New EPA Woodstove Regulations

[mannytheseacow]

Hey, I've been spending some time reading through the new regs the EPA rolled out last month for woodburners (). So as far as I can tell, the final rule which won't go into effect for 5 years is going to be 2g/h. I've never seen any results from testing stoves, but dang, I find it hard to believe that any RMH would produce 2g of anything in any part of the exhaust stream in an hour, not to mention 2g of the fine particulates that they are talking about. Shoot it would take a pretty nasty smoky fire to produce that wouldn't it? Anybody?

[matt walker]

Nope. It seems that rockets are probably pretty dirty with regards to 2.5 due to high gas velocity through the ash bed. That's one of my main goals with my new lower air settings, quieting things down in the firebox to entrain less 2.5 in the gas stream.

[mannytheseacow]

Yeah, I figured that was the point of slowing the air down, but greater than 2 grams per hour ? That seems like a lot... Almost a pound a day, in fact.... of a very small piece of the air stream. Is there any data that refutes this?

[matt walker]

I have some particulate data from DC last year, but it's in a strange format and I can't convert it to g/hr. Also, no mass so a full heater should do a lot better. Let's see if I can find a number for you...

Here's the chart, PM is in g/m3.

[mannytheseacow]

Oh right, I remember discussing this in the past. We're still stuck on this volume/time thing. Shoot, I was hoping that there was some kind of quantitative data out there. I'm still just so skeptical that 2 grams comes out in an hour, even measuring straight out of the heat riser. Weigh out 2 grams of ash or 2 grams of that black fluff that ends up in the tubes and chimney; that is just so much volume I feel like it takes much longer to create that. Oh well, I don't mean to beat a dead horse.

[mannytheseacow]

The EPA held a good meeting today about woodstoves and cookstoves. Anyone interested in details about the projects going around the world and the current research might be interested. I tried to capture some slides here and there of things I thought were interesting. I'd be happy to share them with anyone interested, just PM me. I was really enlightened by many of the presentations, though I'm not that educated in many of the details. There were some good presenters from many Universities, NGOs, and EPA. It was scheduled as a 2 day event but ended up being condensed into 1 day due to weather. Anyone skeptical of research or why these things should matter or be regulated may find use in the details.