Fireplace wood smoke IS TOXIC to us all! PLEASE STOP USING YOUR FIREPLACES Sonoma County!!

[Sonoma]

Help, neighbors! What do we do about all of the fireplace wood smoke that people burn in Sebastopol, Santa Rosa, Cotati, Petaluma etc.? (Even in the summer!) All over Sonoma County, it seems that a LOT of people still use their fireplaces! It becomes hard to breathe and hurts us all.

Please help to spread the word that WOOD SMOKE IS TOXIC!!!!! It is more unhealthy than cigarette smoke, and yet people still pump it into the air freely without a care. A lot of people become extremely ill from it! This is a very serious and dangerous issue. Sonoma county should lead others by example, and stop burning wood. Please, stop.

Here is a video on the matter:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx0od3m9V_k
Here is another:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCYzW0yslsI

Thank you to everyone who is kind and respectful about this serious issue.

[JayS]

I agree with you about wood smoke, however, if you have suggestions how people could kick the wood habit to heat their homes, please offer those suggestions or solutions. Some people don't have any options to staying warm, especially in old farm houses, or old houses in general. Just complaining is pretty much useless, in my opinion.
J

[cw707]

This is a tough one. I lived in the San Geronimo valley for 20 years in an old converted barn. The only source of heat was a wood stove. The place had insulation, but the windows were old, and lots of places for cold air to come in. I was without heat for 2 months one winter when the stove leaked and the landlady was slow to replace the stove. During that time, I used one electric heater in the one main room, and my electric bill was over $100 a month, and I still froze, even with several layers and wrapped in wool blankets. So yes, I totally get it about what these people need to do to stay warm.

Now I live in downtown Forestville, not in the country, and I have neighbors who burn wood, even on some cool summer evenings. I have to close up my house so that I don't breath in the smoke. It's especially hard on

Electric Fireplace

elderly people and people with asthma, like me.

Solutions? If you are able, as a landlord or owner, to make the shift from wood to some other electric or gas method, think about doing so. If you have no other source of heat, like I didn't for 20 years, and no way to make a change, then I'm fine closing my windows rather than have someone be really cold. Where I live now, I have an electric fireplace. I don't run my main gas house heater so that I can afford the extra $20 a month it cost to run the electric fireplace. That way, I still get the comfort of that fire look (no, not as great as a real fire, but really quite nice), and I don't put wood smoke into the air. If I can afford to do so, I will upgrade to a gas fireplace when this electric one quits. Anyone have other suggestions?

...Please help to spread the word that WOOD SMOKE IS TOXIC!!!!! I...

[cocreator]

Pat,

It is SO refreshing to see someone else's awareness about this issue! Years ago I created a course about how to live healthier lives by making simple home- and product changes.

The best option would be to use whatever alternative heat source a home has, though this can create a different set of problems if, for example, the only other option is a gas wall heater (gas is as toxic, if not more so, than woodsmoke) or forced air, which blows dust, dirt, mold spores and other contaminants throughout the house. Electric is very expensive and unsustainable. The best options are radiant floor heat, hot water baseboard, or old-fashioned water-filled radiators (NOT oil-filled), but I don't know how many homeowners or renters have these types of heat available. Solar panels/inverters are becoming a good option, though again, that will require an investment before a house is solar-ready.

Blessings and good health to all!

[steph]

Great tips here:

Keeping heat in and near your body in a cool residence
https://livinglowinthelou.blogspot.c...r-body-in.html

Keeping warm with minimal heating: small-scale solutions
https://livinglowinthelou.blogspot.c...ing-small.html

[diaba]

Thank you for your post. I was forced to move last year by a neighbors 24/7 wood burning despite having a natural gas central furnace. We tried everything just to get them to cut back some, even offered to pay their heating bill, but they wouldn't budge.

It does seep into homes, I tried taping up every vent and it still got in. I called the air quality district, and fair housing and not only could they do nothing about it, they didn't seem to care at all.

I find it interesting that they know it's bad enough to require all new units built to have no fireplaces, but let anyone else burn as much as they want.

It can be an emotional issue, some people really love a fire, and don't like being told what to do.

I just wish that if your neighbor has a provable medical problem that smoke worsens their condition, that people would try to cut back a little, or work out some type of compromise.

[diaba]

I saw this in the Bohemian:

Wood Smoke Reduction Grant program Opens August 26

Replace fireplace or wood-burning stove with a qualifying device

Retire or remove existing fireplace or wood-burning stove

Grants from $750-$12,000

For more info: www.baaqmd.gov/woodsmokegrant

questions: [email protected] or (415)749-5195

[Sonoma]

Wow! Such wonderful people here! Thank you all for your honest and kind responses! Yes, it is true that it is a tough situation, because some people simply do not have the money to heat their home with anything but wood fire, and they are okay with risking their own health. However, on the other hand, if I knew that my own heating practices in my home were seriously hurting my neighbors and their health, so much so that they have to start taping up windows and moving away to keep themselves safe, I would do ANYthing I possibly could to keep from actively hurting others.

