EPA Rules On Wood Stoves: 5 Things You Should Know

big epa rules

The federal government has been flexing its muscle extensively under the rule of President Obama. From the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, thousands of pages of new regulations have spewed forth every year.

Probably no organization has worked harder to issue new regulations than the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), who has attacked everything from coal-fired power plants and lead smelters to the puddle of water sitting in your backyard.

{adinserter usf}The recent EPA rules on wood-burning stoves  is an example of executive overreach through regulations. They have issued new regulations, which limit the amount of particulate emissions from new wood-burning stoves to 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air. This new regulation is a reduction from the old regulation, which allowed 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

That may not seem like much of a reduction, but anyone who has ever sat around a campfire knows that wood fires put off a fair amount of fire, as well as creating soot. This is what the EPA is concerned about.

To put that in perspective, they are asking for a 20% reduction in particulate emissions from what is really a rather old technology. This isn’t some sort of new chemical process that puts poisons into the air, but rather simple burning of wood, that only puts soot into the air. The worst it can do is to cause snow to become dirty.

Speaking as an ordinary citizen, and not a scientist, I’d have to say that wood smoke is one of the least dangerous pollutants I know of. While it is dirty, can make a dirty looking cloud over the city and even make the countryside look dirty (that happened back in the 1800s, when wood heat was much more common than it is today), today, with the small number of people who actually use wood burning stoves to heat their home, the effects are minimal.

Where Do These Regulations Come From?

The EPA under Obama has been working hand in hand with several large environmental groups to pass these new regulations. Working together, they have found a way of bypassing Congress, by using the court system.

This system is called “Sue and settle.” In it an environmental organization sues the federal government over some invented threat to the environment. Rather than go to court over the issue, the EPA develops new regulations to satisfy the “concerns” raised in the law suit and satisfy the requirements of it. Of course, this is all arranged behind closed doors, so that the EPA and these environmental organizations can do what they want, without the interference of Congress.

To add insult to injury, the EPA not only gives in to the environmental group, regardless of how much it hurts the average American, but they also pay a large cash settlement to them, as well as picking up their court costs. In other words, the federal government is giving our tax dollars to these organizations, to fund their activities, without the legal right to do so.

How Does this Regulation Affect You?

1. The big question for most people is how this regulation can affect them personally. For most, the answer is that it doesn’t. These new regulations only affect the manufacture of new wood burning stoves, not any existing ones. So, if you are planning on buying a wood burning stove or replacing an existing one, your cost will go up.

2. All new wood burning stoves being sold today meet this upgraded regulation. Technically, it is illegal to sell a used one that does not. So, if you have an existing wood burning stove and are thinking about upgrading to a newer one, you can’t legally sell your old one to help cover the cost. Likewise, if someone offers you a used wood burning stove, buying it would be considered illegal if you got caught.

3. If you already have a wood burning stove, you will probably want to avoid replacing it, if you don’t have to. Repairing an existing stove, even replacing parts, would probably be much cheaper than replacing it. However, your old wood burning stove might not be as efficient as the newer ones are, so if you have an old stove, you might want to compare the efficiency of it to the newer models, in order to see if an upgrade would save you enough in fuel to pay for itself.

4. Please note that although the federal regulation does not affect you if your wood burning stove was purchased before the new regulation went into effect, state regulations may. Some states are going even farther than the federal regulations, trying to outlaw wood burning stoves altogether, especially within city limits.

5. A number of preppers have bought older model wood burning stoves to keep in their homes as a heating source in case of an emergency. If there is an EMP or major attack on the electrical grid, shutting down power, they want to have a way of heating their home, and these stoves are the solution to the problem. Wood is one of the most reliable sources, one that can be harvested by yourself without the aid of a lot of expensive equipment and a renewable resource.

If you happen to be one of these people and have an old wood burning stove that you keep in your home, garage or barn for use in case of a disaster, I wouldn’t worry about it. If things get bad enough that you need to use that wood burning stove, I seriously doubt that anyone will be running around and checking your emissions.

