EPA-certified stove labels. Read them before buying your appliance.

All certified woodstoves offered for sale will have a permanent and a temporary label indicating that the stoves are EPA-certified. The temporary label will also contain information that you will find useful when shopping for a new stove.

The label will tell you generally how clean and how efficient each woodstove is. However, because regulations require all new stoves to burn much cleaner and more efficiently than unregulated woodstoves, there should not be significant differences in efficiency and emissions performance among the certified catalytic models. This holds true for the non-catalytic models as well.

The label will also indicate which stoves are equipped with catalytic combustors.
Be a smart shopper and compare labels before buying.

Information on the labels will help you when selecting a stove for your needs. Its heat output range or its efficiency. Use this information to help select the right size stove for the space you will be heating.

Sample labels:

EPA-certified catalytic stoves save us money?

For example, if you have a typical unregulated stove and use three cords of wood (at $100/cord) and have three chimney cleanings (at $50 each) per season, you can save about $200 per season by purchasing a new EPA-certified catalytic appliance.

If the new stove is catalytic, you will save an additional cord of wood out of every three cords you burn each season.

(see my 1/18/11 posting on:
"What advantages are provided by a Firecat™ combustor?"

Your actual savings will vary according to how often you use your stove and other factors.

Nationwide, the net savings from reduced firewood consumption and fewer chimney cleanings is estimated to be $30 million annually. In addition, the health and welfare benefits resulting from fewer smoke-related illnesses and from reduced materials damage is estimated at about $1.5 billion annually.

What Happens When Wood Burns? Article 3 of 3

This is the third of three articles posted on the above subject.

1. Evaporation of water. Posted 2/11/11

2. The emission of smoke. Posted 2/15/11

3. The charcoal phase.

The charcoal phase:

As the fire progresses and most of the gases and tars have vaporized out of the wood, charcoal remains. Charcoal is almost 100% carbon and burns with a red glow and very little flame or smoke. Charcoal is a good fuel that burns easily and cleanly when enough oxygen is present.

What Happens When Wood Burns? Article 2 of 3

This is the second of three articles on the above subject.

1. Evaporation of water. Posted 2/11/11

2. The emission of smoke.

3. The charcoal phase. To be posted 2/18/11

The emission of smoke:

As the wood heats up above the boiling point of water, it starts to smoke. The smoke is visible result of the decomposition of the solid wood as it vaporizes into a cloud of combustible gases and tar droplets.

The smoke will burn if the temperature is high enough and oxygen is present. When the smoke burns, it produces the bright red flames that are characteristic of wood combustion.

If smoke does not burn in the firebox, it will exit the appliance and into the chimney where it will either condense forming creosote deposits or be expelled as air pollution. Unburned smoke represents an efficiency loss because it contains a large part of the total energy in the wood.


However, catalytic stoves with the use of a catalytic combustor, burns this smoke before it is expelled as air pollution and burns it as a fuel to produce heat that can be 2-3 times hotter than the firebox temperature. This also gives a higher efficiency out of the stove.

At the same time, the catalytic combustor will burn up to 90% of the creosote contained in the smoke. (Read more about this in earlier articles I have posted)

What Happens When Wood Burns? Article 1 of 3

This is the first of three articles that I will be posting on the above subject.

1. Evaporation of water

2. The emission of smoke To be posted 2/15/11

3. The charcoal phase To be posted 2/18/11

Evaporation of water:
Up to half the weight of a freshly cut log is water. After proper seasoning the water content is reduced to about 20 percent. As the wood is heated in the firebox, this water boils off, consuming heat energy in the process. The wetter the wood, the more heat energy is consumed.

That is why wet firewood hisses and sizzles and is hard to burn, while properly seasoned woo innites and burns easily.

Re-fueling with wet or unseasoned wood in a catalytic stove will send moist smoke to the catalytic combustor and cause the combustor to stop working. It will cause the stove to struggle and not operate properly. In addition re-fueling with wet or unseasoned wood and operating the stove with the by-pass closed, can cause damage to the catalytic combustor.

What makes a woodstove clean burning?

Wood smoke is unburned fuel, some of which accumulates in your chimney as creosote while the remainder exits the stack as smoke. The key to reducing air pollution from woodstoves is to burn fuel more completely.

Three things make a stove clean burning:
a. How it is designed.
b. How it is installed.
c. How it is operated.


Some stove manufacturers use catalytic combustors to burn fuel more completely while others use a variety of design features such as baffles, secondary combustion chambers, and introduction of secondary air.

EPA-certified stoves offer 70 to 90 percent reduction of particulate matter over the older conventional model stoves. This is based on laboratory testing.

Cleaner Burning Tips....

Click on the picture for larger image.

Density of some common firewoods.

Here is a list of the tree species commonly used for firewood.

Those at the top of the list are hardest and those toward the bottom of the list are the softest:
Ironwood
Rock elm
Hickory
Oak
Sugar maple
Beech
Yellow birch
Ash
Red elm
Red maple
Tamarack
Douglas fir
White birch
Manitoba Maple
Red alder
Hemlock
Poplar
Pine
Basswood
Spruce