Heating Help

ban it all

I guess we need to ban oil heat, too. Those dang things stink up my entire neighborhood! Then again, that's not as bad as barking dogs. If my neighbor doesn't shovel his fair share of the snow, can I ban him? Be careful what you wish for. Every time you ban something or pass laws restricting someone's rights, it has a funny way cf coming back to haunt you.

there woiuld be no need to ban or pass

laws regulating them IF the owner operators followed the instructions :) If an OWF owner choses, against the manuals instructions, to burn garbage, wet wood, old diapers, etc. And he lives up wind of other folks sensitive to pollution, and foul odor, that's where it gets messy. The folks that operate their stoves in that manner generally don't take advice or requests from neighbors very well. It's two issues really. The stoves could certainly be made to burn more efficiently, although the cost would go up, possibly considerably :) The second being operator error. The manufactures could address the first issue, but.... hot rod To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Manufacturers are part of the problem

I have seen operator manuals that state "our unit will even burn green wood". DUH! Well of course it will. Pretty much any OWB will digest green wood once a fire is established. The under fire forced draft most of these units employ will burn about anything. The question becomes one of efficiency. How much energy is wasted burning off the excess moisture content instead of putting the heat in the water? That's what they don't tell you. Just another one of a long line of wild claims I've seen from the majority of these manufacturers. 85% efficiency???? When pigs fly!!

We just bought our wood burning furnace / stove!

We just finished building our new home & spent $10,000.00 setting up our out door wood burning stove / furnace!! It works like a dream! We have radiant heat flooring throughout the house & it doesn't cost us a dime to heat anything. We have a large house (7000SF) & couldn't possibly afford to live here if we had to heat it from our oil furnace!!! This law is very upsetting to us & I don't know what we are going to do. We live on 3 acres in a fairly rural wooded setting in Suffolk County. We researched the stove & read that it was more enviornmentally friendly than burning fossil fuels.Any ideas? Are they going to reimburse us for all the money we invested? Will they pay our heating bill or will we be forced to sell our new home.?!

Don't tell anyone

So whats next, you can only use your fireplace on certain days of the week- maybe when the kids are not in school ? And if the high relative humidity and fog can't start a fire. These lawmakers need to find some other pet project. This is a wheel barrow fuel of BS

The big question is.........................................

Was it all installed prior to the passage of the law AND did you get permits for it AND a C. of O. IF you did, you will likely be able to leave it. If not, you will face an uphill battle. Was this installed by a Professional? You could always wait and see what happens; it is usually nosy neighbors that call the town. Keep us posted. Mad Dog To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

I don't like urbanization

encroaching on rural life either. The problem is I can't afford to buy a hundred acres and build a house in the middle of it. God, I wish I could. Kids should be taught to respect other people's property... not to regard property owners with contempt because the property owners have to try to teach the kids to respect their property. Deer hunters walk through my yard, less than 100 feet from my house. Honest to God, they have stood off a drive in the edge of my yard. Come on now... what deer hunter doesn't know better than that? That's the reason people don't like deer hunters. What do I care if someone goes hunting a half mile or more in the woods? The problem is... they don't want to go in the woods... that's too much effort... they want to go in my yard, hunt off of four wheelers, and road hunt up and down the public road in front of my house. How many people have enough property on which to to run a four wheeler? How many four wheelers are sold? They buy the loudest d@%n thing they can find, and run it up and down in front of my house on the public road as fast as it will go, constantly on every nice day. Hey folks... who doesn't know that's illegal? I have lived in a rural area all my life... this is my home...how about some consideration for me? I suppose if I call the cops, I'm the one who's unreasonable, huh?

NO! I don't think you are unreasonable........................

However, I find that you are VERY frustrated with the dopes living around you and If I were YOU, I would take some action on the tresspassing. Mutual firepower and a calm demeanor (Theo Roosevelt: "speak softly and carry a big stick and use when you have to.") Make MOST problems just...GO AWAY. Is it the Smoke from the wood boilers OR the just general Lack of neighborly respect that is bothering you most? Look, You are talking with someone who does not care for quite a few of his neighbors. I agree that all too many peolpe to-day are all out for themselves and VERY inconsiderate. Mad Dog To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Yeah Bob,,,,,,I think his pickup is burnin dirty

lets call the gestapo and have it siezed! Scary! Mad Dog To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

