Wood Boilers Cut Heating Bills. The Rub? Secondhand Smoke.

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR
Published: December 18, 2006 New York Times

Their owners proudly proclaim that they reduce dependence on foreign oil - and save thousands of dollars on heating bills each year.

Neighbors say that they create smoke so thick that children cannot play outside, and that it seeps into homes, irritating eyes and throats and leaving a foul stench.

They have spawned a rash of lawsuits and local ordinances across the country. A report last year by the New York attorney general's office found that they produce as much particle pollution in an hour as 45 cars or 2 heavy-duty diesel trucks.

The devices, outdoor wood-fired boilers, originally invented to heat farmhouses, are now a fast-growing alternative energy fad - and, depending on whom you ask, the latest suburban scourge. Scientists studying the boilers' environmental fallout estimate their numbers have doubled in the last two years, to about 150,000 nationwide.

A growing body of research about the toxins spewed by the boilers - namely carcinogens and lung-clogging particulate matter - has prompted campaigns around the country to limit their use. And next month, the Environmental Protection Agency expects to issue guidelines for states to follow in regulating the use of wood boilers. The industry, too, is working with the agency on new standards for boilers.
“These machines sound good when you buy them, but look at all the health problems you cause,” said Edward J. Nowak, who is suing his former neighbor in Chicopee, Mass., for creating a “public nuisance” by installing a boiler in his backyard.

“We taped our windows up with plastic, and we tried to be a nice neighbor, but it just got to the point where it was impossible,” said Mr. Nowak, who is retired. He said he had to move because of the constant smoke.
“People are calling up their state and federal officials in unprecedented numbers because they don't know what to do,” said Philip R. S. Johnson, a senior scientist at the Northeast States for Coordinating Air Use Management, a nonprofit association of air quality agencies in New York, New Jersey and New England. “I am getting so many calls from people complaining about their children getting sick and the nuisance of the smell, and it's just brutal to listen to their stories.”

Owners of the devices say the complaints are unfair. Peter Muller, a landscaper in Stony Point, N.Y., who bought his boiler three years ago, calls them “the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

“Every day you turn on the news they're saying lower your dependence on foreign oil,” said Mr. Muller, who gets inexpensive wood through his business and estimates his savings at $400 to $600 a month in the peak heating season. “Now I have a renewable energy source, and people are complaining.”

Since 2001, at least 50 towns or counties in New York State have instituted laws regulating the boilers, including Suffolk County, which in November effectively banned them by prohibiting their operation within 1,000 feet of a home or school.

Vermont, in the 1990s, and Connecticut, two years ago, enacted strict regulations on where boilers can be used. Washington State banned them outright, and villages and health boards in Maine, Wisconsin, Michigan and Massachusetts are dealing with hundreds of complaints from people who say wood boilers are making their homes feel like campgrounds.

The boilers, which look like tool sheds topped by 12-foot smoke stacks, were originally designed for rural areas where open space - and wood - are plentiful. They generally cost about $5,000, and work by burning wood to heat water that is pumped through underground pipes to a home's plumbing and heating systems.
The boilers are creating fierce disputes virtually everywhere they turn up.

Common complaints include lung inflammation, persistent coughing and trouble breathing, not to mention foul odors. Because the boilers operate under low-oxygen conditions and smolder constantly, they produce far more smoke than traditional indoor stoves - about a dozen times more, several studies have found. They also produce 4 to 12 times the amount of fine particles, which can easily move into the lungs and be absorbed into the bloodstream, causing heart and respiratory problems, according to researchers.

Joseph Tumidajewicz, another Chicopee resident, has a name for the boiler that a neighbor - not the same one as Mr. Nowak's - installed 300 feet from his home: “the presence.”
“You step outside of the house sometimes and you can feel your face getting instantly dirty,” he said. “It's unbearable.”

According to the New York attorney general, the burners produce particles that are 2.5 microns in diameter or less. A human hair measures 30 to 50 microns.

