Wood-burning stoves: Smoke-related complaints, health problems on the rise

Wood-burning stoves: Smoke-related complaints, health problems on the rise

By David Funkhouser | Tribune Newspapers
February 22, 2009

HARTFORD, Conn. — Jodi Blanco said she never got sick until her neighbor installed a wood-burning stove a few years ago.

Now she has been ill for more than a month, she wakes up coughing in her sleep, and her two young children are plagued by breathing problems.

But she can't get anyone to do anything about it, and she's not alone.

"My daughter missed a whole week of school, and my son has a continual runny nose and watery eyes, and he's complaining he doesn't feel good all the time," said Blanco of East Windsor, Conn. "When I open the bay window in front, I can smell the smoke. It's coming in my house, and it's making us sick."

An increasing number of people are firing up wood stoves, furnaces and fireplaces as a hedge against rising heating bills, but wood fuel, steeped in history and romance, has become a health hazard for many.

Even though the number of complaints is growing, the laws regarding wood-burning devices are limited, and there has been little that health and environmental officials can do.

For all the poetry and nostalgia surrounding fireplaces and wood stoves, their smoke is loaded with toxic compounds and particles that have been associated with cancer and severe respiratory problems.

States nationwide are reacting, in some cases banning wood burning entirely on days when air quality is poor. That can happen in the winter when temperature inversions—cold air staying close to the ground below warmer air above—keep polluted air from dispersing.

The worst offenders are outdoor wood furnaces, which typically produce a dirtier smoke than wood and pellet stoves. The units are supposed to be at least 200 feet from other homes and have a smokestack higher than surrounding rooftops, and owners are only supposed to burn clean wood.

John Tarquinio, owner of Fireside Supply in Hebron, Conn., said stove and furnace sales shot up in 2008 when fuel prices spiked. He agreed that misuse can be a problem.

"It needs to be regulated, to be looked at. It needs to be cleaned up," he said.

When Dorothy Alderman and her husband moved to Andover Lake, just a few people among her 100 or so neighbors burned wood, and then only occasionally. A few years ago, that started to change.

"One day, I saw 26 houses with smoke coming out," Alderman said. "It's not just, 'Let's make a fire on the weekend,' it's all the time."

The smoke began to bother her and eventually led to a permanent medical condition, parosmia, in which her sense of smell is so damaged that she cannot stand even slight hints of smoke.

In 2006, after 20 years on the lake, she and her husband decided to move. Now they live in Hebron, which has banned the installation of outdoor wood furnaces.

The Hartford Courant