The stupid way is always the worst choice

Trespassing smoke is something to be dealt with zoning boards - everything is already in place. Go set yourself up in heavy industrial zone and you can send all the smoke, vibration and noise onto your neighbors. If you're in the medium industrial zones you may only send stuff off into your zone boundaries. Lastly, in light industrial zone everything has to remain within your property limits. This goes on with increasing protectiveness through commercial areas up into the most pampered residential zone. It goes for all sorts of other stuff too, like noise, commerce, lighting... My point is, whatever disagreement there may be between neighbors, it should already be solvable with the existing zoning laws. Adding boiler police to monitor fuel moisture is most intrusive. Either the zoning rules are a waste and should be repealed, or, we don't need boiler bans. This is just a gimmick to trick us into more government and more lost freedom. The coasts are falling into the oceans. Next, we'll be stuck in fear trying to impossibly prove the negative that all our boilers are indeed not polluting rather than simply suing a neighbor for stinking up the whole neighborhood. (Rather than suing, I think just talking and explaining is already a good starting point) :) What would I talk about? Easy. Cutting wood and refilling the outdoor machine is a huge job. Handling the tons of wood is a back breaking task - no one can deny this. This makes the wood we shove into those ovens a very expensive fuel, OK, not on a solid cash basis, but the expense is there nonetheless and the wood is precious enough to not want to let it escape without burning. What does the cash look like? Just like logs. Drop one on the foot and it hurts. Turn one into a cloud of uncondensed (but burnable) creosote and it will hurt you to tears watching that hard cut wood leaving your stack as a cloud of unburned fuel. Smoke makes me cry. You further need to scrape loads of soot from the flue passages? What do you think that is? It's plainly the carbon essence of wood all concentrated into black stuff. Hard work to put into the boiler, hard work to scrape out. Those clouds of smoke and other unburned wood are costing the boiler operator a huge amount of work. Think a cloud of pure C carbon and CO carbon dioxide weighs nothing compared to a cord of wood? think again. A bunch of us posted on that topic a little while ago. Check it out. Ponderous word diets The same link http://forums.invision.net/Thread.cfm?CFApp=2&&Message_ID=324272&_#Message324272 Old time coal boiler operators would be furious about the way we operate most outdoor wood boilers. Reading the way fuel efficiencies were obsessed about more than fifty years ago leaves us today with not much to be proud of (and most of what was done in the near sixties and seventies is truly an embarrassing shame). To get good wood burning, you imperatively need a bunch of things: ** Draught - must have a forced fan This used to be provided by solid brick and mortar stacks. This was cheap, easy and efficient. Today, electric fan draught does the trick with equal performance and huge convenience. Since solid stacks are not often an option, forced draught is a must. Unaided metal stacks do nothing to help - they have no mass and thus no draught except for when the fire is raging. ** Keep combustion hot hot hot - must have a brick fire chamber Shovel wielding coal stokers would get kicked for keeping fuel doors open. This cools the fire and stops emerging gasses from burning. That's how you smoke. Getting hot for fire is impossible in a cold water wall metal fire chamber, thus, getting full combustion is impossible without fire chamber walls lined with refractory ceramic. The water wall can be behind all this, and you can extract the heat from the flue passages well enough downstream of the complete fire. Good oil burning boilers do the same, they have lined fire pots. Don't spend your money on anything not refractory lined, boiler or plain indoor stove. Gasification units are a fancy way of doing this, but the old coal burning stoves (brick lined) did it all just as well and without any complication. ** Control - must have primary and secondary air schemes Wood burns in two folds, first it burns at the log all the while it outgasses a lot. Most of the wood is first converted into gas. This gas then needs to burn itself, this happens above the fire bed and requires air again. Feed no secondary air and you get lots of unburned gasified wood leaving your smoke stack. A wasted shame. Control the amount of fire you want with the below the grate primary air shutter. Control the zero smoke with the secondary air shutter usually set in the fuel loading door. You need both. The two tasks are not similar at all and cannot be done from one shutter alone. No matter what brochures say. This also means you need a grate... You can't either shut both air supplies and hope for the fire to go into suspension. A smolder will only let you see your wood leave up the flue without rendering much of any heat. If you have the primary air, you can throttle that one, and then still play with the secondary air to fully burn whatever minimal amount of wood will burn. Close the secondary air and get smoke. ** There, isn't it all very easy to get the max out of the wood we so painfully harvest? Doing anything less is not worth it. Equipped this way, it is totally possible to burn anything (including some moderately wet wood) without any smoke at all and without ever blackening the inside of the boiler or the flue passage. Total combustion. No smoke. No cleaning the flue. Less wood to burn. Less ashes to remove. Happy neighbors. Where's the down side? It only takes the careful purchase of the good product. Price is not even the issue here, they're all over the place. Farm shows have huge assortments of wood burning equipment and it's fun to go pet the cows alongside the boilers. I operate one old residential coal stove on wood and all my secret junk mail and with good draught I produce no smoke at all and no smell. It hasn't needed any flue sweep in years. It's easy. Also, as a company we used to have a tremendous client with huge stand-inside wood burning boilers filled with... burning hot oil, not steam... :( ... We provided adjustments, equipment and repairs. ** Now, who's against the smell of barbecue? Hmmmm, the smell of kerosene lighter fluid always puts me in the mood for air travel.