But because regulations governing them are scarce, towns that receive complaints often have no recourse other than to politely ask owners to shut them off.

Rarely does that work. Wary of responding to false alarms caused by an outdoor boiler on Pinehurst Road in Holyoke, Mass., the Fire Department sued the boiler's owners in October, and won a cease-and-desist order. Now the city is moving toward banning boilers completely.

While boilers can save money for owners with access to cheap wood, they are far more expensive to operate in suburban areas like Long Island, where a cord of wood can cost $170. A boiler can require more than a dozen cords for the winter. That cost, says Jack Eddington, a Suffolk County legislator who introduced the law restricting the boilers, leads people to resort to burning garbage, old furniture and even Christmas trees - resulting in larger, smellier and potentially more toxic smoke.

Mr. Eddington said he knew of people who collected trash solely for their boilers. “Sometimes that would make the smell worse than the smoke,” he said. “It's not a cost-saving measure if you follow the manufacturer's instructions and use only seasoned wood - meaning no sap or anything that could give out a bad toxic emission. The only way you can save money with these things is if you burn anything and everything.”

Current federal clean air laws cover indoor wood-burning devices, but the Environmental Protection Agency said that after months of requests from several states, it is working on model guidelines that states can follow to regulate outdoor wood boilers, and that it expected to be done by January. Among the guidelines will be setback requirements on how far boilers must be from homes and schools and height requirements for stacks to release smoke above ingestion levels.

John Millett, an agency spokesman, said that it has also considered establishing emissions standards, but that states are unwilling to wait the year or more the federal regulatory process could take.
So the agency has been trying to encourage manufacturers to voluntarily produce boilers, by the spring, that create about 70 percent less particulate matter.

“The manufacturers are working with E.P.A. to come up with a set of codes and standards for these furnaces that make them burn more efficiently and completely,” said Leslie Wheeler, a spokeswoman for the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association, an industry group in Virginia. “But that's a process that takes a while because you're talking about research and development and a bunch of other things.”

Mineral-Dailey News Tribune, Editorials Sunday, November 05, 2006
Dear Editor,

Published: Thursday, November 2, 2006 9:15 PM CST

What is in the air you are breathing?

The Federal Government has deemed that residential outdoor wood burning furnaces are one of the largest sources of toxic emissions to the atmosphere of North America.

Studies prove that short term exposure to the smoke causes eye and throat irrtation, cough and shortness of breath, while chronic exposure triggers asthma attacks, heart and lung disease and cancer. The basic design of the furnace is one of incomplete combustion, causing fuel (usually wood) to burn incompletely, smoke excessively when thermostats call for air, then to smolder until the cycle begins again and again. The smoke is thick, acrid, and high in toxic waste emissions. This is why you often see a "smoky haze" in the area of outdoor furnaces. The tiny toxic particles in the smoke pass by the body's natural filtering system and lodge deep in your lungs. One outdoor furnace pollutes more per hour than two heavy duty diesel trucks, more than forty passenger cars, more than one thousand oil furnaces, and more than eighteen hundred gas furnces.

Many states have banned or regulated the furnaces. Some regulations include the following: furnces must be installed 200 to 500 feet from the heartest residence; furnace stack or chimney must be higher than the roof line of the beighbors home if the furnace is between 200 and 500 feet from that home; furnace can only operate six minutes out of each hour; furnace permits can be suspended if odor contaminants are detectable outside the property on which land the furnace is located; and dealers must provide buyers with notice that only untreated, natural wood can be burned in the furnace.

The furnaces are being operated in West Virginia with little to no environmental, safety or performance standards. There IS a West Virginia code stating that "It is unlawful for any person to cause a statutory air pollution" and a "public policy" to achieve and maintain such levels of air quality as will protect human health and safety to the greatest degree practiceable, foster comfort and conveience for all people, etc." New York DEC and other state codes declare no person shall cause or allow emissions of air contaminants injurious to humans or property, of which uinreasonably interfere with the enjoyment of life or property. I believe it is a reasonable expectations of our politicians to reponsibly recognize and protect the very quality of life where we live.

