Some Interesting Learning about the New EPA Regulations Game

Yep.

 

You have to do your research to have that work id imagine. To have the tubes burn off gases but not to much so that your cats can still light off. My guess is your cats only work when the fire is rocking. When my stove burns down my cats are barely in the active range. I have a 3.5 cuft steel high valley stove with dual cats.

 

Its the opposite. The catalyst will light off at 500° opposed to the secondary at 1000°.

 

what do you suspect those little stoves were designed to do?

if I thought there was a market for an ultrasmall clean burning woodstove for that application I would build one, making a <1cf woodstove that could reburn isn't that hard a thing to do. for that matter, a stove that could burn 6-7 hours on a bag of charcoal with very little particulates wouldn't be hard to design at all. the trick is to get the stove and the fuel hot quickly then drop the air to the primary and introduce a secondary burn, heck, ive put catalyst inserts in pellet stoves before , a small box woodstove to meet that demand would be a walk in the park, question is , would I sell enough of them to cover the cost up front cause im not doing it unless its certified. also , what kind of stack do they have on them, short and uninsulated is my guess, with a small stack setup (maybe 4 to 5 inch) at say 10 ft from the fire to the cap in a shack with no negative pressure issues one could burn a .6 to .8 CF vertical load unit pretty clean.

like I said, find me a market big enough and I can design a stove to fit it.

 

I suspect those stoves are the cheapest thing he could put together. I've never seen any of them catch fire. The smoke is horrid. Those people who rent the ices shacks go there to fish, but their primary motive is drinking. It's a wonder more of them don't fall in the ice trench.

 

the OWB's will be regulated out of existence with the next round of standards, the "furnace" loophole will be gone as well. (which I think is a good thing)

problem as I see it is this;

too many old tech stoves still out there, ya gotta hand it to the guys who built the Fishers, they are like battle cruisers. unfortunately , they are still abundantly present. and its hard to justify even the low end replacement when money is tight to burn cleaner even though the longer burn benefit is there. heck I have a 15 yr old Silverado I hate the mileage , but am I gonna drop 20-30 grand on a new one which only gets about 6 to 8 MPG better? especially when my current truck runs like a top and does all I ask it to?

the best things that can be done is to regulate the currently unregulated (furnaces, OWB's etc) as the old fishers are grandfathered, but eventually will be replaced. current regulations should cover resale and reinstallation prohibitions of old tech devices to the point where they should be going away at a faster pace as we go along. the real issue is these newer units which are not regulated especially the OWB's .

personally , im a FIRM believer that progress has to be made in the woodstove lifestyle in order to sustain it through the coming years, though im not a "regulatory" person in most cases. one must understand that "life liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" does not extend beyond the next guy's right to the same. this is where "responsible" regulation is necessary. for the most part, literally everyone who contributes to forums such as this and the other place handshake: ) are responsible woodburners, why? because they have taken the time to educate themselves. where we could help is to find ways to get more folks to pay attention to "peer offered education"

here's a thought , a challenge to those of us who are "john q public" next time you frequent the stove shop of your choice, ask the proprietor of the store to post a note , or a flyer if you wish to generate one
(maybe our webmaster and his minions can make one to print off (hint hint) )

directing folks to come and check out these sites (i'll bounce this idea off the owner of the other site as well).

the key to it all is education, the defeating of the old ways of burning as they no longer are necessary with modern stoves.
from the Industry side i'll do all I can do as well, I thought what John Ackerly did with his group in DC was a huge thing, I hope he does it again as if he does visit DC again for another woodstove decathlon, I Will be there to support him.

 

therein lies the "rub" there is no regulation at all with this type of situation. IMHO the local government should be petitioned to draw an ordinance to clean this up. no need for the feds on this one. regulations started closest to home are generally the most effective in my mind. down in a river valley is the "worst case" scenario for inversion , you have smoke being pushed into heavy moist air and trapped by the valley walls. it could be cleaned up , but this would require a company to design a "shack heater" which could burn relatively clean for this (and ice fishing BTW) structures.
its a hard thing to regulate as these "shacks" aren't viewed by the government as "structures" or domiciles, by regulations in place (im assuming they are movable), so existing federal regs do not cover them just as they do not cover campfires at a campground.

what i'd do is come up with a small firebox stove and a chain system to hang the unit from the roof. mount a shield below the firebox to redirect heat upwards, saves having to mount on a fireproof floor and can be easily hung and unhung when moving. heck , our 17-vl firebox would be perfect for this setup with vermiculite panels instead of bricks , chop the stand off it wouldn't weigh more than about 100LBS can burn with a relatively short stack, easy peasy

 

There's a guy up here in PA building mini wood stoves with secondary air. He uses pellet stove vent pipe for flue.

http://graystoveworks.com

 

I just sent the guy an e mail, seems they are having issues getting past phase 2 I offered to help pro bono.

its a kool concept, i'd love to learn more about it

 

I'm sure he'll appreciate the input.

 

check out these comments:

http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketBrowser;rpp=25;po=0;D=EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0734

But consider your response as alot of lurkers and watchers on this site as well as other sites.

 

Read the email from the owner of Blaze King!
http://www.regulations.gov/contentS...49db54&disposition=attachment&contentType=pdf

 

I'm of the opinion that the regulators need to look at firewood suppliers.... There is no definition for seasoned wood and little consumer protection when purchasing firewood.. As mentioned earlier, the best education people get is on forums like this. They have inspectors in every town in MA who are responsible for weights and measures. You can see their stickers on the gas pumps in town which lets you know you're getting a gallon of gas when the pump says 1.000 gal. Coming up with a "seasoned wood standard" saying that for wood to be labeled "seasoned" it needs to be under 20% moisture would help a lot. The inspector could grab 5-8 random splits out of a load to be delivered and oven dry them to confirm compliance.. I'd be willing to bet that the problem that SaveMoney is talking about can be at least partially solved by burning dry wood.

 

At the risk of approaching dreaded political posts, I still think that the pollution going on over in China and India negates all the effort over on this side of the world. Most people on here know our wood should be as dry as we can get it, and we don't want to have smoky fires out of courtesy. I don't like too much regulation.

 

It doesn't negate what we do it makes what we do even more important. I think we should lead by example. And I am not for more regs.

 

Seems to be alot of responses on that gov site from people wanting to ban wood burning.

 

Yes...I'm sure that will be the next push in a few years.

 

Mr Gray has responded back to me so I guess he is willing to chat about the stove he's making, hasn't been able to get the stove to pass phase 2 yet, I looked at some pictures on his website and fired off a list of questions to him about the unit.

its a pretty kool little unit lightweight (due to size) but it looks to be solidly built. at about 800 bucks though its not cheap by any means for such a small unit , but if the market is there for it he'll sell some stoves if they are built as well as it looks like they are. guy comes off as being a pretty nice fellow as well. I hope I can give him the input he needs to get his cert for the unit. would be just right for these fish camps and such almost looks like it was made for the concept.