Article: Tougher limits for stoves might backfire

[Knots]

http://www.pressherald.com/news/tougher-pollution-limits-for-wood-stoves-might-just-backfire.html

In my opinion, this is is more than half the problem:

"Most stove change-outs also fail to get at the other half of the problem – burning wet, unseasoned wood and setting low, smoldering fires."


My next door neighbor never gets ahead on his wood. He's burning oak that was split in the spring, but sat in a huge mound in the shade until November. He cleans his chimney every few weeks.

His sons split their oak in November for this years' burning!!

 

[rwhite]

Its seems the EPA always fails to consider the human factor in all of this. As long as a user has control over their stove they can make it burn just as ineffecient as they want. But taking away user control would be difficult (if not impossible and unsafe) because of the variance in fuels. I agree that cat stoves reduce emmisions but how many folks will burn correctly and use seasoned wood (in any stove) to make them work properly? And what is the emmisions released to produce all these cats? They haven't even got the pre-epa stoves changed over and their looking at another change. I would also venture that due to poorly seasoned wood and improper burning that there are many EPA stoves that are burning no cleaner than an pre-EPA model. All I can say is their looking at the wrong problem which is common these day with government (I know I work for them). You have a lot of folks finding solutions then looking for a problem. A common theme is that "inside every small problem is a big one waiting for a meeting to get out"

 

[Todd]

1.3 GPH! Wow, even some cat stoves aren't that good. This will lead to more manufactures going out of business and many jobs lost. I say leave the standards as is and push better burning education.

 

[Knots]

A common theme is that "inside every small problem is a big one waiting for a meeting to get out"

I work for the G too. This is so true.

Oh wait - that's really not funny in most cases...

 

[Knots]

...push better burning education.

Preach it brother. With dry wood, I could get my old "smoke dragon" to only show a heat mirage coming out of the chimney - once it was up to temp.

 

[Adabiviak]

People who burn improperly can still cause even the best stoves to churn out a ton of smoke. Tightening restrictions on stove particulate output won't solve this problem by itself. Todd's got it.

 

[oldspark]

For me this is a big "duh" been saying that for years, you can burn an old stove clean and you can burn a new stove dirty, the person running the stove has a lot to do with what comes out the stack. Not sure where this is headed but I cant help but think its not for the good.
Walking on this ice with this topic but I do think its an important issue that will have a large impact on the industry.

 

[oldspark]

Just read some of the posts from some of the members here, they think all old stoves were "smoke dragons", the term was from poor burning practices not the stove.

 

[tcassavaugh]

......now that brings a question to mind......what are they gonna do about fire places, outlaw them? .....or pit fires....or trash barrels (I know, a lot of places don't allow them). its big oil that's behind it I tell ya