Posted on 02/07/2015 6:36:42 AM PST by xzins
When my husband and I move to a new area, we specifically look for a home with a wood burning stove. It’s cheaper and if the power grid goes down, we have a way to survive it. Yep, we’re preppers. These regulations are meant to do away with wood stoves and force people to get their heat from gas or electric, paid for at exorbitant rates from utility providers. In some areas, even with gas or electric, the only way to truly keep a home warm is with a wood or pellet stove. This is more of the EPA’s fascist heavy handedness, trying to control all we do and force us into behavior and routines like you would livestock. The EPA can pound sand as far as I’m concerned.
From the Daily Caller:
The EPA has finalized a 344-page rule to make wood stoves more environmentally friendly, meaning that millions of Americans will soon be forced to buy more expensive wood-fired stoves.
Republican lawmakers have opposed the rule, saying it would harm millions in rural America that rely on wood stoves to heat their homes every winter. With natural gas and electricity prices on the rise, wood stoves can be an economical choice for many living in the countryside.
“The EPA’s shortsighted regulatory overreach is once again hitting hardworking Montanans in their pocketbooks,” said Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines.
Some 2.4 million American households rely on wood stoves for heat. When the agency proposed the rule last year, critics argued 80 percent of wood stoves in use would not meet tightened standards and consumers would never be able to buy them brand new — raising energy costs for millions of people during the coldest times of the year.
“Thousands of Montanans rely on wood burning stoves for affordable, cost-effective energy — yet once again, the EPA is moving forward with new, costly regulations that could stand in the way of Montanans’ access to new residential wood heaters or burden Montana families with higher costs,” Daines said.
But EPA claims the rule will save lives while only costing $45.7 million per year. EPA also argues that forcing people to ditch their wood stoves will result in 360 to 810 fewer death per year from reduced emissions of carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds.
“To the extent that children and other sensitive populations are particularly susceptible to asthma, and that minority populations and low-income populations are more vulnerable, this rule will significantly reduce the pollutants that adversely affect their health,” the EPA said in regulatory documents.
The finalized version of EPA’s rule also gives manufacturers more time to make and certify stoves that emit fewer pollutants. Politico’s Morning Energy notes that “[c]ompanies that make small wood-burning forced air furnaces will have to meet first-step emissions limits by 2016, with large furnaces having until 2017.”
“All sizes have to meet second-step limits by 2020,” reports Politico. “EPA will also allow conditional certification for up to a year for several devices if the manufacturer gets an EPA-accredited lab to certify an emissions test.”
[…]
Wisconsin Republicans State Rep. David Craig and State Sen. Frank Lasee introduced legislation to prevent state regulators from implementing the EPA’s wood stove rules. Craig and Lasee argue the rule will only serve to raise energy prices for state residents and hurt manufacturers. Missouri has also introduced a law to block the EPA wood stove rule.
“The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to introduce regressive standards that hurt Wisconsinites, particularly low income families who rely on wood heat,” said Craig.
States such as Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Wisconsin and other states that have very rural areas are not likely to take this sitting down. It will hurt millions of people and many just won’t be able to afford to get a new, more expensive wood stove. This has nothing to do with asthma or pollution either. That’s just another piece of governmental propaganda. It has everything to do with controlling energy and resources and wait for it… money. Like doing away with coal, this will also cause energy prices to skyrocket even more. We don’t have to see Russia from here anymore… we’re living in it.
Based on your post, I’m going to assume you are not a blood-sucking, liberal progressive. Am I close?
Because fiddling with advanced statistics can help you rationalize banning something you don’t like.
Pollution, as a whole, causes a quantifiable number of premature fatalities. Wood stoves put out a quantifiable level of pollution. By reducing the pollutants produced by wood stoves, they conclude they have reduced the pollution-caused premature fatalities by 360 to 810. Apply the Leftist imperative to “do something”, and they proceed to ban sale of wood stoves producing more than the legislated quantity of pollutants. Never mind that unintended consequences might lead to more premature deaths than the statisticians concluded they are preventing...
It’s actually just an engine. You have to hook its shaft to a generator to create electricity. And, yes, you’d then have to either store it or hook it up.
And they don’t care, because you will submit to their decrees.
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
George Orwell
1984
Sales records of unapproved stoves?
