Cookstoves in Washington state might not seem like a big deal, especially after the EPA ruled that wood cookstoves are exempt from emission regulations as part of the New Source Perfomance Standard for Wood Heat. Great news for all cookstove users, right?
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States is responsible for regulating emissions from wood heating appliances as part of the Clean Air Act. Most cookstoves are intended to be for cooking first and foremost and because of that, the EPA doesn’t consider them subject to their regulations. EPA exempt stoves are any stove meeting the definition of “cookstove” under the New Source Performance Standards. The EPA defines a cookstove as the following:
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We get it: Your cookstove has seen more winters than you can count, it needs some tuning up and you’re not exactly sure how to do it so you go looking for the manual. Unfortunately, it’s been years since you’ve seen in and it may as well have sprouted legs and wandered off. The stove’s manufacturer is out of business and/or just doesn’t have any contact information, so you’ve got nowhere to turn to in order to find that cookstove manual.
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The following post on chimney installation comes from Michigan State University, and offers some valuable tips and technical details on the process.

Wood Stoves

The hazards of heating with a wood stove include fires started by heat radiated or conducted by the stove, stove pipe or chimney to walls, floors and other combustible materials; fires started by sparks and glowing coals falling out of front loading stoves when opened, and fires started by flames leaking out of faulty chimneys or burning or glowing material coming out of the top of the chimney. A chimney flow reversal is also possible, leading to either flames or smoke coming out of the stove’s air inlets.
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