The fine folks over at Alternative Energy Retailer posted the other day a great article about problems with wood stoves and common mistakes that may lead to these problems not being the fault of the unit. In the article “Problems With The Wood Stove? Maybe It’s Not The Stove” it is suggested that many people may be misinformed about things related to their stove which can and will cause performance issues.

The single-wall pipe has a male end and a female end. It is always installed with the male end pointing down toward the stove. Many people say, “Oh, that male end needs to be pointed up – otherwise, all of the smoke is going to come out through the joints.”

But people do not understand the reason that the male end is pointed down is not for the smoke to come out: It is to allow the creosote to run back into the stove from inside of the chimney

The author, Wayne Dooley, continues to explain one of the better starting procedures for your wood stove and that creating a draft and selecting well seasoned wood over damp wood are one of the key ways to reduce smoke upon startup.

A lot of people will put a little bit of newspaper inside of their stove, light it and close the door, because they don’t want smoke to come in their house. When they close that door, they burn up all of the oxygen inside of the firebox, and now it creates smoke. And because there’s no draft to actually pull it out, it comes out wherever there’s an opening.

You need to tell them to make sure the air control is open wide and the door is cocked open. You want that fire to be fed with enough air so it will get the heat to go up the chimney, and you need to have enough heat to push that column of cold air up and out of the chimney to establish a draft. Typically, a person would only need to leave the door open two to five minutes, at most, to create a draft.

The article goes into much more detail about common problems associated with wood stoves due to misinformation given. Give it good read, you just might learn something new, I know I did.

Posted: July 31st, 2008 under Home Heating, Questions & Answers.
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The scale of the Libby changeout – 1,130 wood stoves in a little over two years – makes it the premiere example of a successful changeout program. The Libby experience demonstrates that a wood stove changeout can significantly and cost-effectively reduce harmful emissions. While Libby is in many ways the poster child for a successful changeout, many other areas can benefit from a similar program.

HPBA hopes this report and information on its website – www.woodstovechangeout.org – can help state and local leaders learn how a changeout can make their communities cleaner, safer and healthier.

What is a Wood Stove Changeout?

The wood stove changeout campaign is a voluntary program initiated at the local or regional level that provides eligible communities with a mechanism to reduce air pollution caused by wood smoke.  Residents of participating communities often receive incentives such as rebates, low/no interest loans and discounts to replace their old, conventional wood stoves and fireplace inserts with cleaner-burning, more efficient EPA-certified gas, pellet, electric or wood stoves and fireplaces.  Households that participate in changeouts must surrender their old wood stoves to be recycled.

HPBA Wins Award For Video Production

The Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association (HPBA) and Strat@comm, a Washington, D.C.-based communications firm, have won a Silver Telly Award for their video production “Clearing the Smoke - The Libby Report.”

The award-winning video details an HPBA-coordinated project in the town of Libby, Mont., where local residents replaced their outdated and polluting wood stoves with new technology woodstoves that burn more cleanly and more efficiently.

“We’re very excited that this video, highlighting the Libby, Montana, story, has been awarded the Silver Telly,” says Jack Goldman, president of the HPBA. “This was a story that needed to be told, and the video that Strat@comm produced is a remarkable retelling of the story.”

The Telly Awards pay tribute to local and regional television commercials and productions, as well as non-broadcast video productions.

SOURCE: HPBA

Posted: July 24th, 2008 under Home Heating, Pellet Stoves, Questions & Answers.
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It almost seems as if each day the price of just about everything in the world increases. One those price increases includes the cost of home heating. There are many families who continue to live with the cost of high heating; however, others refuse to. Refusing to pay a large amount of money to heat your home does not mean that you have to go without heat, but it does mean that you will have to find alternative heating methods.

The use of an outdoor coal furnace is a popular heating alternative that is used by a large number of homeowners. An outdoor coal furnace is a low-cost and safe way to provide heat to a home. What many individuals do not realize is that a home is not the only thing that can be heated by an outdoor coal furnace.

Owning and operating a business can be costly even for the most profitable businesses. This is why many business owners try to cut costs wherever and whenever they can. The latest increases in heating costs have left many business owners looking for alternative heating methods for their business. An outdoor coal furnace can heat a business in the same way that it will heat a home. Since the unit is placed outside, a retail store or an office with an outdoor coal furnace will not experience any smells or fumes.

Garages are either attached or not attached to a home. Many times when a home is heated so is the attached garage. Home owners with a separate garage may be looking for a cheap way to heat it. A garage or a shed are one of the many buildings that can use an outdoor coal furnace for heating.

