6/25/02

Building Industry Colleagues:

Misguided local officials are trying to make fireplaces illegal in Northern California. We'd like your help to stop them.

Wrong assumptions and "cooked" data, circulated by anti-woodburning zealots, have convinced some city and county officials that fireplaces are suddenly a major public health hazard, and should be banned. The bad data suggests that fireplaces pollute more than EPA-certified woodstoves.

Regulators are attempting to limit particulate matter pollution, which comes from many sources, one of which is incomplete combustion of wood. Wood stoves are designed to create an air-starved environment where wood burns slowly at relatively low temperature. The low-temperature results in incomplete combustion and greater emission of particulate matter pollutants. Conversely, fireplaces are designed to burn for a relatively short period of time and at a high temperature producing more complete combustion and less particulate matter.

Recent test data from EPA certified labs show that, pound for pound, open fireplaces burn wood with half as much particulate matter emissions as modern EPA-certified woodstoves.

California Hearths & Homes (a coalition of masonry fireplace designers, brick makers, architects and masons) welcomes wood smoke regulation based on scientific methods, accurate and fair testing, and consistent enforcement. Some cities and counties have adopted ordinances that ignore scientific data in favor of intuition, and in lieu of regulation, ban fireplaces outright, while EPA-certified woodstoves, fireplace "inserts", or pellet stoves are permitted.

If you share our concern about the prohibition of fireplaces in your area, we hope you will do one or more of the following:

• Call us with any questions, or requests for supportive data. A lot of bad information is being published. If you care about fireplaces, you deserve to know the truth.
• If you hear about a proposal to ban fireplaces in your area, let us know so we can react, and arm you with information you need, including materials to help you express your concerns effectively.
• Share information with us, get suggestions of when, and how, to lend your support, and learn more about fireplace issues at www.californiahearthsandhomes.org.

Sincerely,
Michael Gersick
Executive Director
California Hearths & Homes