Wood-heat complaints push state to regulate

Wood-heat complaints push state to regulate

Monday, April 21, 2008 3:10 AM
By Mark Ferenchik

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

The silver smokestack is attached to a wood-fired boiler, used to heat this home on Hamilton Park near I-71. A neighbor, worried about the health effects, filed complaints with the city and state.

It's not too conspicuous from the street: a silver stack poking up from behind a backyard fence.

But John W. Waddy Jr. said it's a scourge on his Near East Side neighborhood.
This past winter, the stack belched smoke from a wood-burning boiler that warmed neighbor John Clarke's home but also, according to Waddy, polluted homes, cars and offices.

"This thing has a life of its own," Waddy said. He filed complaints with the city and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency in January.
Columbus officials said they don't regulate outdoor furnaces or boilers. But enough people have complained about the growing number of outdoor wood boilers statewide that the EPA is writing rules to regulate them.

The estimated number of Ohio homes that use wood as the principal heating source rose 27 percent in three years, to 71,711 in 2006, according to the U.S. Census. The estimate for Franklin County varies widely, between 300 and 900 homes.

Clarke installed the $8,000 system last year behind his 140-year-old stately stone-and-brick Hamilton Park house. He said it helped reduce the cost to heat his 5,200-square-foot house from $2,500 a month with a gas furnace to $700 a month, including the delivery of 12 cords of wood over the winter.

The wood boiler, housed in a shed, heats water that is pumped through insulated underground pipes into the house to the existing forced-air furnace. The furnace's fan blows air over the pipes to send heat throughout the ductwork.
Clarke still uses his gas furnace, but he estimated he used the wood furnace 95 percent of the time since last fall.

He wondered how the government could restrict the smoke. "How do you distinguish between this and chimneys?" said Clarke, a 37-year-old information-technology systems engineer.

Waddy, a lawyer who lives and works on Hamilton Park just east of I-71 and is also trying to sell 12 condominiums nearby in a refurbished building, said he's concerned the particulate-filled smoke is harming the community's health.

The proposed state rules are still under review. Officials probably will redraft them because of complaints they are too harsh, Ohio EPA spokeswoman Linda Oros said.
As written, the state would require new units to be at least 200 feet from property lines, essentially banning them from urban areas with small lots.

"Can you imagine one of these stoves in German Village?" Waddy said. It also would require smokestacks to be no less than 5 feet higher than the peak of any roof within 150 feet. That's so smoke can dissipate before anyone breathes it, Oros said.

Clarke's smokestack is about 15 feet tall, which is below the rooflines of the surrounding two-story homes.

The manufacturer's Web site recommends that in densely populated areas the stack height exceed the roofline of surrounding homes.

Ohio would limit emissions to 0.44 pounds of particles per million BTUs of heat, decreasing to 0.32 pounds in 2010. The U.S. EPA has set voluntary standards of 0.60 pounds, which manufacturers are working to meet.

It also would prohibit the use of a boiler from April 15 to Sept. 13 unless it met emission limits.
Copies of the proposed rules can be obtained by calling Carolina Prado at 614-644-2310. Written comments can be mailed to the Division of Air Pollution Control, Ohio EPA, P.O. Box 1049, Columbus, Ohio 43216-1049.

EPA officials will review the comments, change the proposals if necessary, issue a draft proposal and take more comments, Oros said.

Other states and communities have prohibited or regulated the boilers. Maryland has banned them. And 62 counties, towns or villages in New York have passed restrictions, The New York Times reported. Suffolk County on Long Island in 2006 restricted their use to colder months until 2010, when they will be banned except for natural disasters.
mferenchik@dispatch.com