Owners of the furnace consider them to be an ideal, less expensive way to heat homes and water. How do homeowners measure the cost of their health problems resulting from the toxic smoke they are forced to breathe from a neighbor's furnace? Facts determine that approximately 155,000 units have been sold nationally since 1990. It is estimated that as many as 500,000 furnaces will be operating by 2010. West Virginia is one of the 19 states purchasing 65 percent of the furnaces.

The lives of many loved ones lost years ago have been attributed to pollution in coal mines, railroads, etc. Some died becuase they did now know the dangers; others died because they had no choice - they had to work in harms way to support their families. Industries have since invested millions to comply with environmental standards to protect and improve working conditions for employees. Would it not be equally important for us to invest attention in protecting our personal health and well being?

We now know the serious and real toxic hazards resulting from the outdoor wood burning furnaces and we now have a choice to do something about it. I am asking you and our politicians on every level to place priority on the environment, the health of our children and each other, and to follow the lead of other concerned states and ban the outdoor wood burning furnace.

Sharon Nicol

The Republican:OWBs create permitting problems

By G. Michael Dobbs, 10/7/06
Managing Editor

What is happening in Chicopee is a warning to other western Massachusetts communities as the heating season approaches.

Some Chicopee residents have installed a technology that was certainly new to me when I first heard of it: Outdoor Wood Boilers or OWBs.

OWBs are simply a wood-fired furnace situated in a shed outside a residence or building. They produce hot water, which then can be used to heat a building.

They are being sold as a way to either supplement whatever heating system you already have or to replace it. In these times of uncertain oil and natural gas prices, the idea of having a hedge is attractive to many.

Across the northeast and the northern section of the mid-west, OWBs are growing in popularity, according to Saadi Motamedi of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. In 1990 there were 195 sold in this country. In 2005, there were 67,546 units sold. The cost to purchase and install a unit is between $8,000 and $10,000 depending upon size and application.

Here's the rub, there are currently no federal standards governing efficiency or emission on OWBs, unlike indoor wood stoves, and only a hand-full of state or local regulations, Motamedi explained at a recent Chicopee aldermanic meeting.

So people can install these boilers wherever they choose unless restricted by a local regulation.

The result is one neighbor having a device that can affect the air quality of his street. The OWBs were not designed for urban areas, but they're popping up in densely populated cities. There are four in Chicopee.

This is one of these terrible situations in which no one is wrong, but someone is going to have to pay a price. The neighbors shouldn't have to endure bad air quality.

The problem is that one of these OWBs was installed only after the resident went to the city to obtain a permit for it. After a two-month period, the city's Building Department issued a permit. The trouble is that legally the city has currently no jurisdiction over the OWBs.

If the city bans the OWBs a distinct possibility the residents will lose the thousands of dollars they've invested. They will be punished even though they didn't break any regulation.

But their neighbors shouldn't pay a price either in a lessened quality of life.

In all seriousness, where's Solomon when you need him?

This is an example of a new technology out-racing a community's ability to deal with it. Other communities should take notice now before this same problem spreads.

