Building Science Humor

[Dick Seibert]

Rich:

How can you be allowed to burn wood in the midst of all this rampant environmentalism?

The 2012/2013 Winter Spare the Air season runs from November 1 through February 28.

Each day by 2 p.m., the Air District will issue an air quality forecast for the next day. If air quality is forecast to be unhealthy, a Winter Spare the Air Alert will be called. The alert will be in effect the entire next day, for a full 24 hours.

When a Winter Spare the Air Alert is in effect, it is illegal to burn wood, manufactured fire logs, pellets, or any other solid fuels in your fireplace, woodstove, or outdoor fire pit.

During the winter season, wood smoke is the largest source of harmful particulate pollution, or soot. These microscopic particles are so small that several thousand could fit on the period at the end of this sentence.¹

We actually have neighbors turning in neighbors for bounties, there is a major problem in Greece now as their entitlement society has collapsed people are resorting to wood burning to keep warm showering Europe with pollution, this is real pollution not CO2.

Due to the prohibitive cost of central heating oil, Greek households have turned to wood burning stoves and fireplaces as their primary form of heat. This has resulted in a stark rise in air pollution, notably in the cities of Athens and Thessaloniki. According to Proto Thema smog has clouded the cities, with air pollution measuring three times more than normal.
When central heating oil went on sale in October the price was 48 percent higher than the previous year, due to increased taxes. Bloomberg reported taxes comprise 42 percent of the total cost. Equalizing the price of heating oil with diesel was due to government concerns that it was losing revenue from petrol smuggling. The direct result is Greek citizens face a bleak, cold winter.²

An example of public pressure against wood burning.

Paul Spiegel of Walnut Creek said, "There is no escape from inhaling these emissions, even inside your own home with an air-cleaner going." He complained that people use green wood and construction waste that burn dirty.

Spiegel said he'd accept more government controls "to allow these chronic and abusive wood-burners to needlessly pump our lungs full of their irritating, penetrating and persistent fumes and particulates which bring great risks to our immediate and long term health."

But James Sayre of Oakland wrote: "Sometimes it seems as if our government is trying to squeeze out every last bit of fun and joy in life (unless it is sold to us at a profit by major corporations). This proposed regulation of private fireplaces seems quite heavy-handed and probably impractical to enforce, to boot."³

We've even made cities in Alaska (under threat of massive environmental lawsuits) stop burning wood because it travels down the jet stream and pollutes us.

The home I'm building 2661resized.jpg the owner wanted a fireplace, to get one that could supposedly burn wood and not be detectable by the Green Police, or neighbors trying to collect the bounties, I spent over $30,000 for the right to burn wood and still don't know it it's going to work.


¹ http://www.sparetheair.org/
² http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/339376
³ http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/articl...re-3232073.php

[MarkMc]

... I spent over $30,000 for the right to burn wood and still don't know it it's going to work.

Dick, you must be the most generous contractor in CA!

[Dick Seibert]

Dick, you must be the most generous contractor in CA!

Of course I am, I give my customers anything they want as long as they are willing and able to pay for it, along with my markup.

[Catspaw]

All of my neighbors burn wood so it's not likely any of them would turn me in even if there was a place to do so which there isn't in Vermont.

At one house per ten acres in my area, pollution isn't likely.

If anyone wants to take away my right to burn wood, they're going to have to pry my stove out of my WARM dead hands!

- Rich

[MarkMc]

Of course I am, I give my customers anything they want as long as they are willing and able to pay for it, along with my markup.

So the "I" is really they then, and the risk to you is possibly a CO with markup? Got it.

[Dick Seibert]

All of my neighbors burn wood so it's not likely any of them would turn me in even if there was a place to do so which there isn't in Vermont.

At one house per ten acres in my area, pollution isn't likely.

If anyone wants to take away my right to burn wood, they're going to have to pry my stove out of my WARM dead hands!- Rich

Don't get me wrong Rich, I support your right to burn wood, like I support a man's right to live in a mansion and heat it, fill his jet plane and yacht with thousands of dollars worth of fuel and burn it, but if environmentalism hits Vermont like it's hit California we'll all lose the rights to live and do what we can afford and want. If you notice those steel beams in the ceiling in that picture, the plan checker in the AHJ made me bring my structural engineer in refusing to accept the engineering done in a German engineering program even though I gave her all nodal points, eventually she said: "I know, I helped them design the beam connections for the Standford Law School do it like they did." she gat up went back and brought out the plans to the Stanford Law School, I felt like saying: "Lady, this ain't the Standford Law School, this is a one story single family home.", but I kept my mouth shut and ended up paying $44,000 for that one change in column to beam connections alone, her total changes came to an additional $55,000.

[Catspaw]

Vermont has a long way to go to catch up with California - or the rest of the country for that matter.

Consider what you need to build a house in Vermont. You need a building permit which you can get by showing that you meet the zoning regulations (lot size, set backs etc.). You need an engineer to design and inspect your septic system (if you have one, an outhouse is fine). That's about it.

You don't need any plans and there are no inspections of any kind throughout the building process. Basically, there is no AHJ.

You can build whatever you want, however you want, by anyone you want and are free to make things up as you go along.

Maybe you should pay a visit to Vermont sometime to see what life is like with such a free-for-all of building going on. There's a reason why people like Riversong (remember him?) live in places like this.

- Rich

[charles]

Wish I could find some decent folding, wall-mounted racks for that purpose. Clothes drying, that is.

[THWagar]

I'm not surprised at the young whippersnappers, but Dick H. should know better.

This is nothing new. I had one of those (probably a better built unit) about 20 years ago and it worked just fine. And I'm still alive. You just have to know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em...

We have very dry winters here. Most of the time I need to run a humi to keep above 25%RH. Worse in leaky houses. Yes my dryer was gas and it didn't generate enough CO to register more than 1-2ppm on a nearby numeric display CO detector. The gas stove routinely got around 5ppm. And on a burned-BTU per month basis, there was A LOT more use of the gas cooktop then dryer.

So no, there is nothing wrong with using that device. But as always, it's better if you know what you're doing :)

I have 2 customers who air dry all their clothes on racks in the basement and both houses smell like lockerrooms when you walk in the door. No thanks.