houses". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackhouse

I don't see it mentioned in the wiki article, but in the book they make a point that it was common for folks to sleep inside these - with a fire burning in a pit in the middle, the smoke hanging all underneath the ceiling and often the only "flue exit" was the main door which was left open or cracked. Sometimes a hole would exist in the thatch roofing. The thatching, sooted up from the fire, would be removed in the spring and laid on the fields... and the roof rebuilt. Or something like that.

So folks would sleep low to the ground so they're not breathing the smoke as much, but rest assured there was plenty of smoke and CO being respired throughout the night. From what I recall of that book, this theme was surprisingly common, with the "exterior chimney + fireplace" being a particular innovation used by the Normans to allow them to live & sleep in the upstairs part of the house without being asphyxiated by the fire (which traditionally burned in the middle of the ground floor). This was after they invaded the British isles and were always on watch for natives ready to kill them, so they stayed on the upper floor for a good reason.

The whole idea of *having* a chimney for dedicated smoke exhaust purposes was considered a luxury up until the middle ages or so. Everyone else expected every last BTU from their inefficient smoky fires to stay inside the house.
(note: historians please shoot holes in this argument, it's a rough paraphrase of what I read in just this one book.)

We homeschool, like the 2nd ammendment, used to heat almost exclusively with wood, and are now putting in a new stove in the new house we moved into. Talk about being on all the lists ......

timfromohio said:

We homeschool, like the 2nd ammendment, used to heat almost exclusively with wood, and are now putting in a new stove in the new house we moved into. Talk about being on all the lists ......

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I'm shocked you're not already posting this from Gitmo.

Oh please......

spirilis said:

The whole idea of *having* a chimney for dedicated smoke exhaust purposes was considered a luxury up until the middle ages or so. Everyone else expected every last BTU from their inefficient smoky fires to stay inside the house.

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Perhaps even beyond the Middle Ages in Britain and western Europe, but in Russia and Finland the idea was to get every last BTU from their fires to stay inside the channels of their masonry heaters. That would mean little if any smoke in the dwelling. A hot and quick fire yielded very little in the way of particulate matter, but plenty of heat that was retained by the masonry.

It's a sad reality that such great technology was not incorporated into the homes built during the early settlement of the northernmost states here. I imagine that if the original central heating of my 1700s cape was a well-built and well-designed masonry heater rather than a three-fireplace center chimney system, I could still heat my entire house with wood, in that original heater, about as cleanly and efficiently and cheaply as I do now with a modern EPA stove.

My wife is very ocd when it comes to cleaning and just about anything else,if our stove was making alot of mess or smoke i would hear about it.i do get a bit of smoke on reload but nothing to about

I think there are vastly varying levels of wood smoke in homes that heat with wood. In my house you can barely smell the smoke, because I really don't want my house to smell like smoke so I am very careful. There are plenty of other wood burned homes that smell strongly of smoke. Some stoves barely leak when the door is open, others belch smoke. Wood burning appliances vary greatly in the amount of smoke they release, and there has to be a similarly large difference in the amount of particulates and potential health threats in the homes.