EPA letter to OWB mfgs

[mikefunaro]

Here is how our government works, in a nutshell, broadly speaking. Unelected bureaucrats "regulate" things, said regulations have color of "law".

These regulators retire with nice fat pensions, and go to work in the industries they were regulating, examples, food and drug, go to work for big pharmcos, treasury or securities and exchange money regulators go to work for fatcat too big to fail banks or brokerages, etc.

Pick something, any place there is gov organization, and that's what happens.

..........

What are they "protecting" again?

Just ask, who profits?, and follow the money.

I agree with your post through and through.

There's also another half where in making and requiring items which are more "environmentally friendly," a lot of them have significantly shorter service lives, and therefore they have to be replaced more often, and the waste and resource consumption in producing new materials never seems to be a factor...

Take for example appliances. I've been told by several service guys that basically all of this stuff is designed to last about 10 years, and then beyond that, the manufacturers are basically hoping that when things break you'll replace them.

A significant number of fridges now have computers in them...when the fridge starts acting up you basically have to replace the computer as a diagnostic just to see if the computer is the problem--unless you can find an appliance guy with the exact computer that you need as a demo item that he can plug in and see if it switches the problem. The computer isn't serviceable and is priced high enough that most people, if the appliance is reasonably old, will just toss the thing rather than paying it patch it up.

Similar situation with paint--you can hardly buy oil based paint here in the North East and if you can you can only get it in little quart cans. My house was last painted 25 years ago with heavy duty oil based paint and a lot of it is still in tact. I repainted the most sun beat and worn areas about 5 years ago and they're peeling already...a lot of those "bad" chemicals were there for a reason...

Meanwhile paint companies are happy because they're selling more paint, and regulators are happy because the products are supposedly lower in x,y and z, never mind the fact that people will have to paint everything 3x as often, or that after opening and using 3 times as much of the stuff you've probably done a whole lot more polluting than you would have done in the first place.

 

[spike60]

So what exactly is the driving force behind you joining this site and sharing your wisdom with us?

 

[olyman]

So what exactly is the driving force behind you joining this site and sharing your wisdom with us?

or another way of saying it,,what axe is he trying to grind,,that he posted it in the first place??? seems he likes to be vague.........

 

[Hedgerow]

Deleted post.

Do you currently use a wood burning devise?
Yes or no question...

I burn wood....
I am not a victim...

 

[macattack_ga]

He doesn't like wood smoke.

or another way of saying it,,what axe is he trying to grind,,that he posted it in the first place??? seems he likes to be vague.........

 

[Hedgerow]

He doesn't like wood smoke.

He might not like tire smoke either...
:after_boom:

 

[Steve NW WI]

I'll give you misleading advertising. Hell, I can find that on just about any commercial or website to some extent, no matter the product. If an ad agency can take a little trinket from some test, somewhere, they'll say "up to" blah blah blah. Fraudulent, that's a lot tougher to prove.

Testing can also mislead in the other direction. I found this page from the "Gullett test". http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...=FPkB3ZPmz--K-By8yABhyA&bvm=bv.48340889,d.aWc

In particular, they're using a pretty large stove (the 2300), to heat "the load profile for a 2500 sq foot home in Syracuse, NY". That stove is far overkill for that application, and a smaller unit would have given better results.

Relying on EPA test numbers, assuming the newer 28WHH, and not the older test, is still only a guideline, and probably not a very good one. One thing you'll find here, is that we'd all like to see more accurate "real world" testing, but it's difficult to do. Heck, it took everyone's favorite 3 letter agency more than 30 years to improve the fuel efficiency ratings for cars, and it's still not all that accurate.

 

[Genius.]

I think the OP is to stupid to burn wood

 

[Butch(OH)]

So it would appear to boil down to Mr tron comes on here to pitch his personal vendetta against outdoor boilers by saying they falsely advertise,, mean while falsely claiming himself to be an independent fact sharing and concerned citizen :msp_confused::msp_confused:

Nice try Troll, go away.

 

[Steve NW WI]

So it would appear to boil down to Mr tron comes on here to pitch his personal vendetta against outdoor boilers by saying they falsely advertise,, mean while falsely claiming himself to be an independent fact sharing and concerned citizen :msp_confused::msp_confused:

Nice try Troll, go away.

Yes, and consider him gone.

I'm gonna leave this thread up for a little bit for comment, but will likely delete it when I get home from work tonight. If I leave it up, we're giving his kind access to our forum to popularize their views.

 

[Fifelaker]

I live in a town of about 400 people. A few years ago some SHTF about someone putting in a OWB. Mine had been in service for five years and no one knew it. But when some of them found out they passed some laws to outlaw them. When they found out about the "Grandfather" laws they got mad but I haven't heard anything for 3-4 years now. If you burn good dry wood these things do not smoke any more than any other woodstove. Plus they heat your house, water and can dry clothes.

 

[Motorsen]

I think one of the big problems is that common sense is getting forbidden by law. Everything have to be writen on paper as a law. We have to act so that everyone can participate and understand the game. We are running after the lowest common denominator. Ofcourse you will use more wood with an OWB. It's not the most efficient boiler in the world. Most guys on here knows that or rather should know. Now it's forbidden to fool buyers to think they get an efficient an clean product that uses virtually no wood. But the same people will probably be fooled tommorow to buy a solar panel and a cheap battery to power their entire household for apx. 50 years from now.
Just thinking out loud here.

Motorsen

 

[origionalrebel]

I'll give you misleading advertising. Hell, I can find that on just about any commercial or website to some extent, no matter the product. If an ad agency can take a little trinket from some test, somewhere, they'll say "up to" blah blah blah. Fraudulent, that's a lot tougher to prove.