I actually don't

have issues with my neighbors... none of them have a wood boiler. I hope it stays that way. You seem bound and determined to blame the lack of consideration on the wrong people. The people with the wood boiler spewing smoke are the problem... not the people who don't have it, but have to breathe it. I have lived here 28 years... how about articulating some reasons why I should be compelled to breathe someone else's stink?

For people with Asthma this can be a major issue

Years ago there was a requirement in certain parts of the country that only fireplaces furnaces or boilers with catalytic converters that passed certain emmission standards could be used due to the health hazards associated with wood smooke. The outdoor furnaces are not "fireplaces" and thus exempt. It's and issue - and a health issue for many - and I think you will see much more restrictions in the future. Perry

Nobody's oil burner belches smoke even close to what those things do. The snow thing... I have no opinion. Someone who doesn't go out and shut up his dog sould be fined... or even better... tied beside his dog, under the same conditions. I lived beside a moron whose dog barked every night for 10 years. How inconsiderate, and obnoxious should a person be allowed to get before there needs to be an intervention? What I wish for is for others to respect my rights as well as I respect theirs. I'm not making noise, or a stink on their property. Whatever you do has to stop at your property line... As long as what you do stays in your property line and doesn't effect me, I don't care what you do.

clickable link

Thanks for the info. Here's a clickable link. http://www.tarmusa.com/wood-gasification-info.asp

HPBA.org

If you contact the Hearth, Patio, and BBQ Assn, they have people working closely on this. This sort of legislation, which is typical of New England ( not well thought out or investigated) is dangerous. How do you define "seasoned" fireword? How do you define "firewood"? I'm serious. People burn anything. If I burn old pallets in an outdoor boiler, amd I exempt? What about biomass fuels? If I use my moisture meter on my wood, what is an acceptable range, do I take an average, and what are the specs. of the test equipment? Temperature compensated analyzer or just wing it myself? Yes, these boilers produce tons of heavy smoke that seems to blanket some entire neighborhoods. However, panic legislation is never the way to go.

It would be easier to

Just ban them without trying to create exemptions. . I am at the head of the line for personal property rights and not having government interference, but whatever you do... be it music, noise, smoke, stink or whatever... has to stop at your property line. You'd think someone would be embarrassed or have a little more consideration for his neighbors, than to be spewing smoke like that. If not, I guess somebody has to legislate some consideration for them.

I think they should be banned

three of them stink up the whole valley for about three miles on my way to work. What I'm talking about are outdoor boilers. No one should have to put up with that from his neighbor. Thank God no one has one near me. I'd have to put up some kind of complaint. What I think is odd is that two people who have them, told me on two separate occasions... "I can burn a whole deer in them"... like that was some sort of a good thing... what kinda nonsense is that. I think the whole concept is just stupid, besides being unhealthy.

I am puzzled

What is it about an outdoor boiler that makes it smell bad?

Heard about this about a year ago and heard it had gone thru

I guess it is now. I do think they mean outdoor wood boilers, and I don't like it. I can see the wisdom where house are tight though. Mad Dog To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Suffolk Bans Outdoor Wood-Burning \"Furnaces\"

Possibly they mean boilers. Is this a big problem? Or maybe just someone inluential has a neighbor with one that they do not like? HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. (AP) -- Suffolk County is banning outdoor wood-burning furnaces - which have gained in popularity has heating oil and natural gas prices have risen. However Legislator Jack Eddington said the outdoor boilers create a smoke condition that can affect an entire neighborhood. A similar bill last year was vetoed by County Executive Steve Levy. But Eddington said he worked with the county exec to make the bill more agreeable. The bill approved by the county legislature Wednesday bans the sale and operation of any outdoor furnace by 2010. And for the time being, existing furnaces are: - Restricted to October 1st through May 1st; - Can't be used within 200 feet of a school, daycare, nursing home or park; - Can only use seasoned cord wood; - And must have a chimney at least 15 feet high. The law is expected to be approved by the County Executive and will take effect 180 days after being filed with the State.

