The photo, at left, is of a lovely old wood stove for sale on Craigslist, one of many old wood stoves currently for sale on that site.The picture at right is the wording of a law passed in Quebec in 2009 that forbids the resale of non-CSA approved (ie: old) wood stoves, at pains of up to $25,000 in fines. All wood stoves pollute but the older ones are much worse. I'd like to see fines for even operating an old-polluting wood stove.
The next photo, at left, was taken today by the excellent Ed "Blork" Hawco, who rightfully notes that Montreal has been labouring under a smog warning for several days.Wood stoves, used by country-folk, are polluting our cities and damaging the health of urban dwellers.
The last photo shows me looking very worried about all of these things, confused that though I wrote about this very issue two years ago, nothing has been resolved at all.
Marie-Claire Boutin of the Quebec Environment Ministry confirmed to me Thursday that the law is indeed in effect and those who are known to be violating it receive a note of warning. Some have been fined under the law, she said, but she did not supply a precise total.
It's not just the country folk. Many (I'd almost say "most") of the condo buildings put up in the 90s and even into the 2000s included fireplaces in the living rooms. No actual function other than providing coziness on cold winter nights. Seems a bit weird.
ReplyDeleteBut most of it comes from the suburbs, where a lot of houses have both "cozy" fireplaces and slow-burn wood stoves as an alternative to heat the house. Some winter nights in Longueuil you can barely breathe out in the streets. It's like London in 1850 (although it's wood smoke, not coal smoke).
I'm guilty too, as I like a nice fire on a cold night. But in 9 years with a fireplace I've burned less than a cord of wood, so at least my contribution is minimal.
I respectfully disagree with you accessment of wood burning stoves and fireplaces.
ReplyDeleteI never liked the idea of dividing people up between city folk and country people. A wise person knows that both lifestyles have a lot to offer. Some of us have been lucky enough to experience both. Mingling the two can give you the best of both worlds.
Industry (refineries etc.) and vehicle pollution in cities have a far more dramatic effect on air quality than wood burning stoves or fireplaces in rural areas.
Forest fires cause a lot of pollution and are often acts of nature.
Often wood burning devises in cottages and country homes are only operating in colder months and not used 24/7.
So...stick another log on the fire, pour yourself a blended scotch,find a comfy chair and a good book, and watch the snow falling outside your cottage window while your dog is curled up at your feet.
Burn baby burn.
Colin, unfortunately you're just plain wrong. There are many studies around (perhaps Chimples can dig some up) that indicate wood burning as particularly polluting. To be clear, it's a particular KIND of pollution: large suspended particulate (or something like that). In other words, the stuff that causes smog.
ReplyDeleteCars and industry do pollute, but their pollution is more chemical (including CO2 from cars). But when it comes to particle pollution (the stuff you can actually see, and that can cause breathing problems for some people), wood smoke is the number 1 culprit.
It is inexcusable to heat ones home full time with wood in the city or its burbs, given the relatively economical options of gas and electricity; but to deny a man the right to do as Colin suggests will never pass.
ReplyDeleteThe law is fair; it is intended to phase out the most polluting stoves, without attempting to pry them out of the hands of their proud owners. That being said, I fear that our law enforcement dollars are being reserved for mafia investigations, escorting protesters around our city, and stamping out English signage. Quebec sait faire!
Onkel Charlie
In these chilly but not yet frigid nights I've been trying to leave the bedroom window open a crack for fresh air (I'm on the third floor of a multi-unit building avec chauffage inclu, radiator heat to spare), but someone in one of the fourplexes in the neighbourhood upwind of me has been burning wood in the late evenings, and it's been rather unpleasant to inhale an acrid particulate stream.
ReplyDeleteWhen there's a great deal more wind here, or if one lives in a city with constant wind, like Winnipeg, perhaps, or Minneapolis (where, as one writer put it, the civic boosters like to tout the city's "frequent air mass changes" - i.e., the wind howls like a banshee for months out of the year), it might be all right to have old wood-burning stoves and fireplaces going constantly, but not in the inner boroughs of Montreal, and probably not even in the greater metro area. I'm all for incentives, carrot *and* stick, to get low-emission, filtered wood stoves, but not to ban stoves altogether.
I think one of the reasons why these people still use these wood stoves despite of its quite harmful effects towards the environment is the fact that they get to save much on their electric bills since they could opt to use wood stoves instead of electric-powered heaters.
ReplyDelete