Rotten VT bureaucrats and their regulations

[SwampDonkey]

They just finished tearing down one of them nukes in Maine (Maine Yankee), something like a 12 acre area to store the waste in buildings. The plant and grounds originally took up over 100 acres. Now they are looking for developers for that land.

[EdK]

I noticed that "indoor" boilers are exempt...

How about installing a boiler in an "outbuilding"?  ;)

[karl]

Just more of "If we don't police ourselves, our government will".

I added 9' to my chimney, don't burn it during warm weather and
try to keep it from idling too long.

No complaints from the neighbors (I WOULD HEAR IF THERE WAS A PROBLEM)

On the one hand I would like to see waterstoves (furnaces in general, cars, airplanes, government :) become more efficient- on the other I dislike being told how and what I can/can not do on the property I paid for and continue to pay taxes on.

[Engineer]

Karl, that's a good starting point for hijacking my own thread.  Maybe we should have a discussion on "HOW TO BURN WOOD IN AN OUTDOOR WOOD BOILER"  rather than me whinin' about something that really won't affect me.

I already know that green wood, trash and the like are 'verboten', so to speak.  What does the extra length of chimney accomplish?  Also - I suspect that a lot of these boilers smolder, even with dry wood, a LOT.  How can we solve that?  Some thought come to mind are continuous circulation through a very large, or series of, hot water storage tanks.    I'd like to see something more efficient, I just don't like the governmental knee-jerk reaction to a problem by heaping it on the manufacturer and not making the owner be responsible.  There are some places that an outdoor boiler simply has no reason being there.

[Ernie]

Andrew

At least he/she signed the letter with half a dozen kisses ;D ;D

[Dan_Shade]

my dad has a tylor outdoor stove, the smoke it makes is horrible, it bellows and pukes smoke that's 100x worse than smoke from a chimney.  I figure it has to do with forced air Vs. drafting that a chimney makes.

my mom still fusses about it, and he's had the thing for 15 years or so.  after reading that letter, I sort of see where it's coming from.

[wiam]

My Central Boiler uses a lot less green wood than dry wood for the same amount of heat.  On the asthma  issue,  My wife has asthma.  The outdoor boiler gets any smaoke and ashes out of my house.  This gives her less problems.

Will

[karl]

The added chimeny simply gets the smoke higher before wind carries it toward me/neighbors.

I try to keep the stove calling for heat as it produces less smoke on full burn( too big a stove smolders more) This time of year is worst as only the kiln (minimal heat required) and house domestic are calling regularly. In cold weather shop, house heat, domestic and kiln keep it busy.

The large volume storage would keep the stove heating for a longer period at a time- but then you have the problem of heat loss in all those stored btus.

Haven't really noticed more/less smoke with green wood, obviosly there is more water vapor with green, so it would be reasonable to assume more smoke.

The wood turns to charcoal after the initial burn- then it starts up quiker with less rolling smoke.

Good point on the pressure vs draft- I had thought about trying a draft inducer on the chimeny wired to the thermostat to see if it would help or at least increase the upward velocity of the smoke.

The system works well for me as I eitther burn the slabs and scrap in a contained unit to heat my buildings or buy oil and burn the scrap in bonfires (fueled with more fossil fuel) If I had to buy wood - these units are not the way to go.

By the way - mine is a Central

[IndyIan]

For sure, I agree that boilers can smoke more when people load them full of wet wood and then turn the damper down so they won't have to look at it for a couple days.  Unfortunately using them that way is exactly how the boiler dealers say to use them, it is a selling point...

And some designs are just hopeless to get a clean burn, every boiler I've ever seen with a firebox without firebrick inside has creosote covering everything in there...  Everyone knows how badly a fire has to burn to get creosote in the chimney of an indoor stove.  So how can a boiler having creosote inside the firebox have any kind of efficiency at all?
The answer is, it can't.

So I guess its come to having the government step in since the boiler manufacturers aren't willing to improve their products.  Kinda like the automakers, who fought safety standards, lowering emmisions, and improving efficiency...  I am sure am glad everyone isn't driving 6 mpg, seatbeltless, carbon monoxide bealching cars these days...
Ian



   

[wiam]

Hey, I got a letter from Central Boiler today.  I did not get one last month.  This one is concerning the hearing on October 17.  The letter states" The rule proposes a particulate emmisions standard that cannot be met because there is no way to test for compliance."
" Particulate emmisions froma  properly operated furnace are the same as an EPA indoor wood-burning stove."

There are also copies of letters to send to complain.

Will

[Engineer]

I got another one from Central - same as yours.  Also got the exact same letter and papers from Heatmor - apparently I had signed in to their website at some point in the past, so they sent letters to "current and FUTURE owners".

Anyway, Vermont Interactive Television is going to be doing a simulcast and Q&A of the hearing on Monday night, and there's a VIT site ten miles away.  I'll be there.

[jgoodhart]

I have a Mahoning outside boiler and when I purchased it used it was a wood hog and smoked up neiborhood. To make it more efficent I add 3 4" pipes that helped transfer heat to the water and a 6" that the 3 4" go into and it sits in the water jacket and hooks up where the orginal chimney exited the stove and also this helped with heat tranfer but did little for the smoke. To fix the smoke issue I add another blower and brake coil that picks up the blower door and mounted it on the door of the stove and it blows in about 6" off the top of the fire box and adds o2 to complete the burn of the wood gases. If you crack the door and look in it's cool to watch with the blue and white flames dancing aound with very little smoke out the chimney. When the stove sits between burns it shouldn't make that much smoke if all the gaskets are sealing off air entery. I use high temp silcon for the gaskets instead of rope and it lasts longer than the rope. A guy up the road about 3/4 mile has the same stove in the orignal configuration and when you look up from down in the valley you can see the thick smoke from his and over my way you can't see anything.