Warming Up

by Laurie LaMountain

There are times when the lack of something we perceive as
essential forces us to find a viable alternative. Remember the
1973 oil crisis? After decades of relying on petroleum to heat
our homes, there was virtually no such thing as a “modern” wood
stove when the crisis hit. In response, wood stove manufacturers
started popping up all over the country. A lot of them were small
start ups that operated out of garages and small warehouses, producing what was known at the time as steel box stoves, basically
six steel plates welded together with a hole on the top and a way
to regulate the air going into it.

In order to meet the growing consumer demand for these “modern”
wood stoves, retailers began to appear as well. Frost & Flame
first opened its doors in Windham in 1976. Current owner, Stephen
Richard, purchased the business in 1990 and relocated the store to
Gorham. He then opened a second store in Windham. Thirty-eight
years later, Frost & Flame is going strong because Richard has kept up with changes in the industry.

When it comes to home heating, wood stoves may not strike you as high-tech, especially when you consider their rather lowtech revival, but over the last forty years the industry as a whole has evolved to meet growing demands for cleaner burning, more efficient stoves. Richard points out that a wood stove manufactured to today’s standards burns almost 100% cleaner than a wood stove built in the ‘70s.

“We need to replace these older wood stoves with more efficient, cleaner burning stoves. A lot of people may have a useful wood stove, but they don’t realize what damage it’s doing to the environment,” says Richard. He tells the story of The Wood Stove Changeout in Libby, Montana. Libby is located in the remote northwest
corner of Montana, in a bowl-shaped valley surrounded by steep mountains—ideal topography for temperature inversions that can cause harmful emissions from wood stoves to get trapped close to the ground and create potential adverse health effects.* In 2006, a pilot program was initiated to replace every outdated woodburning stove in Libby with units certified to strict U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. According to preliminary data collected by the EPA and the University of Montana following the changeout, average wintertime fine particulate levels in the outdoor air decreased by nearly 30%. Indoor air quality results in homes with the new, EPA-certified stoves were even more dramatic at more than 70%. Not only was overall air quality significantly improved, but homeowners enjoyed warmer homes that cost considerably less to heat—a clear trifecta.

While wood stove manufacturers were busy cleaning up their act, pellet stove manufacturers were just getting warmed up. The 1973 oil crisis also led to the invention of the first pellet stove in Washington State that same year, but it wasn’t until the early ‘80s that manufacturing began in earnest. When the Pellet Fuels Institute
(PFI) was established in 1993, shortly after the start of the Gulf War, the industry took off. Since then, pellet stoves have become a viable, economical and energy-efficient alternative for home heating.

Richard estimates that 60% of business at Frost & Flame is currently conducted in pellet stoves. He cites New England as accounting for the lion’s share of the pellet industry, and Maine as one of the strongest states. The turning point in Maine, he notes, was around the time of the economic downturn in 2008 when fuel prices conversely spiked. The media stepped up and very quickly began to educate people about the merits of pellet burning stoves, and the market in Maine has been growing ever since.

I’m one of those diehard wood stove owners who extolls the virtues of heating with wood. It’s there during a power outage, it’s aromatic, it’s quiet, etc., but I have to admit, when given the merits of a pellet burning stove versus wood, I’m impressed. In response to my claim that my wood stove is insurance against a power outage,
Richard points out that the majority of people in the 40 to 65-year age bracket have installed full-house generators in the last ten years. They’re more concerned with the savings they’re going to achieve by using a pellet stove than with losing power. In the absence of a generator, a battery backup system for a pellet stove is usually good for six to ten hours. Perhaps most impressive for me, though, is the fact that a ton of pellets typically requires only 4’x4’x5’ for storage and takes roughly fifteen minutes to unload. It takes considerably longer to stack a cord of wood, but there is that meditation factor with stacking wood that can’t be discounted. Yeah, right.

A pellet stove can be directly vented to the outside or through a vertical chimney that is typically three to four inches in diameter. It requires less clearance than a wood stove because it distributes heat from the front, thereby saving space. It can be operated manually or with a thermostat. By being able to regulate it, it’s easier and
safer for the homeowner to control the heat level as well as conserve fuel. There is virtually no creosote residue because the pellets have no moisture, and creosote results from burning green or wet wood. (For this reason, if you are a wood burner like myself, it’s important to burn only seasoned wood that has air dried.) Pellets burn more completely than wood, resulting in more heat efficiency and less ash.

Like anything higher tech, pellet stoves require more consumer education. Richard points out that they feature a highly mechanized electrical system with pretty sophisticated circuitry. Because of this, he recommends cleaning your pellet stove weekly during use, a fifteen minute event that involves emptying the burn pot and ash pan, and having it serviced annually, just as you would a furnace.

He also shares a valuable lesson in pellet composition. There are typically three grades of pellets, with the premium grade being composed entirely of softwood, the mid-grade a combination of soft and hardwood and the least expensive being hardwood. The uneducated consumer might assume that hardwood, as it is with
wood stoves, is better than softwood, but Richard points out that by compressing them, the manufacturers have essentially turned a softwood into a hardwood. The pellets weigh the same and take the same space, but there’s more heat capacity in the softwood pellet due to resin as a fuel source.

Richard is quick to add that, since their inception in the late ‘80s, gas stoves have come a long way. Numerous technological advances have made them more efficient and less expensive than in the past. Initially, they were little more than a wood stove with a gas burner and a couple of fake logs inside. They were more decorative than a true heater, but within three or four years manufacturers improved the product so much that most of them became heater-rated gas stoves. In most situations, you can’t tell the difference between the fire in a gas stove and that in a woodburning stove.

Gas continues to account for a large segment of the market due to its convenience and ease of use; just push a button on the remote control or the unit. Another advantage to a gas stove is it doesn’t require electricity to run, so in the event of a power outage, homeowners are assured of a heat source to keep them warm and
their pipes from freezing. Richard points out that they’re the most popular choice at Frost & Flame among second home owners who eventually plan to retire here and, in the meantime, don’t want to waste valuable vacation time hauling wood.

There’s an invaluable advantage to buying a stove from someone who has twenty-eight years of experience selling, installing and servicing them. All things considered, Richard will take the time to determine which product best serves your home heating needs.

*Source: http://www.woodstovechangeout.org/index.php?id=27