There’s no end to meddling if you have a motive for it
My grandma cooked some great food on one close to that.
I’ve never had biscuits that came close to hers. Anyplace. My uncles swear it was the wood stove. I’m inclined to agree.
I wish this would start massive push back!!!
This is the kind of government intervention that gets the attention of average folks ‘cause it actually goes to their level and is visible. You come tell them they have to spend a bundle of money to replace their otherwise perfectly functioning stove, and they get bitterly PO’d pretty quick.
Wanna bet ?
I think about all the tax money they lose on fuel, and I’m ore convinced than ever that this is about money. Not only do they lose the utility taxes, but the wood is either self-produced or bought via cash exchange from a neighbor or local.
They are not going to take away your Tukavi. That is the type of stove they WANT people to be using. Expensive masonry heaters like yours are just as efficient as most oil furnaces. The law is to get people to stop using OLD inefficient wood stoves that are typically only 50-60% efficient. These are the old box stoves, Franklin fireplaces and the original outdoor furnaces. Nh and most other states already have outlawed the sale of the outdoor furnaces that were only 50% efficient. These things put out so much smoke your neighbors would hate you. The only way you could afford to run one of those is if you had a lot of free wood. Say thirty or not acres.
What they want is to get people to upgrade to the higher efficiency wood and pellet stoves that have been built in the last ten to twenty years. Products made by companies like Jotul, Vermont Castings, Lopi, Quadra Fire, Harman, Woodstock Soapstone, or any of the other top brands that are recommended on websites like heath.com
Any of the above mentioned brands and masonry heaters like yours are 70%-80% efficient. That puts these appliances in the same efficiency range as most oil fired furnaces.
FYI, I am typing this from my family room in NH sitting ten feet away from my Harman pellet insert. The best heater I have ever owned. At my old house I had a Jotul 3 wood stove. The best selling small wood stove in the world. When we moved to this new old(1972) house I was going to install another wood stove. I narrowed it down to a Woodstock Soapstone Progressive Hybrid wood stove. This is the most efficient wood stove on the market today. The next closest is made by Lopi out in WA.
Mrs. Woodbutcher convinced me to go with the pellet insert. I wish I had switched to a pellet burner ten years ago. Now I buy four tons of pellets in September when they go on sale at the big box stores. I built a shed on the side of the driveway that can hold up to five tons. We are burning about one and one half bags per day. We fill it once in the morning and once before bed. My wife empties the ash pan and gives it a light cleaning once a week. I give it a thorough cleaning once a month. When it is burning you do not even see smoke coming out of the flue pipe. They is no wood smoke smell.
Good post, interesting info.
What is your typical cost / ton of pellets?
I’m not certain that this regulation applies to installed wood stoves, but rather to the manufacture and sale of new ones?
Hope it doesn’t, I’ve got a vintage Buck Stove fireplace insert in the den that my mom loves, works quite well, blower and all. Got an antique wood cookstove in the basement, spent $600 last year to get it back into working order, so it now works quite well. Fireplace with damper in basement, too. Three flues, solid masonry chimney. It gets used, no gas logs. I’d hate to lose that, or be forced into a lot of additional expense just to use it.
Instead of double stud Walls why wouldn’t you just spray foam?
Six inches of foam is R50. This is more than enough R value in a sidewall of any house in the lower 48. Heat rises, where most houses lose heat is through their ceiling.
Also, spray foam eliminates the need for a vapor barrier. The least expensive way to get at least R fifty in your attic is blowing in bonded cellulose about twelve inches minimum. Your other main losses of heat are through your doors and windows. Lastly, NEVER, EVER, EVER install a skylight in your roof. However, if you do super insulate your house you better install an air to air heat exchanger.
The problem with ninety percent of houses are that they do not have enough insulation. Heat loss causes problems like ice damming, leaks, etc. If you have a super insulated house you could practically heat it with incandescent bulbs.
When I decided to buy the pellet stove heating oil was over $3/gallon. That means it would cost over $3000 to heat this 2700 square ft house in the winter. With the cost of a winter’s worth of pellets being about $1000 I figured the ROI of the stove would be about two and one half years. Now that the price of oil has dropped, my break even is three to four years.
Thanks!
A good economic move I’d say.
Plus the secure feeling of knowing that you’ve got the full winter supply on hand ahead of time.
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