On the Gulf Islands, many of us rely on wood heat when the power goes out. Many of us are also attached to the cozy ambiance of a wood stove. And for many islanders, a woodstove is simply our only source of heating.

But, new stoves help us all breathe more easily. Older uncertified wood stoves, for example, release 15 to 30 grams of smoke per hour (g/h), while new EPA-certified stoves produce no more than 2.0 g/h. Burning wood leads to carbon emissions and harmful particulate matter in our neighbourhoods. The good news is we can all take steps to use our wood stoves more efficiently.

At Transition Salt Spring, we recommend anyone with an old wood stove to upgrade to a Heat Pump as their primary heating source and use their existing wood stove during power outages and in extreme cold as supplementary heat.

“Changing out one old, dirty, inefficient wood stove is equivalent to the PM2.5 pollution reduction of taking five old diesel buses off the road,” says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (“Strategies for Reducing Residential Wood Smoke’.)

Residential wood smoke contains PM2.5, carbon monoxide (CO), toxic air pollutants (e.g., benzene and formaldehyde), and climate gases (e.g. methane and black carbon). Exposure to PM2.5 can cause premature death and harmful effects on the heart and blood vessels. Particulate pollution exposure is also linked to a variety of other public health problems, including respiratory diseases.