PELLET STOVES WOOD ENERGY FOR ALL
(Page 7 of 9)
October/November 1995
By John Vivian
I view the pellet stove as an example of truly appropriate technology—exemplifying the right mix of brainpower and hardware to civilize wood heat so it is acceptable in America's living rooms—not as a fad as in the '70s but an economically competitive alternative to finite energy resources. In making renewable wood energy truly practical for all, a pellet-burner is perhaps the most 21st-century-modern home appliance there is.
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Pellet-Stove Problems in the Maritimes
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI (the Maritime Provinces of Canada's Atlantic Coast) are at the bitter end of the gas and oil supply lines, so the cost of fossil heating fuel can be prohibitive, especially these days, with both the lumbering and fishing industries on rough times. Cordwood is readily available, but conventional wood stoves demand constant attention, so when a first local pellet mill was built two years ago and proved able to sell pellet fuel at a logwood-competitive cost of CAN$100/ton (US$73), between 3,000 and 4,000 self-tending pellet-burning stoves were purchased and installed.
However, once a substantial number of stoves had been in operation for any length of time, home-insurers in the Maritimes found themselves paying for smoke damage in pellet-heated homes. Most were extensively cleaned and painted. But in one well-publicized case, reported in the August 19, 1995 Hearth & Home magazine (where a smoke-cleanup crew left the miscreant stove running unattended over a two-day holiday), the insurer found it cheaper to tear the house down and rebuild from scratch than to cleanse it of pellet-stove smoke. NOTE: This is not fire damage. Pellet stoves's outstanding record of fire safety remains valid. However, insurance claims for smoke damage have been so high that some Canadian insurers have threatened to refuse to cover pellet-heated homes.
As any experienced wood-burner knows, smoke from a smoldering wood fire makes a greasy brown creosote that can stain the ceiling, discolor upholstered furniture and drapes, and make your clothes smell like old-time pine-tar liniment. You can't wash it off or paint over it either; the brown stain soaks into fabric, plaster and unfinished wood, will eat its way through latex interior paint in a day, and undermine oil-based paints and make them slough off in a few months.
Insurance companies, stove makers and retailers, and the government are teaming up to research the sources and cures for the problem (and Mother Earth News will keep readers apprised of their findings). But for now, it seems that minor smoking occurred when improperly installed vent pipes failed to draw out smoke when electricity failed and the vent fan quit. Major damage happened when the automatic fuel-feed clogged and a smoldering fire worked its way through the clog and into the fuel hopper.
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