ó Bill Traver has sold wood stoves to customers in
Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia from his small
shop in Hedgesville, W. Va., for nearly three decades,
but over the past few years, heís seen an increase in
because people are finally getting away from gas and
oil," Traver said. "Because they canít
store isnít an exception. According to U.S. Census
data, the use of wood heat in Maryland alone, for
example, grew by 33 percent from 2000 to 2010. Much of
that increase is due to the market ó the recent
economic downturn, combined with increased prices for
oil and propane, has led to many customers switching to
wood stoves and boilers for heat.
as wood heating has grown, concerns over its emissions
have grown, as well ó so much, in fact, that in
October, seven states, along with the Puget Sound Clean
Air Agency, sued the Environmental Protection Agency
over certain high-emission wood boilers.
boilers are different from wood stoves, which heat wood
inside the home. Boilers operate outside a home, using
combustion to heat up water, which runs through pipes
into the home to heat it.
the trouble with older boilers and wood stoves comes
from the soot, smoke and small particles they emit.
1988, the Environmental Protection Agency placed
regulations on stationary wood-burning devices like new
wood stoves. Currently, those rules require catalytic
stoves, which use a device to start combustion at lower
temperatures, to emit less than 4.1 grams of
particulates. Non-catalytic stoves must emit less than
boilers, however, were exempted from the rules. Thatís
made it so even though cleaner boilers are available,
the older, dirtier versions are still sold and used
across the country.
Kays, a natural resource extension specialist with the
University of Maryland, said that even with the concerns
over boilers, wood heat can still be a clean, cheap
option, especially if residents in rural areas use
newer, cleaner wood stoves.
know, renewable energy is focused on solar and wind and
geothermal, but to take advantage of those, you have to
have $20-or-$30,000," Kays said. "But the
average person could buy a wood stove for $2-or-$3,000
and could cut their heating bills in half or more. And
thatís whatís happened. The wood is cheap."
added that wood also has a stable price due to its
steady supply, meaning it wonít vary from year to year
like other fuels such as propane or natural gas.
cleanest-burning wood stoves on the market today emit
about .4 grams of particulates per hour, but older
versions of those stoves can emit up to 75 times that.
Emissions from older wood boilers are far higher still,
averaging about 161 grams of particulates per hour.
its lawsuit, the states wrote that even though new,
cleaner boilers have been developed in the past 25
years, older boilers still in use can cause significant
damage to the environment, and that new regulations
"will result in cleaner and healthier air in the
States, benefitting the health and welfare of their
to regulate older wood heaters has had a big impact on
Marylandís environment. According to EPA data,
residential wood burning accounts for nearly 15 percent
of all of Marylandís small particulate emissions, even
though only 1.2 percent of residents use it as a primary
Brauer, a professor at the University of British
Columbiaís School of Population and Public Health who
has studied the effects of air pollution, said that
those emissions can also harm the health of nearby
the effects are serious respiratory diseases,"
Brauer said. "For people with asthma, it makes it
worse. It can make infections more severe or harder for
you to basically fight the infections...we also see ear
infections, even emphysema."
an example of those detrimental effects, Brauer pointed
to a 2013 study from Australiaís University of
Tasmania that looked at a specific city that relied
primarily on wood burning devices for heat. When over
half of those devices were replaced by other fuel
sources, respiratory-related deaths during the winter in
the city decreased by 28 percent.
thatís really dramatic," Brauer said. "And
itís a really well-done study, so itís hard to poke
any holes in it."
its part, the EPA has added recommendations requiring
new boilers to emit less than 4.8 grams of particulates
per hour in order to meet EPA certification. However, in
most states, those recommendations are only voluntary.
is among the states that has taken steps to fix the
problem on a statewide level over the past few years.
The state added a regulation in 2009 requiring small
wood boilers sold in Maryland to meet the new EPA
recommendations, but those requirements only address new
units, not existing ones.
order to clean up those boilers and older wood stoves,
the state introduced a program in 2012 to provide
rebates of $500 to $700 for residents to purchase new,
cleaner wood stoves and pellet stoves to replace dirtier
Mosier, chief of the Maryland Department of the
Environmentís Air Quality Planning Program, said the
department still receives complaints, but since the new
regulations have gone through, the situation has
been a decline," Mosier said. "Especially
since weíve come out with our regulations since 2009
requiring that any units would have to meet those strict
more states start to regulate wood heat, Mosier said
technology should continue to improve and hopefully make
his departmentís job even easier.
the University of Maryland extension specialist, said
those continual improvements in emissions, combined with
lower costs, should make wood heat a solid option for
heating homes. Theyíre saving a lot of money on energy
costs," Kays said. "Itís much more difficult
in rural areas to get by, and with local wood and these
low costs, this is a great way to get by."