It is also possible for an outdoor coal furnace to heat a farm. Due to the steady decrease in revenues and the increase in heating prices there are many farmers who are loosing valuable money. Purchasing an outdoor coal furnace is a great way to help relieve the costs of heating a barn, no matter what the size of it.

In addition to just heating a building, an outdoor coal furnace will provide hot water. This means that a business owner, garage owner, or a farmer can still complete their daily activities with hot water. It is also important to note that an outdoor coal furnace can provide heat for swimming pools and hot tubs. There are many coal furnace models that are designed to provide heat and hot water to multiple buildings and sources.

Once an outdoor coal furnace has been purchased and installed, the outdoor coal furnace will soon begin to pay for itself. Thanks to this low-cost heating method many families are able to afford more necessities and many business owners and farmers will still be able to operate their business without having to pay outrageous operating costs. Whether you are a homeowner, a business owner, or a farmer you should least consider further examining the benefits of an outdoor coal furnace.

by Harriet Goodrich

Posted: July 21st, 2008 under Home Heating, Outdoor Furnaces, Questions & Answers.
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According to Jeffrey Earl Warren, in his San Francisco Chronicle Op Ed piece just before Thanksgiving, the San Francisco Air Quality Management District announced pro forma public hearings before it takes what everyone is aware is the “Done Deal” act of banning wood fires in its district.Nobody who heats their home with wood is particularly surprised. Though it can no more be proven than the gasoline price fixing here in Humboldt County, it’s a secret to nobody that both the utility industry and the oil industry have been gunning for wood heat for some time. And, because there are no facts to support any environmental claims against wood heat, as Mr. Warren points out in his editorial, the details supporting the need for the ban are (not) surprising lacking.

The scientific method follows a rigid methodology. Ask a question. Do background research. Construct a hypothesis. Test the hypothesis. And then, communicate the results.

So what is the question? Are the fires in our homes bad because they add to global warming? Release carbon dioxide into the air? Pollute the atmosphere with soot and particulate matter? All of the above?

Where is the research?

To answer these questions, and to analyze whether wood heat is green or not, we must consider the three impacts heating with wood has on the environment.

1. Air pollution from the smoke (smog).
2. The impact on air quality inside the wood heated dwelling.
3. Impact wood collection/harvesting has on our forests.

Fortunately there is data available, even though the Air Quality Control Board chooses to ignore it. Let’s consider these points one by one:

Wood Smoke

According to an EPA report in 1993 (EPA-453/R-93-036), wood smoke is comprised of some fifty noxious and lethal sounding chemicals whose names bureaucrats like to toss around to frighten us. But in point of fact these fifty odd chemicals A) are only produced by a smoldering fire (the kind of fire an airtight outdoor wood stove typically produces), B) of the fifty, only a few are carcinogenic, and C) in most rural environments the smoke blows away before it can bother anyone; only in some areas are there inversion layers that cause the smoke from airtight stoves to become a health problem.

Secondly, new high-efficient outdoor wood stoves don’t smoke at all! The emissions from these stoves are only slightly higher than from an oil fired furnace. And the gases are far less complex. Basically carbon dioxide, some carbon monoxide and a number of other gases, water vapor and some not quite completely oxidized bits of hydrocarbons. In more intelligent air quality jurisdictions these EPA approved high-efficiency outdoor wood stoves are permitted where regular stoves and fire places are otherwise banned.

Another valid question is: Does wood smoke contribute to global warming?

The answer is no. Heating with wood is technically carbon neutral. If you factor in the fossil fuels that are burned in its production (chain saw gas, wood splitters, trucks to haul it, etc.) it’s not quite neutral, but still — studies done in Canada show that the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere to produce a given amount of heat from wood is about fifty percent (50%) less that the amount released by fuel oil to produce the same amount of heat, even factoring in the fossil fuels burned to “make” that wood!

Why?

About 50% of the content of wood is carbon that the tree has absorbed from the atmosphere over its lifetime. If the dead wood is allowed to decay (oxidize) in the forest, that carbon is re-released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2) over time. If the wood is burned it is released quickly. This is why, in fact, wood turns black when it burns. The non-carbon constituents (volatile oils, cellulose, etc.) burn off fairly quickly leaving only the carbon. The carbon contains more heat and thus burns more slowly, giving off CO2 gas. But it’s the same amount of CO2.

