Interesting quick segment on our local news station.

On the weather forcast tonight they said that there was an air quality aleart, in eastern NY and western New England states, due to the very cold temps and lack of any wind. Low vallies most prone. Cause---- Wood burning appliances.
Great, just what we need around here to start another debate over heating with wood. The same people who will jump on this, are the same people who were able to block fracking here in NY.
Loren, the Acg.

I saw a bumper sticker that pertains to this: "Environmentalist,, may they all freeze to death in the dark"

The environmental people love me. I wore out from cutting wood for so many years, so I started burning coal instead.

It is my belief that a lot of the pollution caused by wood burning is a result of operator error and/or obsolete appliances, not the concept itself. A modern high-efficiency stove, like the insert we heat with, emits little smoke when used properly. If you burn well-seasoned wood and don't choke the air supply down too soon there is very little smoke that comes out of the chimney.

At this very moment, i'm burning wood,coal and fuel oil, heck if i knew how, i'd split an atom if it kept me warm !!

(quoted from post at 02:34:30 01/15/15) It is my belief that a lot of the pollution caused by wood burning is a result of operator error and/or obsolete appliances, not the concept itself. A modern high-efficiency stove, like the insert we heat with, emits little smoke when used properly. If you burn well-seasoned wood and don't choke the air supply down too soon there is very little smoke that comes out of the chimney.

Click to expand...

It's the same with burning coal. I burn anthracite which is a hard, low sulfur coal. You start the fire out with some well seasoned hard wood. When you have a good bed of embers you start to add the coal and leave the draft wide open to help ignite the first layer of coal. When that first layer is all hot embers you fill the fire box to the top with more coal. When things are working right there is a nice blue flame dancing on top of the coal. In really cold weather I fire the stove once in the morning and then shake out the ash at bed time and add a little more coal. The bad thing is that coal makes a lot of ash, so I have to take a pan full out every day.

I think there is probably more car exhaust fumes than fumes from wood burning stoves. But then, I guess car fumes don't count.

I live in one of those real narrow, low valleys, but in upstate NY. There are times the smoke from a couple of OWB's really fills up the valley, when there is one of those temperature inversion things going on. It looks pretty bad, so I can see how it can catch attention. My little woodstove does its part on those mornings as well.

Tim

For some years now, I have been curious as to just how mankind has survived this long. Between smoke from wood and coal burning appliances, and smoke from steam locomotives, it seems we should have been annihilated from the face of the earth by now.If those people don't have a viable solution, then I don't want to hear about their "problem".

let me start by saying that I heat with wood, it's an add on furnace and I burn dry wood with very little smoke,...but I see the outdoor wood burners smoking like an old steam locomotive,..so I see where the bambi's are getting there ideas to ban from..

I don't much care if the area does smell of smoke or if you can see it. There are lots of things that I can't stand that no one else gives a hoot about. There is such a thing as minding your own business and leaving well enough alone. The enviro-nazis are about the worst of the lot for finger pointing though. We had a bunch in Potsdam NY the other day protesting the Keystone XL pipeline. They drive in from their nice warm homes that are heated to one extent or another through the use of fossil fuels, wear clothing made from fossil fuels, hold signs made of plastic or paper produced with oil and then drive back home, stopping off to shop at Walmart and grabbing a bite at a Arbys or Subway, places all able to exist because of oil.

The hypocrisy is totally lost on them

(quoted from post at 08:35:21 01/15/15) I don't much care if the area does smell of smoke or if you can see it. There are lots of things that I can't stand that no one else gives a hoot about. There is such a thing as minding your own business and leaving well enough alone. The enviro-nazis are about the worst of the lot for finger pointing though. We had a bunch in Potsdam NY the other day protesting the Keystone XL pipeline. They drive in from their nice warm homes that are heated to one extent or another through the use of fossil fuels, wear clothing made from fossil fuels, hold signs made of plastic or paper produced with oil and then drive back home, stopping off to shop at Walmart and grabbing a bite at a Arbys or Subway, places all able to exist because of oil.

The hypocrisy is totally lost on them

Click to expand...

Agree 100% with everything you've said. For some reason, though, the tree huggers seem to be able to get the attention of the gov't people who use the "saving the planet" theme to further their own agenda: building their little empires and wielding power over the rest of us. The EPA and state agencies like them need to be cut down to size. The latest gambit is to try and control ALL water in the USA by eliminating the word "navigable" from the Clean Water Act by "regulations". I can't imagine how bad it will get if that goes through. For years, any low spot that holds water after a rain and cat-tails spring up is subject to be called "wetlands". God forbid if some eco-Nazi sees it. There is a national Wetlands Database and Maps which are inconsistent with identifying wetlands on my property. One map shows an entire 3.5A parcel with a house as being "Wetlands". In fact, the "Wetlands" area on that map encompasses 2 other neighbor's homes, probably 10 A in total. Most of that is manicured lawn, driveway and buildings. On my property, there's an area that was likely graded to move water faster towards a pond that shows up on one map as a blue line (creek). Heck, with one dump truck of fill, I could flatten that right out. :lol:

The problem is that the only people who want to work at the EPA and such ARE the tree huggers. Sensible people who could separate the real polluters from the average landowners couldn't stomach the everyday BS.

The guys firing tires, pvc wiring stripings and old sileage wrap into them as soon as its dark out don't help either.

Just seems most of the owners like to burn huge quantities of wet wood and give the good guys a bad name.

You can tell, early in the morning, the steam plumes rise straight up, some areas can be hazy. The local diner on the other side of our pond, sends up a blueish smoke that settles the whole valley here. Off in the distance, I can see the steam cloud from the Glenmont power plant along the hudson, just over the horizon and or tree tops, its been rising straight up all day. Commercial airlines sure fill the sky with cot-trails.

I'm burning black cherry, well seasoned, get a little steam vapor, a pleasant odor and I don't see it settling in the valley, right now the sun is setting, so its right on the flue. Even with our ancient wood stoves, sure seems clean enough compared to other things.

I can't believe any concern would be long lived, as there is always wind, its been a beautiful day since sun up, I cleared an almost official size hockey rink on the pond with the walk behind.

The environazis suffer from stoplight syndrome. They
claim to be green because they are too yellow to
admit they are really red.