The simple fact is that today’s clean burning EPA Certified wood stoves produce extremely small amounts of particulate matter when they operate.  Open burning fireplaces and older non EPA certified units are gross polluters, the particulate matter that they expel into the air is sometimes 100 times greater than an EPA certified unit.  ONE just ONE open burning fireplace, of which there are probably thousands in Santa Rosa alone, when in operation puts out 75-100 grams an hour of particulate matter into the air.  A new EPA certified unit gives off on average 3 grams per hour with some units under 1 gram per hour.

Think about it this way, most people don’t use their open fireplace for heat and don’t use them that often.  Lets just take holidays and a few other days and call it 20 times per year and pick an amount of time realistically that you might use the fireplace, lets say 5 hours a day for those 20 days.  That would be 100 hours total for a year.  Using the low 75 grams per hour number that would be 7500 grams of particulate produces from those 20 fires.  Use a clean burning EPA certified unit in that same house to heat the home for the winter and lets see what we get.  Typical winter time 4 months of burning.  120 days at on average 10 hours a day for heating purposes equals 1200 hours at an average 3 grams per hour of particulate matter.  Do that calculation and what you get is 3600 grams of particulate matter.  Same fireplace, same house, one unit burns for 100 total hours and produces twice the particulate matter of the EPA unit used for 1200 hours.

What is happening is because no distinction is being made between clean burning and dirty burning, homeowners who are interested in alternative heating and cleaning up the air are being scared off by the fact that nothing is deemed as GOOD wood burning.  The reality is that if everyone in Santa Rosa that had an open burning fireplace or non EPA certified unit burned for those same 20 days that we talked about above the air would be way dirtier than if every single one of them burned a new clean burning EPA certified unit each and every day of the winter.

Bottom line is there is a clear difference between what should burn and what shouldn’t, there is an obvious difference between what puts out pollution and what doesn’t.  Clearly all wood burning puts out some level of smoke, and no one is going to try to argue that there is good smoke, I am not going to stick my face above even the cleanest burning chimney and breath deeply, but come on we can’t just group everything together as one.  Really on a “winter spare the air night” no one should be able to light a match, matches are wood burning and give off particulate matter.

We have 38 wood burning stoves on our showroom floor is we burned every single one of them for an hour they would produce about 120 grams of particulate matter.  If we burn just 2 non EPA unit they would produce 150 grams in that same hour.  Put those numbers in homes, 2 homes producing more pollution than an entire neighborhood of 38.  If everyone, even the people who don’t currently use their fireplaces installed clean burning units and then started using them daily the air would have less particulate matter than it does now with 10 times the amount of units in use.

Homeowners who make the choice to upgrade to clean burning EPA certified units should be PRAISED non vilified for making a choice to clean up the air.  Burning wood the right way in the right appliance will actually clean up the air, FACT.  Do not be scared off, wood burning can be and is good for the air that we all breath when done the right way.

Clean burning wood stoves all function well and transfer heat from the wood to the room, wood stove manufactures figured that out a long time ago.  Since delivering the heat isn’t the issue, manufactures have started putting a larger portion of their R & D money into the aesthetics of the wood stove.  The appearance of the stove has become more important in some cases than the features and function of the unit.  Companies like Morso & Rais are working with existing clean burning fireboxes and designing new, cooler, sleeker exteriors to fit into more of today’s clean, contemporary homes.  The reason for the story really is because of the stove we installed in a customers home last week.  Taking the wood stove design to a new level and really showing you that a lot more is possible than that old black box wood stove.  A Fireorb is a ceiling mounted wood stove.  The unit is suspended off of the floor via a ceiling/roof bracket.  Solid section of seamless pipe are drilled and threaded to connect so there are no visible screws in the flue.  The orb itself is a one piece spun orb that attaches to the ceiling supported vent and hangs off of the floor offering a very different look from a wood stove.

The first thing that you should check when you notice smoke back into the room is your chimney cap.  Chimney caps get clogged.  Even today’s clean burning EPA approved units get clogged.  Most chimney caps are equipped with spark screens to stop embers from getting loose.  On cold, wet, damp times the screen can become sticky and actually trap more than it should and act as a clog.  Wet wood, small fires, and damping the stove down to early can add to this problem.  We get tons of calls every year about smoke back into the house and the chimney cap is the first thing that we talk about and most times the first fix is the last fix.  Smoke is heat, it wants to go up and out.  If it gets to the cap half the battle is done, it is going up it just can’t get out.  Clean the cap and out it will go.

If it is not the chimney cap then most smoking problems are first associated with not establishing a good draft.   We recommend on a new clean burning wood stove or an older non approved unit customers “pre-heat” the flue before lighting the fire.  The chimney flue when the unit is not in operation is full of cold air relative to the temperature outside.  The colder the air the harder it is to push that cold air out of the flue to allow the smoke to be carried outside.  The initial smoke (heat) from the fire is not very hot and has a difficult time pushing cold air out sometimes causing at start up a back draft into the room since smoke wants to take the path of least resistance.  Once the draft is established the smoke will flow upward with issues.  Pre-heating the flue will eliminate that issue.  To properly pre-heat a wood stove flue customers should build their fire stack inside the stove as usual with paper, fire starters, kindling, or whatever your start up procedure is.  Before lighting the fire stack, keep a couple of pieces of newspaper nearby to roll up to act as torches.  Light the torches and hold them in the flue area of the wood stove.  The heat from the newspapers is very hot and will work hard to push the cold air out of the flue and establish the draft.  Once the heat from the torches is carried up the flue, then light the fire stack and see the difference.  Doing this will also lead to quicker heat into the room since the unit doesn’t have to waste any heat establishing the draft.