By heating our homes with wood we are simply tapping into the natural carbon cycle flow of CO2 from the atmosphere to the forest and back again.

Fossil fuels, on the other hand, introduce new carbon to the atmosphere, thus throwing the whole natural balance out of whack. Do it long enough, which we have, and the result is the greenhouse effect we’re now beginning to experience.

And as for the end result of smelly old wood smoke: As particles go, wood smoke that you can see is really big, really gooey, and really heavy. It travels only a short distance (relatively speaking) before falling to the ground where it becomes part of the mix of new, rich loam. Soil for new growth.

Air Quality

This is mostly a matter for each home owner. Obviously, breathing wood smoke isn’t good for you. And like all smog, it’s hardest on young children and the elderly. But choosing a outdoor wood stove that doesn’t smoke every time you open the door is the responsibility of the buyer. Obviously cheaper (or older) airtights are more likely to smoke than newer, more expensive models. High-efficiency outdoor stoves don’t smoke at all when you open the door.

Forest Impacts

In the United States “fuel wood”, as it’s called, normally comes from two sources: A) Hardwoods harvested as part of normal logging operations that are then purchased by firewood vendors, or B) dead fall removal from U.S. Forest Service via the Forest Service’s long standing fuel wood permit program.

While the former may, or may not be sustainable (depending on ones view of any particular logging operation) the latter is a venerable program that allows citizens and commercial firewood sellers to remove only dead and downed wood from the National Forest. Each load must be tagged and logged onto the permit form by the collector for inspection by the Forest Ranger. In the thirty or so years this program has been in operation there has been no apparent deleterious effects to the forests from this very ancient firewood collection practice.

So yes, properly managed and harvested, wood heat is green and is good for the planet. One of the only nearly universal sources of heat for cooking, heating water and our homes available to mankind that can make that claim. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District needs to cop a clue!

Article from Michael Matson’s Alternative Building Services.

Posted: April 16th, 2008 under Outdoor Wood Burning, Questions & Answers.
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CROWN ROYAL STOVES OUTDOOR WOOD FURNACES INSTALLATION GUIDE
ALL INSTALLATIONS AND OPERATIONS MUST FOLLOW FEDERAL, PROVINCIAL, STATE, AND LOCAL CODES FOR WIRING, PLUMBING, INSTALLING CHIMNEY. ALL WORK MUST BE PERFORMED BY QUALIFIED PERSONAL ONLY.

1. Inspect the ground conditions that you intend to install your outdoor wood furnace on. If the area is unstable or has a history of staying wet, you may have to improve the soil with gravel as well as raising the elevation. A cement pad of 4″ - 6″ inches should then be used. The outdoor furnace in most cases can be placed on four cement blocks and they should not be less than 24 inches wide, 24 inches long, 3 inches thick. Obtain the footprint of the model of the outdoor furnace you have purchased. Place your blocks so that the legs will be in the center of them. For a pad, the width need not be greater that the outside width of the outdoor furnace. The length of pad should be as long as the outside length dimension and an added length is desirable as a work area at the loading door. A four-foot extension is most commonly used.

2. Select a tubing product of at least one inch inside dimension, which is rated at 180 degrees F 100 PSI continuous flow. Plan to have no joints, couplings, unions, etc. joining the tube between the building being heated and the stove. The chance for a leak is too great. The pipe should have a construction of polyethylene and an oxygen barrier. Also, mark your feed and return lines prior to covering and allow enough pipe above ground at both ends for a relaxed connection.

3. The supply and return tubing needs to be insulated to prevent heat loss from the outdoor wood furnace. It is recommended that at least 1/2″ of insulating material be used. Both the return and supply pipes can be insulated together so that the temperature drop is minimized.

4. All wiring must conform to local codes. Use an electrical wire rated and approved for underground installations. This wiring can be placed in the same trench below the water lines. Use 12-2 UF wire with ground to provide power to the draft inducer blower, aqua stat, night light, etc. at the outdoor furnace / stove. This is satisfactory for most applications but a state certified electrician must be consulted.

5. There are some products that incorporate the supply and return pipe, insulation, and moisture shield into one product. This is fine, but do not select solid black drain tile, it will eventually crack causing moisture to seep through the insulated pipe and heat loss into the ground. The critical issue is to keep the insulated pipes from coming into contact with the soil, ground water, etc. We recommend using Insul-Seal, which is available in 3″ and 4″. This product is water tight and resists heat loss.