I am someone with a very limited income due to my chronic disability, and I understand the financial struggles and dilemmas because of it. Still, I would never do that to my neighbors. It is sincerely inhumane. I get extremely ill from the smoke. Even when my neighbors down the street burn in their fireplace, I become fully bedridden after it wafts into my home. -- I am not kidding either. ...For me, I would just never ever do something so harmful to another person. Never.

The GRANT program looks AMAZING, by the way!!!! THANK YOU so so much for sharing that! Please, let's keep pulling together and spreading the word about the true sincere and direct dangers of wood smoke! Most people do not even know how poisonous it is. It is a very important safety factor that must be shared, more and more, until we find a better solution, together.

Love and gratitude to you all ~

[diaba]

I can remember when the anti-smoking laws were just going into effect, before it was banned in many places. You could at least get non-smoking areas of a restaurant, airplane, and hotel.

I wish there could be non-smoking(wood smoke) areas of towns so those who do not want close contact with smoke in their yards and homes could choose that.

[steph]

Air District launching incentive program for fireplace & wood stove upgrades

Date: Wednesday, August 24, 2016

The program will open at 10AM on August 26, 2016, on a first-come, first-served basis for homeowners and landlords to replace their wood burning device. Funding will be prioritized for low-income residents, residents located in areas highly affected by wood smoke, and households exempt from burn bans due to a wood-burning device being the sole source of heat. Starting November 1, 2016, anyone whose sole source of heat is a wood-burning device must use an EPA-certified or pellet-fueled device that is registered with the Air District to qualify for an exemption.

Please note that any new applications received will be placed on a waitlist. If you are placed on the waitlist, we will notify you if, and when, more funding becomes available.

The Air District’s Board of Directors approved $3 million in funding for the incentive program early 2016. The funding will provide assistance for approximately 1,500 Bay Area households to replace older, more polluting fireplaces or wood-burning stoves with cleaner electric heat pumps, or natural gas or propane stoves or inserts. Residents also have the option to decommission their fireplace or wood-burning stove, permanently taking it out of service.

To be eligible, homeowners and landlords must own a residential property that is located within the Air District’s jurisdiction, and must apply for approval of their project and receive a Notice to Proceed from the Air District. Projects that have been initiated or completed before receiving the Air District’s approval are not eligible for funding.

Funding for a project can range from $750 up to a maximum of $12,000 depending on the type of project (device) and other qualifying criteria. A full breakdown of available incentives is shown below:

Funding by Device - Air District Incentive

• Electric Heat Pump - $3,500
• Decommission Fireplace - $750
• Gas-fueled Heating Stove/Insert (Natural Gas or Propane) - $1,000

Enhanced Funding for Select Groups - Additional Criteria

• Low-Income Household - $8,500
• Exempt Household - $1,500
• Areas Heavily Impacted by Wood Smoke - $1,500

Anyone interested in learning about this program can sign up at our website at www.baaqmd.gov/WoodSmokeGrant or by calling 415.749.5195.
View the press release.

[Hotspring 44]

The digest didn't get sent out yesterday (Saturday). Ooops!
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Sunday's digest will be sent out following this one.
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Asking or requiring everybody in all of Sonoma County to not use wood-burning stoves for heat is asking too much.

I used to live in part of Sonoma County called Annapolis. It is in Far West North Sonoma County, just east of Sea Ranch and North East of Stuarts Point.Asking people in Annapolis and other places like it to not use wood to heat their homes is in my opinion, absurd.

There has been a great deal of sudden Oak death die-off, which has been occurring in that area for about 10 years now. It is still happening. Also, because of the extended drought many other trees like Madrone, fir, sugar pine, etc. have also been dying off.

There has been large amount of old-growth redwood cutting in that area in the last hundred years.
Because of human activity there it is largely if not completely a human caused situation which has made the fire hazard much higher than it would've been under natural or even minimal human impact circumstances.

So now because of the human created situation, there are literally millions of dead and/or dying tan oak trees up and down the northern California coast (and also other further inland areas too). There are other tree species that have been affected by it also, but not so much as the tan oak and other oak trees.

For more information on that check out article titled: “Redwoods normally buck fires, except when Sudden Oak Death is around”

The terrain in that area and many other areas throughout the coastal mountains in northern California and Oregon is extremely steep, rugged and remote. Fire and flames go uphill in steep terrain like what those areas terrain is; fire does travel very rapidly under certain circumstances and it's well-known that it creates its own wind when it really gets going, which makes it pretty much impossible for humans alone to put out a fire when it is in “crown” condition .

Unlike Sebastopol, Forestville, Santa Rosa, Guerneville, etc. (of) the properties in the area of Annapolis in Sonoma County, most places are 40 acres or larger, even a lot of the places near so-called downtown Annapolis is farmland consisting of tens if not hundreds of acres each parcel.

Not everybody in Sonoma County lives in and/or near the somewhat more congested towns and cities were maybe there should be a code requirement to have installed certain clean burning wood stoves or pellet-stoves (isn't there already the “Spare the Air Day” in certain parts of California and I think that at least part of Sonoma County has it in place).