If there are any environmentalists running around at that time, you can easily slip through under the grandfather clause in the regulation, by stating that you had the wood burning stove in your home, since before the new regulation was put into effect. They have no way of proving otherwise.

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This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.

Written by

Bill White is the author of Conquering the Coming Collapse, and a former Army officer, manufacturing engineer and business manager. More recently, he left the business world to work as a cross-cultural missionary on the Mexico border. Bill has been a survivalist since the 1970s, when the nation was in the latter days of the Cold War. He had determined to head into the Colorado Rockies, should Washington ever decide to push the button. While those days have passed, the knowledge Bill gained during that time hasn’t. He now works to educate others on the risks that exist in our society and how to prepare to meet them. You can send Bill a message at editor [at] survivopedia.com.

Latest comments
  • Is their not a single person in a position to ask the EPA why breathing aluminum and barium nano particles is OK but wood stoves are out?

  • When it comes to these “enviro-wackos”, dump a tree on them! I worked 28
    years in the timber industry; these misguided idiots have destroyed the jobs
    and home security of whole communities! Interestingly, these people love
    their beautiful wood homes and fireplace. Nothing compares to wood heat in
    cold and wet country.

  • Next they will outlaw burning wood or wood products. Guess we will have to buy a bird killing wind powered propeller !

  • I think this is a bit biased as an example of government over-regulation. It is clear that the improved standard is a good one and stoves on the market already make it. What is your problem with increasing our environmental health? Significantly reducing soot makes a big contribution to cutting its impact on increased ice melt in the Arctic, and the increased heat gain from the dark sea absorbing heat rather than the white ice reflecting it back into space. None of us wants to see the kind of climate chaos we are in for if all the Arctic ice melts and we have the likes of Sandy every year. Prepping will not get us far in those circumstances.

    • Greenland had people & farms on it before the Little Ice Age. [“Before 1300”] Vikings were there at one time “800 to 1100”. Mid- Evil temps were higher then, than now! We did not cause climate change & WE can not stop climate change !!! Read- Roy W Spencer’s books on climate change.{Ph.D in Meteorology-Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA} Go to-Icecap.com.

    • the amount of smoke from older specification wood stoves, is nothing compared to the plastic of all the wrappers and products made in China or any plastic factory for that matter, so if You shop at Wal-Mart, your opinion hardly means anything. if You or any of the people on those [ environmental protection agencies] fly in a JET to anywhere for any reason, their opinion means nothing. if you support a war that has never ended, blowing stuff/people up,fueling jets, bombs, aircraft n ships, your opinion means nothing. if you drive a rediculously expensive to fuel vehicle, well again Those peoples’ opinion, concerns are null and void. zip, clean up their own BS and look in the Freakin mirror. wood burning has been a part of life on earth, even for millions of years when the humans were/are all dead. lightning and mother nature are very powerful. if you support military testing of every kind of bomb and even the ones they blew up above the ionisphere, tearing massive F’n holes in the skin of our skies, give your head a shake in SHAME, evil possessed egotists’. that is my Rant !!

    • Mr. Larke,
      Can you tell me how a little bit of smoke and ash from my wood stove in AZ is going to get to the north pole? The little bit that comes out of the chimney settles back to earth within a short time or distance. As it does, it just feeds the plants and enriches the soil. When I read your comment, at first I thought it was a spoof, trying to show just how crazy the wackos on the Left are in their thinking. Then I realized that you are serious. “Significantly reducing soot makes a big contribution to cutting its impact on increased ice melt in the Arctic…” Other than a few villages near the arctic, I cannot imagine ANY soot from any wood stove in the US actually making its way to that area. “None of us wants to see the kind of climate chaos…” Are you serious? “Climate chaos” from soot from wood stoves? Not to bore you with facts, but the ice caps have been increasing, not melting away. Since you bought into Gore’s nonsense, if you remember, he stated that coastal cities would be flooded by 2010. As the sea levels have not risen to cause any flooding from polar caps melting, at all; why do you still spew such nonsense?

