3/3/02
|
From: "Burton, Tina" To: "'buckley@rumford.com'" Subject: Need information Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2003 I would like to obtain all information, diagrams and pictures available on your products. It is very important that information regarding gas conversions be included. I would like to have this information available from our office as we regulate wood burning devices.
Thank You 775-359-5981
4/22/03 Dear Tina, Our wood-burning Rumford fireplaces have been tested for emissions by an EPA certified Lab pursuant to Washington, Colorado and California fireplace emissions laws and found to meet or exceed the EPA Phase II standards for wood-burning stoves by an equivalency appropriate for fireplaces. Test results are available on line at http://www.rumford.com/testRumfordresults.html In areas that regulate wood-burning fireplaces, we offer "Certified Rumfords" in the four model sizes that were tested for emissions. You can see from our "Certified Rumford Manual" on line at http://www.rumford.com/manual.html how we make sure each fireplace is constructed to be substantially the same as a fireplace we tested. We provide glass doors, an air system, templates and labels with serial numbers as required by Washington law. You might be interested in why Rumford fireplaces are cleaner and more efficient than regular fireplaces so you might like to read the article at http://www.rumford.com/articleRumford.html for some background. The article was written shortly after the first time we tested the Rumfords in a real test lab. The issue of fireplace emissions regulation has been complicated. Sometimes decisions are made for political rather than scientific reasons. We've tried to be open, public and transparent, publishing all of our test results, strategies and plans as an industry on line at the California Hearths and Homes website at http://www.californiahearthsandhomes.org/ as well as on our Rumford fireplace website at http://www.rumford.com/emissions/index.htm In return all we ask is that regulators provide a fair set of rules that hold fireplaces to the same standards as stoves. The stove standard, as you must know, is narrowly drawn and only useful for comparing among stoves that are all pretty much alike. In the effort to develop testing procedures appropriate for fireplaces that would result in fireplace standards that would be equivalent to the stove standard, we have worked with EPA, various EPA certified testing labs and various associations such as Western States Clay Products Association and the Hearth Products Association. All this is summarized by Paul Tiegs, OMNI Director, on line at http://www.rumford.com/emissions/Tiegsreport.html If you have any questions or would like to discuss any of the issues, I would be happy to talk with you and/or refer you to those who might know better than I. You ask about "gas conversions" by which I assume you mean installing gas logs in our wood-burning Rumfords rather than converting Victorian gas fireplaces to Rumfords, which we also do. Gas log manufacturers and the National Fuel Gas Code require that gas logs be installed only in code compliant wood-burning fireplaces. The heat output of a gas log is similar to a wood fire so they want to make sure the firebox wall thicknesses and clearances to combustibles are the same and, if it looks like a real wood-burning fireplace, they want it to be safe in case someone 25 years from now tries to burn wood in it. We do have gas logs that are designed specifically for our Rumfords depicted at http://www.rumford.com/store/gaslogs.html About a third of our customers prefer gas logs whether they live in an area where fireplace emissions are regulated or not. In those few areas that ban wood-burning altogether we promote building our Rumfords with gas logs installed. We promote and support clean air regulations and we think we help the cause by providing clean-burning and efficient wood-burning Rumford fireplaces and can fit them with gas logs when even the EPA standards for wood-burning are not clean enough.
Regards,
|
Buckley Rumford Fireplaces
Copyright 1996 - 2003 Jim Buckley
All rights reserved.
webmaster