6. The trench must be 24″ deep and 8″ - 12″ wide. If possible have a gradual slope in your trench to allow drainage away from lines and out of the trench bottom. Place electrical supply in bottom of trench and cover with 6″ of gravel or dirt. At this point a water barrier is required. Several methods are possible, but the most important factor is; if ground water comes in contact with your heating lines, it will be the greatest heat loss to your system. A minimum of R10 insulation value is recommended, and a water-tight vapor barrier such as a continuous poly tube of plastic PVC pipe to encase your insulation is a must.
NOTE: If you need to bury lines under an area where vehicles will cross, you should increase the depth of trench to three feet or place planks over the trench in that area to spread the load and reduce the pressure generated on the lines.

7. The supply and return tubing and the power wire can be lowered in the trench, brought through the buildings being heated, and extended a minimum of 36″ out of the soil where the stove is to be placed. Seal the openings around the tubing where it enters the building and seal the tubing where it extends out of the ground at the location where the stove is to be placed.

8. Connections to the outdoor wood furnace are clearly marked. The installation of isolation valves at both ends of the pump is recommended as well as a valve at the return line. This will allow you to shut off water supply for repair or if additional heating components are added to the system. It is recommended that piping used is able to withstand 100 PSI at 180 F, and is at least 1″ (inch) in diameter. 1 1/4″ (Inch) piping is recommended for larger systems. A single junction box at the rear of the furnace is included for your power supply, and should be connected by a qualified person.

9. A hole large enough to accommodate two lines and insulation is required and attention to sealing this point of entry is very important. Be sure to bring pipes, insulation and vapor barrier completely through wall and seal from both sides.

10. You will require either water to water (tube and shell or plate) or water to air heat exchanger (rad) to transfer or extract heat energy from the hot water your outdoor furnace has produced. Your local authorized dealer or certified plumber can design and install a system to best suit your requirements.

11. The Class A stainless steel chimney pipe comes in various lengths, spanning from eighteen (18) inches to forty eight (48) inches. Install each section of piping by placing male and female sections together then twisting them to lock sections together. When installing your chimney piping, it is recommended by the chimney manufacture that it must be laterally braced every eight (8) feet. It is also recommended by the chimney manufacture that the height of the piping does not exceed a total of forty (40) feet.
If additional height is needed, contact your local dealer or Northland Distributing & Mfg, Inc.

Posted: March 20th, 2008 under Outdoor Furnaces, Questions & Answers.
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Americans love having options. Options allow us to select the outcome of a particular situation. An option may be a small as what to have for lunch or as large as how to heat a home. Americans looking to heat their homes have a number of home heating options and that is something that is very pleasing for many.With the high cost of gas there are many individuals who automatically eliminate it as a home heating method. With gas eliminated that leaves coal, wood, and electricity. There are a number of benefits to heating your home with electricity, but there are also benefits to heating your home with wood or coal. For this reason, there are many homeowners who make the decision to purchase a wood furnace or a coal furnace. What if there was an option that would allow you to have both? That option is what is known as a wood and coal burning furnace.

A wood and coal burning furnace is a combination of each individual furnace. Many times the furnace is used as a wood furnace, but there is always the option of using the coal.

Most wood and coal burning furnace owners use the coal only as a secondary backup. If coal is never used in a wood and coal burning furnace it is still nice to have the option to use it if need be.

Having a choice may be the greatest benefit of owning a wood and coal burning furnace, but there are additional benefits. Another one of the most popular benefits of owning a wood and coal burning furnace is the money that could be saved. Using wood and even coal to heat your home is often drastically cheaper than the cost of heating a home with gas. A wood and coal burning furnace can provide cheap home heating for houses of all sizes.

Another benefit of owning a wood and coal burning furnace is the safety that it provides. Since wood and coal burning furnaces are outdoor furnaces they are likely to reduce the risk of a house fire. It is possible for an outdoor furnace to be installed close to the home, but it is often safer when it is a small distance away. The chances of a fire occurring in an outdoor furnace is slim, but if one should occur it can’t spread to the home if it is not right next to it.

As you can see, there are a large number of benefits to owning a wood and coal burning furnace. In fact, the above mentioned benefits are just a few of the many. If you are interested in learning the additional benefits of owning a wood and coal burning furnace then you should get browsing. Simply by reviewing product descriptions and pictures you should be able to see why there are an unlimited number of benefits to owning a wood and coal burning furnace.

by: Erik Holden

Posted: March 13th, 2008 under Outdoor Furnaces, Questions & Answers.
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