Burning Clean: Wood Stoves and Fire Places

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Bill Baue

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Brian Robertshaw of West Brattleboro, Vermont, worries that his children – a three-year-old daughter and a baby girl – might burn themselves on the family’s wood stove, but he admits that he isn’t too concerned about the health effects of the wood smoke in his home’s air.

"I trained Tansy to keep a safe distance from the hot fire," says Brian, "and then after Ida was born, I put up a child-gate all the way around the stove to keep her from crawling into it."

Yet, with a wood stove or fireplace in use in a home, children can be exposed to "invisible" indoor air pollutants. Wood and gas fires release tiny particles, which can get lodged in the lungs when inhaled. Fires can also produce harmful gasses. Carbon monoxide, an odorless gas, in high concentrations can kill, while nitrogen oxides damage lungs and trigger asthma attacks. These greenhouse gasses also contribute to environmental degradation by producing acid rain. As a result, children living in wood-burning households experience higher rates of lung inflammation, breathing difficulties, pneumonia, and other respiratory diseases.

As of 1992, however, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has inspected all new wood stove models, certifying only those that adhere to strict emissions standards. These certified wood stoves emit half the particulates as older wood stoves, reported EPA researcher Robert C. McCrillis and other researchers in 1998. And EPA certification specifically limits nitrogen dioxide emissions to safe levels. Stoves older than 1992, however, may not burn wood very cleanly. If you can’t afford to buy a new stove, see How to Build a Safer Fire.

Another way to enjoy the glow of heat while reducing harmful emissions is to burn not wood logs but wood pellets made of sawdust and other lumber byproducts compressed together with natural resins that burn almost completely. This "greener" alternative requires a special stove. Pellet stoves have three motors–an igniter to fire the pellets, a blower to fan the fire, and an augur that pours pellets into the fire. This combination reduces the need to open stove doors to feed fuel to the fire, thereby decreasing the amount of smoke escaping from the stove. However, the motors also require electricity, necessitating a backup battery or generator in case of power outages.

Stoves that burn gas, both liquid propane (LP) and piped in natural gas, reduce emissions even further. There are two recommended types:

Direct vent gas stoves draw air from outside to oxygenate the fire, and channel smoke back outside.
B-vent gas stoves draw air from the room, providing it isn’t insulated too well, and channel smoke outside.

Although vent-free stoves purportedly burn exceptionally clean, a 1994 California EPA Indoor Air Quality Guideline recommends against the use of unvented sources, which also includes charcoal grills, hibachis, and portable camping stoves. That’s because, without vents, stoves and grills have nowhere to send pollutants and poisonous gasses but the room in which they are located.

Fireplace inserts increase the efficiency and safety of the hearth by containing the fire behind glass and recirculating warm air. Existing fireplaces can be retrofitted with an insert that permits the burning of wood, propane or gas. Factory-built fireplace inserts come self-sufficient, with their own chimney stacks, and can be installed into existing spaces as well as new homes. However, hearth fires cannot heat large spaces as efficiently as wood stoves. That makes their use more an aesthetic choice – one that should be limited when children are about.

In truth, Brian doesn’t need to worry about indoor air pollution because his wood stove is equipped with a smoke-burning catalyst. Catalysts improve air quality while also increasing a wood stove’s efficiency by incinerating every last bit of available fuel. So, Brian’s main worry these days is charring woolen mittens as they dry on the stove and melting plastic plates left atop the stove by unthinking guests.

Resources:

Combustion Pollutants in Your Home California Environmental Protection Agency Air Resources Board;Indoor Air Quality Guideline No. 2
Health Effects of Wood Smoke State of Washington Department of Ecology
Catalytic Woodstoves HearthNet
Air Emissions from Residential Heating: The Wood Heating Option Put into Environmental Perspective (PDF) by Robert C. McCrillis et al.; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Fireplace Safety Tips Hearth Products Association
Consult the US Consumer Product Safety Commission for product recalls

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Posted by COPDPROBLEM on 12/23/2011 at 11:12 AM

There is no such things as clean burning or a clean burning stove. The US Surgeon General: research shows there is no safe level of ambient wood smoke. Wood smoke is harmful to human health at all levels!

