He has an awesome wood stove, a marvel of old tech. He cooks and bakes with it. It's his only stove. His furnace is a high tech wood based boiler with propane backup. This guy has it together. He also otherwise has an extremely low carbon footprint. If wood burning were outlawed, he'd freeze and starve.

What the new federal regulations call for is that NEW stoves sold in the US meet certain particulate matter regulations. Your friend's old stove will never be outlawed, but if he ever decided to replace it he'd just have to buy a more efficient model.

This is just like the "controversy" over federal regulations that shut down sales of old incandescent light bulbs due to inefficiencies. People worry about the increased costs upfront, but the greater efficiency provided means you save money in the long run.

++++

to go through the estates along the I-5 and I-95 corridor, along with coastal beachfront properties and either tear em down or fill em with concrete. They could consult with Arnold Schwarzenegger for methods on the chimney tear downs. Think of the jobs that could be created!

I even came up with a catchy slogan; Operation Clean Chimney Sweep!

Since most of these folks use their fireplaces for aesthetic purpose we could have them replaced with these...

I burn wood occasionally in a very primitive, steel fireplace insert inside a masonry chimney. Basically, I'm using 18th century technology, yet I am hardly polluting at all. What's my secret? I use thoroughly dry wood and pay attention to my fire, adjusting the draft and damper accordingly. I burn so cleanly that after five years since the last inspection and sweeping, the chimney guy this year said that if I stuck to these protocols, I wouldn't need a visit from him for another five years. No creosote and hardly any ash up my stack.

Trying to idiot-proof a wood stove to be smokeless even with wet wood and other stupidity is asking all of us to pay for the actions of a dumb minority that shouldn't be using a wood stove in the first place. A good education program via a public agency such as the state Cooperative Extension services would cost less and do more. Plus education about how to properly manage a wood fire will not further alienate rural voters who might already have the impression that Democrats are rural, elitist, nanny-staters who don't even try to understand the difficulties of country life. Banning simple, efficient wood stove designs, on the other hand, certainly will.

From the article:

The seller came out in his truck and unloaded/stacked the wood.. Only a week or so later did my neighbor realize that only the first 10% or so of the wood was actually dry, the bottom of the stack was fresh cut and practically dripping.

What was he to do? Around here wood is a cash deal and it's actually hard to find anyone selling wood at all despite the fact we have an amazing number of trees around.

I've got over 9 cord tree-length for the next 2 winters sitting in my yard right now. Was delivered a couple of weeks ago.

Or for that matter the upfront money to buy next year's heating wood.

With propane at $6.00 a gallon the demand for wood and the price both have skyrocketed.

We are fortunate to have been able to get, and stay ahead.

$250 for a woodshed that lasts 10 years is a pretty good deal.

That's a bummer. Dishonest vendors cause problems no matter what the technology. It can be mitigated somewhat though by bringing an extra few armloads of wet wood to sit near the stove and dry out while some dry wood is burning. Even a few days near the stove can help, but of course it won't be as good as really dry stuff that has cured for a year or more.

Sorry to hear that your friend got the raw end of a deal.

-app

He's got propane backup. And they're not proposing the outlawing of wood burning.

My woodstove burns about 4 cords of wood each year to heat a 1900sf house. When we're home it is our sole source of heat. The wood is sustainably collected on our 5 acre property (trees grow fast enough around here that 5 acres is plenty).

The stove is about 85% efficient at extracting the BTU value of the log into usable heat. For the carbon cost of about a gallon of chainsaw mix and another gallon of diesel for the tractor, (new trees grow where the old ones fall, so the wood has no net carbon cost) I heat our house for an entire year.

If these rules pass, I'll have to build my own from sheet steel when this one burns out. I don't have the design expertise to build an 85% efficient stove, so...

The new ones are very efficient already, and if you look at net pollution, it seems to me that the wood burning already is less polluting overall.

If the net effect of a law is more pollution, it cannot be a good thing.

folks NOT PAYING their toll for having heat!! I use wood and have no other options.

I would consider this to be a valid argument IF and ONLY IF the big polluters have already done their part to stop polluting... first. It's just another way to make the poor poorer.

Wish there was a smiley thing showing "the bird" for this one.

This only affects new retail stoves, not the ones people are currently using.

I bought a UL certified wood/oil furnace and, after installation, it set me back about 8 grand. It has saved us from losing our home due to rising heating oil costs.
This type of regulation would make it impossible for families of modest means to reduce their carbon footprint by using wood heat, forcing them to accept oil furnaces because they are cheaper at the outset and then condemning them to an existence depending on foreign energy.
And they say humans are an intelligent species.

I HOPE people take the time to understand this too.