Wood burning neighbour is killing me HELP!

Here in BC, you can lay a complaint at the Ministry of Enviroment.  Most municipalities have rules too.  It sounds like this guy has a very dirty system.  Put the pressure on your government to make this guy clean up his act.

A smokey fire means usualy that there is incomplete combustion in the firebox.

I would talk to the neighbour, point out the problems the smoke causes you and that he is wasting energy by having a smokey fire. His/her woodfurnace is very likely to big for his/her house. You could maybe make a deal with them on the assumption that the extra capacity they have in their woodstove could possibly heat your home too. Thereby very likely reduce the smoke in the neighbourhood, since the firebox would be working close to capacity. It gives you a degree of control that you now do not seem to have.

I have an outside woodfurnace/boiler. It is about 80ft from the house. It produces some smoke when I load it up with a new supply of wood. It lasts usualy five to ten minutes till the fresh wood has adjusted to the fire. Then it clears right up. Mind you my nearest neighbour is about half a mile away from our home. And it is rather rare to be able to smell smoke in our home. For one I try to keep a slight positive pressure in the house with respect to the outside and secondly the wind carries it about ninety percent of the time well away from the house.

Many years ago, a classmate went to work as a tradesman for a business in California.  The owner turned out to be irritating, to say the least.  So, my friend got fed up and started a union which eventually spread throughout the State and tied up that whole industry.  He got even.

I tell you this with a moral.  Start bagering your local officials, including the elected ones.  Organize, or join an organization with like minded individuals.  Get the TV cameras on this guy.   Take videos of the smoking stack and post them on Youtube.  (Becareful not to make false claims.)  Put this guy on the defensive.

XXX wrote:

My neighbour uses a wood stove to heat his house. Thick wood smoke comes from the chimney 24-7. It is 30 feet from my house. I've just moved in (dec 15th) and my breathing has been very bad. I have asthma and have had to increase my meds, altho I am still not breathing well. I live in southern ontario, in a large municipality, that has no bylaws about wood smoke from inside a home. I dont know what to do. The smoke is ruining me.

...

Does anyone have any experience with such an issue? Any advice on what I can do?

This is a very tough one.  I had a similar situation where my neighbor used wet charcoal to build a bar BQ, and created a smoke cloud for about 4 hours.  It was like the fog blowing through SF, except a lot harder on the lungs.

In my case, I made it clear to the landlord that I needed a guarantee that this incident would not be repeated.  They imposed a "no bar BQ" rule on the neighbor.  The neighbor moved. 

Normally, wet wood will create a lot more smoke than dry wood, when it burns.  It's probable that the neighbor is not using really dry firewood, and you get to breathe the results.

 If you could convince the neighbor to build some fires using sun-dried /kiln-dried firewood, it would give you a chance to see what effect that has.

If I was your neighbor, I would use dry hardwood in the fireplace, and I would consider adding another 10 feet to the chimney, or moving it.  I suspect that would be a lot easier on your lungs.

One other "fire detail" is that hardwoods, like oak, burn about 200 degrees hotter than softwoods, like pine.  Smoke from an oak fire will go racing up the chimney that much faster, and will be many meters in the air before it begins to waft sideways. 

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There is no way, as Bubbles points out, that an indoor wood stove or fireplace insert should be producing that much smoke if it is being used properly and is properly installed.  An indoor wood furnace is much different than an outdoor one, which is designed to take green wood for instance.  Even a large wood indoor wood furnace should not produce the kind of smoke you see from the outdoor ones.  FM is right people burn all kinds of stupid and dangerous stuff in those, but indoor ones are designed differently due to the way they heat.

We heat mostly with wood supported by an oil boiler.  We heat with wood through a fireplace insert (high effciency) and an old traditional cookstove in the kitchen.  Even with two fires going, beyond the faint smell of wood smoke you would not be able to see much coming from our chimney's.   And that is including the cookstove which is probably 50 or more years old, at least.  It is no where near as effcient as even the worse woodstove model in some ways.  But then I can't bake a pizza in them either so there are trade offs.