  • KNOW OBUMMER WANTS YOU TO FREEZE TO DEATH IF YOU LIVE UP NORTH , IF YOU HEAT WITH WOOD OR IF YOU JUST LITE A FIRE TO KEEP WARM IN YOUR HOME , WE HAVE TO START DOING SOME THING ABOUT THIS *** , I HAVE CARRIED SIGHNS ON BRIDGES BY MY SELF AND PUT SJGNS ON MY TRUCKS AND CARS TO PROTEST AGAINST OBUMMER , POLICE HAVE ORDERRED ME TO NOT PROTEST ON BRIDGES , BECAUSE I DISTACT DRIVERS , ALOT OF PEOPLE BLOW THERE HORNS IN FAVOR OF MY SJGNS AND GIVE ME A THUMBS UP , IHAVE SOME SIGNS STILL LEFT THAT I PUT ON MY CAR , I GET SOME THUMBS UP , BUT I GET ALOT OF BAD LOOKS WHEN I ENTER WALL-MART AND IM WEARING DIFERRENT T-SHIRTS LIKE , IMPEACH OBUMMER AND SO ON , MY BEST T-SHIRT THAT SEEMED TO GET A GOOD RESPONCE IS , I WONT SALUTE A *** , I GET GOOD RESPONSES WHEN I GO INTO BASS PRO SHOPS , I GET ALOT OF HAND SKAKES , , BUT IM THE ONLY ONE DOING ANY OF THIS IN THE PUBLIC EYES , THE WORLD IS DYING RITE INFRONT OF US , AND NOBODY IS DOING ANY THING ABOUT IT ,, MY NEXT T-SHIRT IS GOING TO SAY WAKE UP OBUMMER NEEDS TO GO , ITS HARD TO SAY WHAT ID LIKE TO SAY , THERES ONLY SO MUCH ROOM ON A T-SHIRT I TRY TO GET MY POINT ACROSS .

    • You will get more traction if you approach people calmly rather than acting crazy. I totally get it…its crazy…but think results…..
      Call Congress out on what they are doing….Phone calls, get others to call. When they know we are watching them closely….they behave differently. Also, let them know that we understand that they are trying to confuse us..Border Protection bill.HB399 is B.S. and it sounds like border protection, but it is not. So, call your congressman and also others and let them know that they are not fooling us. Just be calm and rational. Sign petitions. etc. AND PRAY….

  • Bill, all this focus on the current President?

    If the next President is anyone besides Obummer, won’t the regs keep coming? Do you think Gov over- reach is new? Did Government shrink under Reagan? Bush I? Bush II?

    By focusing attention on one man, you make people think he is the problem:
    If only Mitt Romney had been elected.

    Yes, the N*ger be out the “white” house.

    From the start Romney wanted a 5% increase in Military: that is $25B, Bill. Of borrowed, or printed up, funny money.

    Our problems are bigger than any one individual- even Obummer.

    • I agree,the fact of “powers that be” , they own both parties in the states, democratic and republican, the powers that be just play the people to seem fare and loyal to the majorities wants and wishes, BUT, [“WE OWN BOTH PARTIES”] hahaha LOL, BUT the plan of a world is chosen by POWERS THAT BE, and no matter which puppet dangles at the end of the strings for the public to envy or blame, He/She, is only a face of lies and deceit for the POWERS THAT BE. even when that face is a member of the POWERS THAT Be !! The Agendas are all ready written and civilians may get a new speed sign near the school where a person was ran over, or almost but getting a world f efficiency, balance, COMMON SENSE, is out of the question. forever.

  • All of this seems to be related to ideas and beliefs about global warming being caused by burning coal and wood. Since the majority of heating and electrical generation for homes and industry between 1900 and 1950 was generated by burning coal and wood, it should have caused those years to be our warmest. The records show the opposite is true. So, how can it be said we’re causing global warming now when it didn’t happen then???