Lastly the chimney itself may be dirty causing a decreased volume or room for exhaust.  When this happens, like the chimney cap being clogged, smoke isn’t being fully allowed to leave the exhaust system.  Cleaning even a small amount of soot from the flue or baffle area of a woodstove can make the unit operate completely different than it did before it was cleaned.  Cleaning of woodstove should be done regularly.  There is no exact time to know when you should clean your flue and unit.  Most manufactures will recommend once a year.  Some people like to do it twice a year once at the start of the burn season and once at the end.  A good rule is to have the chimney cleaned every 2 cords of wood burned through your woodstove.

The stove is the easiest thing to blame, but rarely the issue.

There isn’t a need to totally change what they have with an insert that is designed for heating and high efficiency. There are a few simple items that can really change the appearance and function of the fireplace.

Glass doors can really change the look and presentation of the fireplace. If the existing fireplace has no doors putting doors on it will frame the opening and bring attention and focus to the fireplace when not in operation and give the flames when burning a border.

When the fireplace is not in operation closing the doors will stop any heat from leaving the home up the chimney flue helping with heating costs. Doors can come in almost any size, style, color, and price imaginable.

Gas logs are also a nice alternative for people not wanting to burn wood but want to keep the large opening. If you have gas to the fireplace, then half the work is done. Gas logs offer tons of sizes, styles, and control options.

Installing gas burning logs into the fireplace eliminates wood burning entirely. Gas logs provide a small amount of heat into the room when they are in operation. When gas logs are installed, because they do not require a large flue opening to vent, the damper of the fireplace can be almost fully closed helping to eliminate heat from drafting out of the house through the flue.

Glass door and gas logs work well together to eliminate heat loss and to change the overall appearance of the hearth area.

YES, you can still burn wood in Sonoma County!!!!!

Warming Trends opened 27 years ago selling wood burning appliances before gas units were available.  Gas units have become of course popular, but approx. 60% of the stoves, inserts, and fireplaces that we sell each year are WOOD BURNING.

We only offer EPA Phase II approved wood burning units. EPA requires that wood burning appliances are clean burning, they are not just pumping smoke into the air. EPA requires that all approved units be tested to produce below 7.5 grams of particulate matter per hour as they burn.

As an example an older pre EPA wood stove produces upwards of 70 grams per hour, so that means you would have to burn 9 or more EPA units at the same time to equal that 1 non EPA approved unit.

Not all wood burning is the same and Warming Trends offers the cleanest burning technology available both in catalytic and non-catalytic units.

The # 1 most common question in the store and on the phone is “you can’t still burn wood in Sonoma County, right”? Everyday we have to explain to customers that what you read about how bad wood burning is isn’t the whole truth. You can go to www.epa.gov for a complete list of EPA approved appliances allowed for use in Sonoma County.

The best type of wood depends on what you want to get out of the wood you burn. More dense woods contain more actual wood fiber allowing for higher BTU output and typically a longer burn time. Harder more dense woods will be a bit harder to start based on the more tightly packed wood fiber.

Good high BTU hard woods, like Oak, Madrone, & Walnut, are all good high performance woods that dry and season quickly and are all easily available from most quality cord wood suppliers.

Softer woods such as Pine, Fir, & Redwood are much less dense than the harder woods. They contain less wood fiber so they ignite quickly but burn for shorter periods of time. People often use softer woods for start up and hotter initial fires.

Probably the best is a mix of softer woods for kindling, start up, and initial burn and then harder woods for the long overnight burns. We try to use a good fir/oak mix, the two work really well together.

A lot of people ask about burning Eucalyptus because it is so available in our area. Eucalyptus is a high BTU content wood that burns hot and gives off a nice aroma when burned.

Take advantage of whatever wood is available and is cost effective, sometimes the simplest answer to the question of “what is the best wood to burn?”

The Bay area quality control board would like you to think that each and every day is what they call a spare the air day. They would like nothing more than to do away with wood burning all together. The local media simply reports with the facts that they are given.

Actually there are very very few days that actually qualify as spare the air days and there are actually more days that qualify during the spring/summer season then during the winter spare the air period.

The regulation with regard to wood stoves in flawed in many ways but no more clear than that on a 90 degree day no wood stoves are being burned but the particulate matter in the air somewhere is above the level causing an alert.

If wood stoves and wood burning are the #1 on the list of things that pollute, why on a day when none are burning does the alert go off and on a 40 degree day in the winter with thousands burning the air is just fine and no alarms are blazing throughout the Bay area.

If you actually go to look at the amount of days that actually were spare the air days last winter it would shock most people who think that they know. I believe that there were around 5 total. There has been more than that this summer without any wood stoves burning.