The Republican:Ban on wood-fired boilers backed

Friday, September 22, 2006
By PETER GOONAN
pgoonan@repub.com

CHICOPEE , MA- The Board of Aldermen voted unanimously last night to ask the Board of Health to ban outdoor wood fired boilers in response to recent complaints by some residents about smoke and pollution.
During a meeting at the City Hall Annex, Alderman-at-Large James K. Tillotson asked for two votes - one supporting the ban proposed by the Ordinance Committee and the other referring the matter for action by the Board of Health. Both were aoorived 12-0.
Tillotson said he conferred with the aldermen's legal counsel, Daniel Garvey, about the best way to implement the ban, and they agreed it should go through the Board of Health.
"I think the Health Department has much clearer authority when it comes to health issues," Tillotson said.
Board of Health Chairman Frank Boron, reached for comment after the meeting, said his board will ask the Law Department to draft the proposed ban, and will then hold public hearings before making a decision.
In the meantime, the Board of Health voted this week to extend its temporary moratorium on outdoor boilers until June 2007.
Aldermen said last night that it was clear from testimony, both last night and at a prior meeting of the Ordinance Committee, that outdoor boilers create a concern about public health and pose a nuisance to neighbors. The proposed ban is aimed at both new and existing boilers.
City officials know of four outdoor boilers in Chicopee. Two owners have defended their boilers, including one homeowner who received a building permit in advance and spent more than $10,000 for the boiler.
Several neighbors and nearby residents said the boilers are a health hazard due to the wood smoke that is emitted. They praised the aldermen for taking up the issue.
Joseph T. and Arelia G. Tumidajewicz of 340 Pendleton Drive, who live next to a house heated by an outdoor wood boiler, said they were very pleased by last night's vote.
"I think a lot of communities will follow Chicopee's lead," Arelia Tumidajewicz said.
Others speaking in favor of the ban last night included Janet Sinclair of Buckland, and Curt Freedman, P.E., a professor at Western New England College, who teaches energy management.

The Sudbury Town Crier (townonline.com)
By Stacey Hart/ Staff Writer
Thursday, September 21, 2006

As people look for alternative and less expensive ways to heat their homes, one resident wants to make sure they are not risking the health of others.

Bob McDonald, who lives on Aaron Road, wants the Board of Health to regulate outside wood boilers in Sudbury. There are believed to be three outside wood boilers in town.

"They are unsafe and I would like to see them regulated so they are not in residential neighborhoods," he said.

McDonald met with the Board of Health last week to share his concerns and the research he had completed.

"He presented us with a lot of data to consider. We are reviewing the data and the matter, as well as independently researching it ourselves," said Lynn Geitz, a Board of Health member.

She said the board is always happy to review concerns brought before them.

Outdoor wood boilers are typically located outside the buildings they heat, often in small, insulated sheds with small smokestacks. Wood is burned in them to heat water, which then in turn provides heat and hot water to a home.

They should not be confused with chimneys or stoves regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The smoke created by the wood boilers, or more specifically the particulate pollution, is what McDonald is concerned about.

"Some of the things that are caused by these wood boilers are respiratory illnesses such as chronic bronchitis, obstructed lung disease, increased risk of cancer, genetic mutations and cardiovascular disease," he said. "That's in addition to eye irritation, throat and lung irritation that can cause headaches and it can reduce lung function in children."

The fine particles become embedded in the lungs and never go away, he said. Research McDonald has done also shows that this pollution can travel 1.5 miles.

"Even though you're not smelling the smoke you could be breathing in the particles," he said.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, an outdoor wood boiler emits as much fine particle pollution as 2 heavy-duty diesel trucks or 45 cars.

Wood smoke from these boilers is 12 times more dangerous than cigarette smoke, McDonald said.

"The American Lung Association has come out and said these are very bad. There's just overwhelming evidence that these are a health concern and people need to be aware of this," he said.

Although information was presented to the Board of Health, members will collect their own data and research to supplement what McDonald submitted.

"The information presented has not been discounted at all, but it is not without some weaknesses," Geitz said. "He has done a very thorough job."

The board is expected to discuss the issue of wood boilers again after its research is completed, she said. Geitz does not believe the town has ever received a complaint about a specific wood boiler in Sudbury.

McDonald said he presented his finding to the Board of Health to make both them and residents aware that this is a major health problem.

"People should be active and start demanding that the Board of Health stand up. I'm sure that they will, but it would be helpful if other people stepped up and said, 'We don't think it's right that we all should be impacted,'" he said.