  • I keep enough processed fire wood on my property to heat my house for two
    Winters without having to go out and get more. I live in a village of 500
    people, in rural Central Illinois. I have burnt fire wood all Winter long
    for the 5 Winters that I have owned my foreclosure house. Processing so much
    fire wood is a real chore, but it saves me a lot of money. And since my job
    just gave me a $4 per hour decrease in pay, I need that fire wood all the
    more.
    Is there anything that I can do to resist the EPA regarding wood burning.
    Are there other ways to heat my house that the EPA hasn’t managed to get
    their claws in to yet?

    • check out videos on you tube about rocket stoves/pre heat hot water/ building reburners and re burning your smoke, it is basically more chambers on the chimney and back into the stove, then the final emissions can be distilled into a type of [ethyl/ methyl alcohol] to burn in a generator or car type combustion motor. almost NO smoke comes out of the chimney many people show several ideas for these custom mods, of course the fire inspection folks will have a bird unless someone has built the CSA/ US standards, units. but the average Joe, just might get er done. good luck

  • As far as I am concerned, every EPA employee is a traitor to the US Constitution, and should be given a “Traitor’s Death!”
    I frankly would be very happy to shoot each and every one of them, as well as the BLM!
    Because I live in the West, you EPA bitch-asses don’t show your pussies out here very often, because you know that we would rather just shoot you as soon as talk to you punk-asses!
    We have to deal with the BLM, but as we showed those thug-bitches in Bunkerville, we are no longer intimidated by their punk-asses! We already know that the next confrontation will be a firefight, and we are all ready for them! This time, there will be thousands more coming! And, the minute there is bloodshed, the 2nd Civil War will be on and every federal agent west of the Mississippi will have a very large bullseye on them!
    We will not fire first, but the minute they do, they will have signed their death warrants!
    This federal Communist overreach is over, but the federal Communist morons just haven’t figured it out yet!

  • In my opinion, the EPA is a big smoke screen (no pun intended), and a close ally of the United Nations, working to implement “Agenda 21”. If you are not sure exactly what “Agenda 21” is, read the United Nations proposal, “Agenda 21” and you will clearly see what is happening. The scary thing is, local politicians across America are already falling into their trap, and it’s exactly what the UN wants. Also Glen Beck has written a book entitled “Agenda 21” a worth while read. Hope folks catch on before it’s too late.

  • While I’m not defending or condoning the current EPA (they’re no doubt as corrupt as the FDA), let’s give them (or their predecessors) their due for “giving” us the current generation of cleaner-burning wood stoves. Modern, efficient stoves are a vast improvement over earlier models, and cleaner air, everywhere, is a tangible result. When clean air regulations first focused on wood burners in the late 1970s, industry responded with ingenuity and innovation, and the newly engineered designs benefited all. If, as the author states, most currently allowed appliances already meet the new regs, then the issue is with regulatory zeal as a PROCESS, not the practical outcome [cleaner air for all to breathe]. Chastise the bloated bureaucracy for pandering to special interests? You bet! Resist their ongoing efforts to regulate every aspect of our lives (to benefit those same special interests)? Absolutely! But please don’t ignore the positive benefits, however small or “inconvenient”. Baby: good. Bathing baby: good. Punishing the creator of the dirty bath water: bad. Throwing out the baby with the dirty bath water: need I ask?

  • Yes it is good that we have some of the regulations on wood burning stoves but it’s not the regulations that is the problem. The problem is all of these government entities that make regulations without any oversite. They move in behind the scenes and implement their stragtegy without any vetting. Some of the regulations that get passed make it nearly impossible for someone to make a living and most of the time it is not for the good of the people but only for the good of the special interest group backing them. You get some billionaire with unicorn and rainbow ideas that can spend large amounts of money in this country and they pretty much get their own way. The government of the people for the people and by the people is long gone its now the governement of the dollar by the dollar and for the dollar. When was the last federal politician elected that was blue collar? Someone that actually has an idea of what it takes to live a comfortable secure life in our country without some sort of agency telling us how everything they do is for our good.