It might be installed to code, but something is wrong with your neigbours stove and/or burning material.  He is wasting money big time.  The only time with interior wood burning you might have smoke near the ground is if there is a thermal inversion, and that if pretty darn rare.  Something isn't right.  A positive approach might be best, but I guess that depends on the kind of neighbour they are.

The houses of the future, independent of all fuels emitting carbon, will have to have a heat recovery ventilator to change the house air. That means the air outside the house will have to be free of toxins.

But -- where do you think municipal bylaws come from? You have to bring the issue to the attention of your councillors and mayor, along with the relevant city staff.

If you can show that other cities have restrictions around smoke, or these type of stoves in particular, then you have a pretty good crack at getting them to pay attention. Letters to the editor of your local newspaper are always a good place to start. Do your research first; the websites Cracklin Rose links to above look like a great resource. You could also check with the Lung Association etc and see if they have anything to suggest, or anyone else they can put you in touch with who may already be doing education or advocacy on this kind of issue. If you have a local citizens group, talk to them too and see what they say.

This won't necessarily solve your problem right away, although it might, but in the long term it is hugely gratifying to know that you have helped to improve your community for others.

Short term, you could try talking to the neighbour and it's probably a good idea to at least put them on notice that you are having this problem. Consider whether it might be better coming as a request from just you (or a sympathetic mutual friend) at the outset, rather than the whole neighbourhood; you could always go to the collective action, along with a firmly worded "cease and desist" letter on legal letterhead, as further steps down the line, to show them that you're serious and you're not going away.

Also, if you don't end up talking to a lawyer right away, you might want to go to a doctor regularly and document your breathing difficulties and increased meds use for future reference if it ever does eventually go to a lawsuit situation.

That insurance angle.

Insurance companies are generally fine with wood burning furnaces. While few will insure where radiant [space] wood heaters are the primary osurce of heat.

If it is a wood furnace then they must either be burning a lot of bark or something like that; or they are continuoulsy burning at a low burn/heat.

Constatnt ow burn/heat will also put out a lot of smoke/emissions even if it happens to be an EPA approved radiant/space heater. Seems unlikely to me that this is the problem if the smoke is always thick.

But it the smoke is sometimes thick and sometimes not then you could explore this with the neighbour. Low burn is ineffient and it is in their interest to shortn the time that is happening. [Better to let it go out or nearly out and restsrt.] Lots of smoke also definitley means they are clogging the flue... which is unsafe and means that much sooner they have to get the flue cleaned.

Pay attention to how much of the time [and when typically] the smoke is thick. And you must be able to see outside what is going to be burnt- even if you cannot see it all the time. If you don't know what to look for, describe it here [post pictures if you can].

You can nad should discuss those factors with the neighbour, but its good to observe what you can to check against what they say.

Is it possible this is an old sawdust burner? I know of none still around anywhere, and they only ever existed where there are sawmills. But even with far less waste from mills today, you could easily heat a house with the sawdust from even a small mill.

 Mills anywhere around- even very small ones- would also be the source for a lot of bark. While I've never tried it, I am pretty sure you could mix a very high proportion of bark into modern furnances or radiant heaters that otherwise would put out low emmissions.

 As has been noted, people could be burning anything. Plain garbage. Literally. But the thick smoke makes me think we are talking a lot of bark, sawdust... or constant low burning.

If they are burning bark or sawdust you could try converting them to what I do a lot of: burn chopped up pallets. Cheap AND normal low emissions.

I don't think anyone has said it is an outdoor, and it sounds to me like it is not.

And good indoor wood furnaces and EPA rated heaters do have higher emissions if they are always low burning. Although that would not usually mean thick smoke, it would be just as irritating even when the smoke was less obvious.

Or like I suggested: that the neighbours are burning a lot of bark in a stove/furnace that is perfectly good.

I was all excited to see Frustrated Mess posting again, especially after reading that thread about those regulars gone missing, and this dates back to January 2009. I'm confused and disappointed.