Environmental Issue: Wood Burning Fireplaces
Environmental Psychology considers two issues with wood burning
fireplaces. What's important to you? Your home environment for
emotional support or saving the environment?
If you plan to move to a new home or to build a home, you may
draw a line through a fireplace as a necessity. Although people
love the warmth, comforting crackling sounds, aromas, and moving
light a wood burning fire provides, fireplaces can emit polluted
air into your home and into your neighborhood.
Most home shoppers request a fireplace. Home buyers desire a
hearth, which symbolizes home. Families gather around the
fireplace during holiday celebrations and quiet conversations.
Book lovers enjoy curling up next to a fire on a cool afternoon.
Many new homes feature fireplaces in the main bedroom. After
all, what's more romantic than a fire?
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, wood-burning
fireplaces emit nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, organic gases,
and particulate matter. These pollutants can cause serious
health problems for children, pregnant women, and people with
respiratory problems. Like cigarette smoke, some of these
elements contain cancer-causing properties.
Some urban cities have considered banning wood-burning
fireplaces altogether to stem the flow of pollutants in the
smog-filled air. Some California cities and counties have
enacted local ordinances to limit the growing wood smoke
problem. Mammoth Lakes, Squaw Valley, Cloverdale, Fresno, and
many cities and counties in the Bay Area permit installation of
only U.S.EPA certified wood-fired appliances in all new
construction. Since 1991, the Bay Area AQMD has issued
advisories for a voluntary no-burn program on poor air quality
nights, "Spare the Air Tonight."
But wait! Solutions exist so you can enjoy your fire. To keep
pollutants from entering your room air, you can install a
certified clean-burning fireplace insert and a glass screen. Buy
a carbon monoxide monitor and an oxygen-depletion sensor to
ensure safe air. The new fireplace systems keep pollutants from
leaving your chimney.
Other considerations for you to ponder include the source of
heating for your home. What happens when natural gas demand
outpaces production? Prices skyrocket. And if your heat comes
from a coal-burning electrical plant, doesn't the burning coal
produce toxins that pollute the air?
If you're building a new home, consider installing a Pellet
Stove, the most efficient and least polluting of the new stove
designs. Pellet Stoves provide less than 1 gram per hour of
particulate emissions. Most of these stoves s require
electricity and burn compressed wood waste formed into pellets.
Be kind to yourself and to the environment. Consider these
environmental issues when you light up your fire.
Copyright © Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved.
About the author:
For more home environmental issue articles, visit Environmental
Psychology http://environmentpsychology.com/
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