McDonald questions whether one person who wants to save money on their heating bill has the right to impact the health of thousands of other people. There is ample research out there to prove that the smoke from outside wood boilers is not good for people to be breathing in, he said.

The state of Washington has established regulations that essentially ban these boilers and in Maryland there is a $25,000 fine for using them. Tisbury, which is on Martha's Vineyard, now requires a 900-foot buffer zone around these wood boilers.

"You have boards of health from one side of the United States to the other...and everybody in between who have sounded the alert," he said.

Bangordailynews.com
E. Millinocket,
By Nick Sambides Jr.
Wednesday,  - Bangor Daily News

The Journal News
(Original publication: April 20, 2006) By Jane Lerner

RAMAPO - Rockland became one of the first municipalities in the state to regulate the use of outdoor wood furnaces yesterday when the Board of Health approved an amendment that all but bans the devices.
"This action is in the best interest of public health," said Commissioner of Health Dr. Joan Facelle after the board voted on the amendment to the county sanitary code.
The amendment bans the use of outdoor wood furnaces that have a firebox volume of 5 cubic feet or larger. Just about all models of the devices have a firebox larger than that.
County officials are unsure how many people in Rockland use the devices. But they say they feared use of outdoor wood burners - and the air pollution they create - would increase as the cost of home heating oil continues to rise.
During six months of debate on the issue, the board heard strong arguments both for and against regulating the furnaces.
The device, also known as an outdoor wood boiler, consists of a small shed that contains an oversize box in which unsplit logs up to 5 feet long are burned. The burning wood heats water in a reservoir around the box. The heated water is pumped through insulated underground pipes to the home, where it circulates through the heating system.
Proponents said the device was an economical heat source that should be available to people, especially as the price of heating oil soars. But opponents insisted that the furnace gives off a tremendous amount of smoke that contributes to air pollution, especially in densely populated areas like Rockland.
Peter Muller of Stony Point has an outdoor wood furnace at his home and told the board during several public hearings that it produces little smoke and heats his home efficiently.
Muller, who did not attend yesterday's meeting, said he didn't think the board investigated the issue enough before making a decision.
"Everyone tells us to lessen our dependence on foreign oil," Muller said. "Wood burning is a renewable source of energy that is more efficient than you can imagine."
Muller, a landscaper, doesn't have to buy wood. He has been able to heat his entire house with the outdoor furnace. His heating bills, which included the cost of running his cooking stove and gas-powered dryer, averaged about $13 a month during the winter, he said.
Muller said he spent nearly $17,000 on his wood furnace three years ago. He plans to apply for a waiver from the county to continue operating it.
Others told the board they supported a ban.
Lawrence McGill of New City wrote a letter to the board urging members to outlaw the devices. He said yesterday that he was glad the board took the action.
"They sound like a real menace to me," said McGill, who did not attend the meeting. "We already have far too much smoke in the air around here."
Miriam McElroy of West Haverstraw said she has to close her windows when neighbors burn wood in an indoor fireplace.
McElroy, who did not attend yesterday's meeting, said she was relieved by the county's action.
"We don't need these outdoor wood burners," she said. "We certainly don't need more pollution."
Rockland officials are unsure how many people in the county currently use the devices.
The Board of Health began debating a ban in November after a New City woman applied for permission from the town of Clarkstown to install an outdoor wood furnace at her home. The town denied the request but suggested that the county address the issue through its sanitary code.
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer also is trying to limit their use because of the pollution they create.
He and officials from seven other states - including the attorneys general of Connecticut and New Jersey - sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency in August asking the federal agency to "regulate emissions from outdoor wood boilers in order to protect health and the environment."
An assemblywoman from the Binghamton area has introduced a bill that would create state regulations for outdoor wood burners because of the smoke and pollution they create.
Assemblywoman Donna A. Lupardo, D-Endwell, wants to prohibit the use of outdoor boilers in the summer. She also wants to restrict use of the devices within 200 feet of a residence and 700 feet of a hospital, school, day-care center, nursing home, park or recreational facility.
The proposal is pending.
The federal EPA is considering emission standards for such devices.
The new Rockland amendment states that people cannot operate an outdoor wood furnace with a firebox of more than five cubic feet until guidelines and standards are set by the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The measure must be submitted to the state for approval, which is expected to take about a month.
Currently, there are no state or federal standards for the devices.
"This allows for the possibility in the future to consider it if there are standards that we can measure," Facelle said.