Doesn't seem right to me. Outdoor boilers are an appliance and therefore not subject to permitting requirements. NYS DOS has already issued this interpretation. I think if the county wanted to ban them it would be a more restrictive local requirement, which would have to be approved by the state before it could be legally enforced. I could be wrong. However, just because you have an outdoor boiler does not mean you have the right to burn whatever you want. As soon as you disturb your neighbors, you are violating the law and are subject to ticketing. Seems to me they are just going to ban them because it is easier then sending somebeody over there to ticket them for burning tires/green wood/etc in their boiler. Tim

My guess

is that they're talking about fire pits.

Wood Burning

I assume that those drafting legislation are familiar with the operation and differences of design of wood burning "furnaces". :-?

Fire pit?

Makes me picture just a hole in the ground with a fire in it. Do you mean those chimineas (spelling?) that people put on their deck (looks like a giant gourd or bottle) ? I figure they mean outdoor woodburning boilers.... the deck warmers wouldn't be popular because of fuel price risings. "Furnace" kinda implies something to help heat inside the home instead of oil or gas fuel. Not sure how either is much different than having a wood burning fireplace/stove in your house. Exept that the chimney is way up higher so the smoke is not at ground level.

Yes,

we have one in our yard and I use it all summer long. Baseball on the radio, a fire in the pit, a beer in hand. Gosh, I hope this doesn't spread to Nassau.

My new neighbot a city firemen Burns his year round

I happen to love the smelll,,,reminds me of "upstate" Mt Russian comrades next store do ALL their BBQ on a outdoor wood stove.....Some neighbors HAVE called to FD though. Don't worry Dan, I do think it is Wood boilers which do kick out mega amounts of smoke. Where would they stop? No BBQs next? Yes, some would have it that way. Mad Dog To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Link to wood boiler eff report

Awhile back I think someone posted a link or PDF file location for the report of testing on the Outdoor wood boiler efficiencies. Can someone repost so I can find it...Thanks Paul

Read This:

http://www.sawmillmag.com/ Open "Feature Article" "In Search of Standards" Its one of them pdf files. ps- whats with having to type that funny little passwork thingy in to post?, aint seen that before....

in the dark

I'm in the dark what's gasification? Is it like a afterburner or air blower injection? Knowily I will get answers from the fellow wallies.... Thanks

no pdf

This explains it better than I ever could. No Adobe Acrobat needed: http://www.tarmusa.com/wood-gasification-info.asp

Thanks Eric !

Thanks for the info... Now my hat is alittle tighter with new information or its time for me to get a haircut..

They burn inefficiently

about 40% at best, under lab conditions. Now start burning trash, green wood, wet wood, utility poles, old tires, etc and you get the pictures :) Very little heat, mega smoke and dirty emissions. The EPA just posted an emission standard for wood burners check it out here at the site shown below. So far it is a volunteer standard, but some areas are already starting to ban dirty burners. Plenty of good info at woodheat.org also. http://www.epa.gov/woodheaters/ hot rod To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Inappropriate siting

Unlike woodstoves, wood-fired boilers, furnaces and other central heating appliances are not regulated by the EPA, so like hot rod said, they make a lot of smoke even under fairly ideal conditions. It wasn't a problem when they were installed out in the country by people who had an abundance of free firewood and no neighbors close by to be bothered by the smoke. Put one downwind of your house or farm, and get cheap to free heat. Unfortunately, they're currently being sold and installed in populated areas by people who don't have a source of dry wood and who all-too-often seem oblivious to their impact on the neighborhood. Some cop an attitude when asked to do something about the smoke, and that gives all wood-burners a bad name. In addition to hot rod's links, there's a nice group of progressive wood burners at hearth.com who have a perspective on the issue.

\"Stop at the property line.....\"

Ha! You should try living down here in Long Island...houses VERY close......the house next to mom's was 7'!!!!!! away from us. The ONLY thing that truly works or deters RUDE people is payin them back..on THEIR terms. Maybe YOU need to get an OWB and smoke them out....then they might understand. Mad Dog To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Yep, I think your'e correct Tim

The feel-good approach...meanwhile folks dump ALL kinds of stuff down their drains and oil in the catchbasin. Mad Dog To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Trying to understand

I do not know much about outside woodburning boilers. OK, provided you burn dry wood suitable for woodburning stoves/fireplaces (i.e. no green wood, no pine, no pressure treated, no painted scraps, no garbage, no tires, no deer carcasses).... would an outdoor woodfire boiler still smell bad or make more pollution than an inside fireplace/stove?