  • Unfortunately, while the federal EPA is making these obstacles to heating one’s home with natural tree firewood, in Utah the state DEQ is moving create an outright and total ban on all wood burning from November 1 to March 15, each and EVERY YEAR! They are currently taking comments, but it’s seeming most probable by next year, no wood burning in the winter will be allowed in or near the urban area of Northern Utah.

    • that is bent ! and truly controlling what little freedom/comfort and pleasure a human has left in the pay/pay n pay more for something You rent, like you cant store natural gas and electricity very cheaply but you could have 10 chords of fire wood in a dry ready to use place. the control factor over electricity, diesel [ not bio/hemp diesel] s only to keep us down and controlled, willing to pay mega Bucks, so you can keep your loved ones warm n comfortable

  • I personally take an issue with your stand against environmentalists. I strongly believe that I have no moral right to leave this planet in worse condition than I received. Unfortunately, we already did a lot of irreversible damage. We used up most of the oil resources in just one-two generations! We brought to extinction a number of species. And we’ll never know which of them of them had gens for the cure of cancer….
    Moreover, why should my grandchildren feel deprived to see lions, crocodiles etc. in the wild, while their grampa did?
    And why should they have to pay to for our living above our means, including medicine and pensions??? Do you feel that they owe it to us??? For what????
    I’m personally doing my best not to have the guilt feelings for all this above….

    • Treehuggers?ie; coal fired power plants . Work in one 100miles SSE of Dalas and are arbitrarily blamed for that city’ poor air quality. Shut us down along with power for millions?What about vehicular emmissions? bet our air quality requirements are more stringent than those! BUT of course we aren’t part of the gas and oil conglomerite. Smoke that in your self-rightous pipes!!??!!??!!!!!!

  • They want you on the grid. Not independent.
    It’s that simple.

  • You have to love the “Nature Nazis”, my term for them. I would like to give to examples:
    Example 1. I was up at Zion National Park with my boys to hike the Zion Narrows and was wading in the Virgin River near the campground and turning some rocks over like I hade done many times before with my older boys and built dams to make a wading pond when a Nature Nazi comes up to me and says “don’t you know that you are destroying the environment”. I said “I don’t think so”. To which he said “You need to stop that” like that was going to work. So, I said to him ” so let me get this straight, if a flash flood comes down and wipes out all of the living creatures in this river due to suffocating from the silt and mud or being bashed against rocks due to the speed of the flow, that is all right since it is a natural occurrence, but if I move a few rocks and release some nutrients down the river to feed these creatures that is wrong. Do I have that correct?” Well, he looked dumbfounded and just turned around and walked away.
    Example 2. We could have stopped the pine beetles in southwestern Utah if the Nature Nazis hadn’t intervened to keep us from burning down the 2 acres that they had already infested. Instead, they spread all over southwestern Utah and killed the pine trees. However and luckily they only liked one kind of pine tree and not every evergreen. However, this one kind of pine covered a lot of ground and when the people at Brianhead, Utah cut down these type of pines around the ski slopes it pretty much denuded the area. Also, if we had a thunderstorm with lightning and it started a forest fire, we would have had a firestorm which everyone would have thought we were in Hell, but luckily again, that didn’t happen. But when the Nature Nazis went militant and started driving spikes into the trees which were marked to be cut down and which went into a saw mill and killed an operator there when the saw hit the spike and sent it flying, that was the last straw, but did any of the Nature Nazis go to jail for murder or manslaughter? of course not.
    I would give you another story about deer hunting, but that is another story and I will stop for now.
    Keep up the good work and the good fight. Some reasoning and rationality must come to the forefront.

  • Nothing man has done, will do, or has ever done has ever had an effect as great as that of nature. We had ice ages and great heat long before man ever existed.

  • Here in Utah foreign companies are developing oil tar sands extraction plants in the Book Cliffs and the federal govt. is helping finance this . So everyday people are putting up all matter of resistance against this project. Does that MAKE THEM EVIL?

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