Smoke kills 60,000 U.S. Citizens a year; 3 million world wide. Respiratory illness is largest killer of infants. 120,000 people die each year from COPD.

80% of air pollution is residential indoor/outdoor wood burning; not traffic/industry. Wood smoke is a major source of dioxin, the most toxic substance known to science…Dioxin is passed from Mothers to Babys

One in ten children now have Asthma. Infants who are exposed to wood smoke pollution early in life are 5 times more likely to be diagnosed with Asthma by age 5. Infants exposed to wood smoke have a 17% increased chance of SIDs

The US EPA warns that exposure to a fraction of a nanogram of PAH increases our risk of developing cancer.

When you can’t breathe nothing else matters! The truth about Asthma, COPD, Bronchitis, Emphysema, Cancer and Wood Smoke. See for research studys. http://www.familiesforcleanair.org/myths http://www.BurningIssues.org Facts Sheet on Education page http://www.MomsCleanAirForce.org

4 People die daily in WA from Asthma attacks. Other states have similar death rates. Wood smoke is major trigger. COPD, Asthma. Lung Cancer are increasing. Wood smoke pollution particles are so small that they filter into our homes even with all the doors and windows closed. The level of indoor air pollution is typically equal to 70% of the outdoor pollution level.

120,000 people die each year from COPD.
550,000 hospitalizations per year, 16 million office visits per year, and $13 billion per year in medical costs, including home care.
recent study shows that “At least 93 per cent of those who had COPD were not smokers,”. 23% of COPD occurrs in age group less than 40 years.
It has always been believed that COPD starts occurring after 40 years and above in people who have used tobaco for over 15-20 years. But that isn’t true.

Not just short term intense exposure but also Long term exposure to low-levels od wood smoke air pollution increases the risk of severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Cancer, Emphysema, Bronchitis, Asthma and Allergies..

Woodsmoke contains several carcinogens, including benzene, benzo[a]pyrene, formaldehyde. Burning 1 kg of wood in a modern heater produces more benzo[a]pyrene than the smoke from 27,000 cigarettes; more benzene and formaldehyde than the smoke of 6,000 cigarettes

Burning two cords of wood produces the same amount of mutagenic particles as: Driving 13 gasoline powered cars 10,000 miles each at 20 miles/gallon or driving 2 diesel powered cars 10,000 miles each @ 30 miles/gallon. These figures indicate that the worst contribution that an individual is likely to make to the mutagenicity of the air is using a wood stove for heating

Tobacco use is decreasing; illegal in public places, yet Lung Cancer is the most prevalent, hardest to detect early and treat. It is the number one killer in the USA of all types of cancer. It is the number 2 cause of death from all diseases in the US.

It kills more women then BREAST and CERVICAL cancer combined. There is more then one cause for this increase. Residential Wood Smoke is one of them.

Free radicals produced from wood smoke are chemically active for twenty MINUTES; tobacco smoke free radicals are chemically active for thirty SECONDS. Wood smoke free radicals attack our body’s cells and stress our immune systems up to FORTY times longer then tobacco smoke.

In most areas 80% to 90% of our particulate matter pollution comes from wood burning. For folks with Asthma, COPD, Emphysema, Cancer, Allergies, Bronchitis, MCS this is life-threatening!!!

Posted by Dave on 01/17/2011 at 09:55 AM

New wood burning stoves are a lot more efficient and safer, but its always a good idea to install a carborn monoxide alarm and smoke alarm for extra safety for your family.

Posted by Kevin Wright on 08/10/2009 at 12:47 PM

Thanks for the exposition. Yeah, it’s a nice thing to know these effects of using wood. I will check then the pricing of the charcoal briquettes. I think it will cost more than just the regular wood. I will just compare then.

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