Natural gas, propane or electricity powered heating may indeed be what is in order to alleviate the smoke problem better than not doing anything at all... ...But there are caveats with those.

... One is: it can cost between $3,000 and $10,000. Maybe even more In some cases for the homeowner to do that.
So consider, when you are asking for there to be a requirement or even for someone to do so voluntarily (and still heat their home), remember that it is most likely going to cost somebody thousands of dollars to do it.

There are many cities across the nation and in California that have implemented requirements to do just that.

But to make a requirement for somebody that lives on 40 even 400 acres in places like Annapolis in Sonoma County is going to create more legal problems and resistance than it is going to solve the air pollution problems in the cities and incorporated townships, etc. of Sonoma County, which inevitably will, at some point in time create new building codes and ordinances, etc. to to adjudicate what happens with regards to the wood smoke created by non-EPA approved wood-burning stoves.

I am sympathetic to, and one of, the people who are sensitive to wood smoke. I get severe migraines which are sometimes triggered by wood smoke. In fact I suffer more migraines during the winter because of wood smoke than any other time of year.

There are also other methods of burning the firewood other than what people usually do; what they do is choke the fire down by adjusting the vent and the damper to decrease airflow which creates the smoldering type of fire in the stove that creates most of the smoke and soot in the air.

Of course, most people don't want to fire the wood stove off at all or most of the way hot for varying reasons, some of which are:

1- it gets very hot very quickly and makes the area near the wood stove and usually the rest of the house much too hot, sometimes even risking igniting a house fire from the wood stove itself,
2- wood stove has to be either restarted or stoked more often,
3- it usually uses the firewood supply up sooner,
4-somebody usually has to start a fire in the morning, which means; those with the responsibility of children, elderly persons that they are taking care of etc., or those who have health issue/s where they should not get too cold, etc....

4- (continued) ...IOW, whoever is responsible for keeping the house warm will in all likelihood have to be up and out of bed at least an hour earlier than otherwise just to get the house warm using that technique.

I do know of one person that did live in Guerneville who had a very cold house, but she still operated her stove that way because she was conscious of the smoldering/smoke issue...
...She ran out of firewood often, was on a 'fixed income' so getting firewood supply was a constant problem because of the small volume that she could afford at any one time; not everybody selling firewood wanted to do deliver in such small quantities, usually the cost of delivery was very expensive but still less expensive than using the only available electric powered heat.

Other than the wood stove, there was only one other heat source (besides using the cook stove or oven; which if I remember correctly, was also powered by very expensive electricity; which frequently had outages in the winter, which is another issue).
It was the very expensive to use electric plug-in-portable heater which there were two of but neither of them, even on at the same time were able to warm the house (or even one room in the house for that matter) fast enough if the house got cold (in the winter, in that area, it quite often got in the upper 20s and 30s every night)... ...So with the electric heater/s:

1- It was too expensive to run continuous to keep the house even above 50° F,
2- it was 4x the cost of firewood and still, it did not adequately heat the house anyway.

Another thing is, I have noticed over the years that a lot of the firewood that people burn in the area is that the firewood is not completely seasoned or properly kept dry enough in the wood shed or under the tarp, leaving too much moisture content throughout the firewood, whereas green wood and/or wet wood is very difficult to burn hot and clean enough, It is almost impossible not to have a lot of smoke and soot coming out of the stovepipe when there is too high of a content of moisture in the firewood, which is a very common issue... ...(certainly not just limited to Sonoma County towns, it's pretty much everywhere where people still use wood burning to heat their house)... ...Also, some kinds of wood just smokes allot when burned.

That being said, I think for the whole of (all parts of) Sonoma County, that the request is at this point in time unreasonable and also unnecessary to accomplish 'the' what I think is the intended goal of the thread's title, which I believe is: (that, for) you and your neighbors not being subjected to the so-called (as you put it) “TOXIC” wood smoke.

Pellet Stoves vs. Wood Stoves, (the efficient ones, not the old more common kind that your grandparents generation had): https://www.treehugger.com/clean-tec...s-greener.html

There are other issues with so-called 'cleaner' heating energy sources, such as: oil, natural gas LPG, & coal energy, either being used directly in heater in your home or being used to generate electricity that you can then use to heat your home, office, or shop, etc., one of which I will mention here is fracking (I am leaving out coal for now because California uses so little of it and Sonoma County probably micro amounts comparatively to mid west, back East, etc.... ...Never mind nuclear fission power generated electricity, but I think it is at least worth mentioning once here because it does exist here in California... ...but I won't get into all that for this thread)...

...In California:
...I too am concerned about things being so toxic, though when I am considering: Propane... ...Natural Gas and fossil fuel centered means of directly using or generating electricity as “alternatives?... ...I consider that we all should at least be aware of the the following when weighing the differences regarding what, where and how “TOXIC!” heating your house may be, and to whom those toxins affect as a result of us using those 'alternatives'.... ...Just to mention but not get into how our energy use decisions shape geopolitics.

Anyway...
See :https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.ph...a_and_fracking