Waivers possible

The Rockland Board of Health will consider granting waivers to anyone who already has an outdoor wood boiler. For more information, call the department at 845-364-2608.
Board of Health fines


Board of Health fines

In other action at yesterday's Board of Health meeting, the board assessed fines on businesses and individuals who violated the county's sanitary code.

o Hopkins Pub Ltd., doing business as Mt. Ivy Pub, routes 45 and 202, was fined $1,000 for violating regulations concerning indoor smoking.

o TNP Pizza Corp., operator, Villa Rosa, 275 N. Main St., Spring Valley, was fined $800 for repeatedly leaving food at a potentially hazardous temperature.

o Central Avenue Pizza Corp., operator, Mr. Crispy's Brick Oven Pizza, was fined $600 for storing food at potentially hazardous temperatures.

o Tina Freeman, owner, 33 W. Burda Place, New City, was fined $200 for failure to put a gate around a swimming pool.

o Affordable Community Inc., owner, 52 Bethune Blvd., Spring Valley, was fined $200 for housing code violations.

o Rifka Meitels, owner, 440 Viola Road, Spring Valley, was fined $200 for housing code violations.

News:© 2006 The Evansville Courier Co.

The Evansville City Council gave a break Monday to city residents who own outdoor wood-fired boilers used for heating their homes, but it decided that no new installations would be allowed within the city limits.
This appears part of a widespread effort to quash the use of these low-cost but high-polluting devices. The Indianapolis Air Board has already passed a ban on new installations, and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management has been collecting information and opinions on outdoor wood boilers in terms of possibly adopting a state rule on their use.
While there are relatively few of these boilers in use in Evansville and in Indianapolis, they have come under fire for the large amount of smoke they put out, smoke that lays low to the ground and can easily reach a neighbor's home, especially in an urban setting. The council attempted to deal with that problem by requiring the installation of high stacks, up where the smoke would more easily disperse.
But after an owner of one of these boilers complained that the cost of a 40-foot stack would put him out of business and would be dangerous, the council dropped the requirement.
Anyway, this issue seems to affect very few people in Evansville and has likely already been forgotten by most.
But we were wondering, smoke is smoke, isn't it? And it contains some nasty stuff, including particulate matter, which is the latest bane to good air quality in the Evansville area.
Might the issue one day not be these little-used boilers but instead be fireplaces and wood stoves?
Might this movement against wood-burning boilers be an omen of things to come for those of us who enjoy that warm and fuzzy symbol of winter coziness, the fireplace?
We've found no figures on the effects on the air of wood stoves and fireplaces, compared with these boilers, but Dona Bergman, director of the Environmental Protection Agency, says that the boilers have low efficiency, 30 percent to 40 percent, and that the particulate pollution from one of them is equal to an incredible 1,800 gas furnaces.
Still, a lot of us have fireplaces or wood stoves. There is no telling how much particulate matter all of us together send out our chimneys on a winter morning.
It's unlikely any local politician is going to take on that number of fireplace-loving voters, but be warned, it is coming, one of these days.How do we know?
It has already started on the West Coast, where groups in some communities are pointing to the pollution caused by wood-burning fireplaces. Their message: Don't burn wood. And you know what they say about the West Coast: Everything that happens here happens first on the West Coast.