Wood Smoke
Health Effects of Wood Smoke
Wood Burning Best Practices
Cleaner Burning Appliances
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MPCA Home > Air > Wood
Smoke > Wood Burning Best Practices
Wood Smoke — Wood Burning Best Practices
Burning Wood Cleanly
When using indoor wood-burning appliances you should not smell smoke.
Making small, hot fires will reduce smoke, increase efficiency and
allow for easier control.
Seasoned or dried wood burns better with fewer smoky emissions. It
may take six months to properly season wood, which reduces moisture
content from freshly cut wood of up to 50 percent down to 15 or 20
percent according to Canada’s
Burn It Smart Web site.
Never burn:
- green wood
- wet wood
- plywood, particle board (any wood with glue in it)
- treated wood
- plastics
- garbage
- colored newsprint or magazines
- pesticide-treated seed
Burning these materials may release chemicals such as heavy
metals, other air toxics, and dioxins that
are especially harmful to your health and the environment.
Always be considerate of family members and neighbors who may have
asthma, lung or heart problems.
How to Reduce Harmful Wood Smoke
What to do if your wood burning appliance smokes up the neighborhood:
- Stop burning wood during air pollution health
alerts. If you hear that an air pollution episode has
been declared on your TV or radio, do not burn wood until the
episode is over. Sign up for e-mail notification of air pollution
health alerts on the MPCA Air
Quality Index Web page.
- Burn less. If you do not depend on it for heat,
often the most economical solution is to use the stove or fireplace
only occasionally. Use
electric or gas water heaters, not wood, to heat hot water in warmer
months.
- Only burn clean, dry, seasoned, untreated wood, in your
wood stove. Burning other materials causes hazardous
air pollutants, and may damage your stove as well as your health.
- Maintain your appliance. Creosote can
build up in flues and chimneys causing more smoke to enter your
home. Excessive creosote can catch fire. It’s a good
idea to have all combustion appliances cleaned and inspected once
a year.
- Make sure all flues, chimneys, and exhaust vent pipes are
properly connected, in good condition and remain unobstructed.
- Check
to make sure that the chimney flue is open during operation.
- Make sure combustion appliances (fuel-burning) are installed
and working in accordance with manufacturer’s instructions
(or guidelines). Appliances need adequate air supply
and venting to the outdoors.
- See the following links for appliance installation
and maintenance tips:
- Burn cleaner.
Convert to a cleaner burning wood appliance. At
the current time, most wood stoves sold are required to meet EPA
certification standards. As a consumer, however it pays to check
the listed emissions of stoves that you are considering to compare
emissions at the EPA site:
 List
of EPA-Certified Wood Stoves.
Often the lowest-polluting stove is also the most efficient, meaning
that they provide more heat per cord of wood.
- Consider non-wood options. Natural gas fired stoves
and fireplaces are very clean. Fireplaces can be retrofitted to use
natural gas instead of wood. Pellet and corn stoves also tend to
be significantly cleaner than wood stoves. Pellets and corn should
be purchased from a reputable source. Treated corn and pellets made
from refuse can cause toxic emissions.
- Consider replacing your current Outdoor Wood Boiler (OWB)
with a new, EPA-certified Outdoor Wood-fired Hydronic Heater (OWHH).
Learn more at the EPA's
Certified Outdoor Wood-fired Hydronic Heaters Program Web site.
- Burn smart. Follow the tips in the Burn
Clean - Hot Tips for a Better Fire factsheet.
If you or family members suffer from respiratory problems such as
asthma or emphysema, or have heart disease, you should not burn wood
at all. If you must burn wood, make sure your stove or fireplace
doesn’t leak and that you operate it correctly. High levels of
wood smoke pollutants leaking from stoves and fireplaces have been
measured in some wood burning homes.
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