stick your combustion analyzer

in the flue to answer your question :) From what I have learned and experienced the best way to burn an efficient solid fuled stove, boiler, furnace, etc is via the gasification process. Same for coal plants. Virtually every wood or biomass boiler shown at ISH, and there were hundreded! were gasification. I believe that wood or pellet burners need to be listed to be sold and installed in many European countries. The data I see indicates low to mid 80% efficiencies for gasification boilers, or twice as efficient as many OWB's. My first hand experience showed a 50% reduction in wood use when I switched to a gasification wood boiler. Oddly enough years ago we had clean burning wood stoves. Rembember the Earth Stove? Many wood stoves used cataylic cobverters to clean up the emissions. May be we need to re-examine that techonlogy. Although I'd rather that secondary burn INSIDE the boiler to better recapture the energy before it hits the chimney. Burn 'em hot if yiu got 'em. hot rod To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

yes

The short answer is "yes." Modern woodstoves (not fireplaces, which are also big polluters) are designed to burn off the smoke and other gasses for greater efficiency and much lower emissions. Some use catalytic elements, while others have special secondary burn chambers to do essentially the same job. It's tougher with boilers, because the water jacket doesn't allow enough heat in the firebox for catalytic combustors or secondary burn schemes to work very well. Downdraft gasification does work well in boilers, however, but very few OWBs currently use gasification technology. For one thing, you need consistently dry wood to make a gasifier work right. The only reason that woodstove manufacturers came up with cleaner, more efficient designs is that they were forced into it by the EPA. For some reason, the same rules and regs did not apply to central heating appliances. But that will probably change, thanks in part to the "big stink" being raised about OWBs. Dry wood seems to be the key. Anyone who has ever heated with wood knows that keeping an adequate supply of dry wood on hand can be a challenge. Heck, heating with wood is a challenge, but one that some of us enjoy.

I don't think it's right

to insinuate that the neighbors are the one's who are unreasonable or at fault with the phrase "nosy neighbors". There is a reason that these things are being banned... they smoke and they stink. It is the neighbors who are forced to breathe that stink. By the way, the neighbors may not be that crazy about hearing a chainsaw running either. Kinda like a wave runner on the beach or a lake...Everyone else's peace is ruined for one person's benefit. You ask if the county will compensate you for your expenses. Will you compensate the neighbors for the loss of of the full enjoyment of their home or the loss of their health ? Even if it was possible to heat a 7000 sf house from a 3 acre lot without spending a dime ( which I doubt ), that is not the reason they are being banned.

I see them

I see them smoking 24/7. I have to wonder how many people using these burners spewing all that smoke care nothing about the rights of people who smoke. Is there really any difference? People only follow what suits them in this day and age. I have a neighbor two houses away who uses a conventional wood stove. In the fall I have searched my house for the source of the smoke smell fearing a fire. It took a while living here to figure it out. This is a very old congested neighborhood I live in. Leo

Don't be so touchy Realolman........

Just stating my experiences. Obviously, you have issues with YOUR neighbors over the smoke. Just a question...were they there before you lived there? Mad Dog To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Yes, Phil the fire is usually larger

and more intense....think about it...its not about aesthetics or a little supplemental btus, these puppies ARE the heat fot the home or bldg. I think it comes down to the same old story of urbanization encroaching on rural life and THAT I do not care for. It reminds me of people who move next to a school and then complain when kids cut across their lawn everyday; people who move to the woods and then complain about Deer Hunting that their neighbors have done for hundreds of years; and the folks who buy next to a farm only to complain that the Rhode Island Red wakes them very morning at 4:30am. Then there is the reality of the situation: When houses are close, there must be restictions, perhaps 1-2 acre minimums. Mad Dog To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Good gun story Mad Dog

I saw it in the dentist office. It was the cover of "Newsweek" or something from about Jan or Feb 2007. Wish I had it, I'd send you a copy. Anyway,you can't miss it- it will have a couple skanky looking young women on the cover named Britney and Paris. (I'm not being nasty, they look ROUGH) Anyway, the article is written by a liberal woman who finally bought a shotgun to execute a cardinal after two maddening years of the thing attacking his reflection in the windows of her solar home. She says to the gun-store owner. "I suppose you don't get too many liberal women in here." and he says, "You'd be surprised. A gun is only evil until you need one!" It was a great article. You'd enjoy it. Kevin

You are correct, Kevin................................

Even the most virulent anti-gun folk....will BEG AND WISH they had a loaded firearm when they hear the footsteps downstairs....they are half asleep.,. Fritz The German Shepard died last year.and OH MY the phone ain't workin, honey........ Mad dog To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"