Testing can also mislead in the other direction. I found this page from the "Gullett test". http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...=FPkB3ZPmz--K-By8yABhyA&bvm=bv.48340889,d.aWc

In particular, they're using a pretty large stove (the 2300), to heat "the load profile for a 2500 sq foot home in Syracuse, NY". That stove is far overkill for that application, and a smaller unit would have given better results.

Relying on EPA test numbers, assuming the newer 28WHH, and not the older test, is still only a guideline, and probably not a very good one. One thing you'll find here, is that we'd all like to see more accurate "real world" testing, but it's difficult to do. Heck, it took everyone's favorite 3 letter agency more than 30 years to improve the fuel efficiency ratings for cars, and it's still not all that accurate.

as far as i am aware, the epa fuel mileage testing is still done by the rules established when the speed limit was 55mph. may be wrong here but i haven't heard any different. 40 years in the auto biz

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

I think one of the big problems is that common sense is getting forbidden by law. Everything have to be writen on paper as a law. We have to act so that everyone can participate and understand the game. We are running after the lowest common denominator. Ofcourse you will use more wood with an OWB. It's not the most efficient boiler in the world. Most guys on here knows that or rather should know. Now it's forbidden to fool buyers to think they get an efficient an clean product that uses virtually no wood. But the same people will probably be fooled tommorow to buy a solar panel and a cheap battery to power their entire household for apx. 50 years from now.
Just thinking out loud here.

Motorsen

If misleading advertising and printed lies are grounds for bans or recalls we should start with our elected officials and THEN work our way down to wood stoves. I think ALL of us can agree on that one.

 

[zogger]

Yes, and consider him gone.

I'm gonna leave this thread up for a little bit for comment, but will likely delete it when I get home from work tonight. If I leave it up, we're giving his kind access to our forum to popularize their views.

Well, I am not in the market for an OWB, but I appreciate the thread just for giving me information about them. I was suspicious already that they were any kind of efficient, now it appears my suspicions were justified.

I *do* know if I was gonna drop 5 to 15 grand on a heating appliance (given the old one was still functional, just thinking about an upgrade), I would think twice about it, spend half that on way more insulation and better windows and so on, and try the new arrangement with the old appliance, and see how it worked out first.

I know I wouldn't want to spend a ton of money and do more work, just to have to burn three times (whatever) the wood I was burning previously.

With that said, we just run an old smoke dragon, but *without* any damper installed. It is leaky enough it always has plenty of air so it burns pretty clean, I adjust output by size and species. I know it isn't perfect, but we burn wood that I think a lot of people would just heap up into a bonfire and burn it outside just to get rid of it. That is my efficiency compromise, I have spent gasoline, oil, diesel and man hours to go get trees, so I use most of the tree.

When the bucket truck guys were here and trimmed the huge oak, they were going to take a backhoe, push and drag all the branches into the middle of the field and just burn it, they do this a lot. I took my time and got at right close to 5 cords out of the branches.

How many other bucket truck operations and farms and municipalities and line crews do similar? There's some waste...

It is like whitespider says, you have to first define efficiency. I like looking at the real big picture.

For our purposes, right now, this works, later on we may decide to do an OWB to heat several buildings, house, shop and greenhouse, and a kiln in there someplace too. My big picture might change then, probably will. Every persons "more efficient" is different and subject to change.

If we were in town, real close by neighbors, etc, no, wouldn't consider an OWB, would use smallest hottest burning stove I could find (or rocket stove/russian masonry action) and rooftop hot water solar pre heaters (which I know how to make cheap with used junk). that would be more efficient. man, it's just all different....

I also like passive tech, sorta uncomfortable with a major important thing like winter heating being tied to electricity working....

 

[Steve NW WI]

Well, I am not in the market for an OWB, but I appreciate the thread just for giving me information about them. I was suspicious already that they were any kind of efficient, now it appears my suspicions were justified.

There are more and less efficient OWBs out there. Probably none that will rival a well sized, efficient, indoor stove, but far better than the 30% the OP was claiming. I have a neighbor heating his home and small shop with one on less wood than I was using in the old smoke dragon indoors stove heating just my house.

We can debate this for days or weeks or months on end in other threads. This one is gonna get recycled into new electrons in about 10 hours.

 

[Steve NW WI]

Please consider leaving this thread up and running as it does contain very good information, IMO.

That's gonna take a lot of editing of the OP's posts. We'll see what kind of mood I'm in when I get home from work.

FWIW, the reason it's going away, is because Google is pretty good at getting results here on to page one of a search. The OP was just looking to take advantage of that to spout his agenda. If it ain't there, Google won't repeat it.

 

[Whitespider]

I'm gonna leave this thread up for a little bit for comment, but will likely delete it when I get home from work tonight. If I leave it up, we're giving his kind access to our forum to popularize their views.

L-O-L !!
Well that's hardly fair Steve... I mean, c'mon man... after-all, you let me rant on about my views.

Although, now that I think about it, I have been sent to Banned Camp a few times... and I have had a few of my posts deleted also.
Hmmmmm...??? I'm not a short-timer am I?? :msp_scared:

 

[brenndatomu]

Thanks for clarifying Steve. When I first saw that he/she was banned already, I thought, "my, aren't we defensive!" He's banned here already and they are having a relatively civil discussion about it over on hearth. (although I don't think he/she made any new friends) The Google part of it makes sense...that's how I found this site, well not Google, but internet search...

 

[Preston]

That was sorta my thinking too. I think the dude was just voicing his opinion. Yeah, he has an agenda, but we all do. Whether it's chainsaws or what types of wood is best for burning. I've been banned too but never for voicing my opinion.

On what zogger said, just about any limb over 3/4 inch burns just fine for me. Plus it burns hotter.