Heating with Wood and COPD

[raygard]

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

 

[Grisu]

A quick search brought this up: http://dawn-salamon.suite101.com/st...k-between-wood-smoke-and-lung-disease-a332041 There are additional links at the bottom of the article. Nevertheless, I agree with others it will be hard to change the habits of a 86 year old. Just showing him those articles will likely not work. I would try approaching it in a more "positive" way like: "We/your grandchildren do not want to loose you." Find him something else to do (the dog idea is not bad) or let him move in with you... I have seen too many cases where people stopped or could no longer do what they liked to do and things went quickly downhill from there. It is a tough situation to be in; I do not envy you.

P.S. Since the change in health came just recently after such a long time of woodburning, I would make sure that not something else is the culprit. Have you checked his home for wet spots, mold, excessive dust due to incomplete cleaning etc.? I he still getting out to get some fresh air? Any changes in diet, beverage consumption?

 

[colebrookman]

I would worry more about his cigarette smoking and the O2 or loading the stove with the O2 canulas still in. And any residual O2 saturating his clothing as he loads the stove. Far more of a problem then a little ash or smoke. But if he has his wits and can make decisions he will tell you and the doc where to shove it. May not the best for him but at that age he has few choices left and a sense of being in control is very important for him to get up in the morning. I've been on many calls where the only thing the COPD patient had to look forward too was a cigarette while holding the O2 at arms length. May not be the correct thing and sometimes it ends tragically. But with the obesity epidemic of our younger generation most will never see 86. Never easy to be a parent or a child but we do our best. Good luck and be safe.
Ed

 

[MarkinNC]

Just for the record I was not saying to let the man die, rather to let him live his life. Back when I was an ER nurse I used to have a a lot of older folks (in the octogenarian crowd) come in dressed in long underwear, in the summer. Older folks really like the warmth of wood heat.

 

[spur0701]

Just a post to close out this thread and let everyone (including those that might find this post sometime in the future when they are doing research) know what I found out.

First, thanks for all the replies.

A little additional background. My father has COPD that is currently in stage GOLD-4 (less than 30% capacity approaching chronic failure) that was mainly caused by smoking from the early 1940s through the late 70s when he quit. He's had this since the late 70's and has controlled it in the last 15-20 years or so through steroid use (predesone plus some others). He also has some heart and kidney issues as well and is now showing signs of dementia. The prolonged steroid use has compromised his immune system resulting in some lung infections that recently required a hospital stay. During that stay the family brought up the issue of the woodstove and COPD with his attending physician, she recommended that he stop using the wood stove because of his COPD. That's what generated my post.

A few days later we had a consult with a Pulmonologists. I brought up the same issue with him and he said he didn't see a problem with the wood stove as long as it was drafting well and there was no smoke in the house, he said his family had had one when he was a kid, he was familiar with them.....the ash and other particulates shouldn't pose a problem. He did say that wood smoke was a major source of COPD; however, that mostly consisted of women in the third world cooking over wood fires.

Lastly, I canvased the nursing staff over the week my dad was in the hospital....not about COPD but the credibility of the doctors. The Pulmonologists had a great rep, the attending was nothing special.

So I convinced the family to drop the issue.

 

[pen]

Updates are always appreciated.

Good luck to you, your father, and family.

pen