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Sunday, January 22, 2006
Enviroment - Wood-fueled boilers stoke pollution debate
"Wood-fueled boilers stoke pollution debate" is the headline to a comprehensive story today by Tim Zorn in the Gary Post-Tribune. Some quotes:
As heating costs soar, more people are using wood-fired boilers — an old technology with a new twist — to heat their houses. But some of their neighbors say the cheaper heat has a down side: air pollution.For more ILB entries, type "wood boilers" in the search box.Unlike a wood-burning stove, a wood-burning boiler sits outside a house in a shed-like structure. Typically, it heats water that circulates around the firebox and then goes into the home’s heating system.
Christopher Furness, who lives in a semi-rural LaPorte County area north of LaPorte, bought an outdoor wood boiler in 2004 to heat his house. “There’s a little bit of independence here,” he said. “Why do I have to be strapped to a natural gas line?”
Roy Horn, whose house sits south of Furness’, said he doesn’t notice the smoke when he’s inside, and he believes Furness has been a good neighbor. But Jim Donnelly, another neighbor, says the boiler’s continual smoke irritates his eyes and throat.
“Fuel bills are high, but that’s no reason to poison your neighbors,” Donnelly said. “I don’t understand how manufacturers can bring out a product that pollutes like that.”
The issue may become more than a neighborhood dispute as environmental agencies are starting to take a closer look at wood boilers. * * *
Wood-fired boilers aren’t for everyone. The first two criteria listed on one manufacturer’s Web site, www.freeheat-machine.com, are access to free or inexpensive wood and living in a rural area. If you have to buy wood for the furnace, one dealer said, outdoor wood boilers aren’t a bargain.
The boiler shuts down when the house’s temperature reaches the desired level; when more heat is needed, a blower starts the fire blazing again. The boiler’s fire smolders when the heating system is inactive. When the fire starts up again, thicker smoke comes out for several minutes. “It’s not a heavy smoke,” Furness said. “It’s not like burning tires.” * * *
The New York attorney general’s report, “Smoke Gets in Your Lungs,” says outdoor wood boilers “may be among the dirtiest and least economical modes of heating, especially when improperly used.”
Even properly used, it said, they emit four times as much fine particulate matter — a lung-damaging form of pollution — as conventional wood stoves and 12 times as much as EPA-certified wood stoves.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set emission standards for new wood stoves. But it has no regulations for outdoor wood boilers. * * *
Indiana is considering its own regulation but hasn’t decided yet what that would be. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management is seeking comments until March 3 on a rule for outdoor furnaces and boilers.
Options include requirements that they be located a certain distance from houses, have certain smokestack heights, burn only clean, dry wood — or no requirements at all. After the first comment period ends, residents will have more chances to weigh in with their thoughts before a proposed rule is submitted to the state’s Air Pollution Control Board.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 22, 2006 12:00 PM
Posted to Environment | Indiana Government