Posts tagged ‘carbon footprint’

So I was over at BlogOnSmog the other day and I left a comment about my own environmental efforts that included this blurb about my home heating:

We switched to propane BBQ-ing some years ago, but I still by necessity use a wood fireplace to heat my home. We do have an insert, which maximizes heat retention and output.

It’s one of the things that has actually been itching at my conscience for awhile, but that I sorta made a decision to be an ostrich about. That’s actually unlike me, where environmental issues are concerned. I am a sincere proponent of, in the very least, taking responsibility for one’s actions. Change is all well and good, but awareness comes first, then desire, then change.  And sometimes we are simply unable or unwilling to make a change, and we have to live with that.

Eat meat?  Okay, as long as you are aware and take responsibility for contributing to the wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of animals. (I do)

Vote Republican?  Hehe… well, you get the idea.

So anyway, after making that comment, the wood burning issue was in the front of my mind, instead of just whispering at me from somewhere in the nosebleed section.

I thought that I felt pretty okay abut my wood burning, for a couple of reasons.

1) We only burn wood that would end up in the landfill, and tree trimmings and dead wood of our own.

2) We NEVER burn painted, treated or compressed/glued wood products.

3) We have a fireplace insert which maximizes heat retention and output.

And 4) the worst, but truest reason of all: For us it’s either burn wood or freeze.  We can’t afford to put in propane heaters and there is no natural gas pipeline system up here.

Tonight I’ve been doing a lil research on the question of burning wood for heat.  Now, I have to say that as usual when doing web research, I’ve had to wade through a shitload of crap published by folks with an agenda, but in the end I’ve decided that for us, burning wood for heat is pretty okay as far as our carbon footprint is concerned.

I’m not so sure I buy the whole “decaying trees put out as much Co2 as wood burning” argument, since decaying trees also contribute to a whole ecosystem that can’t thrive without them.  I do however, think that the articles discussing the carbon footprint of the corporations supplying natural gas and propane probably make the consumer’s share significantly higher than the emissions of the fuel alone.

Most important to my personal wood burning Co2 output is my awesome, ass kicking fireplace insert!!  When I bought it and installed it in 2000, I have to admit that my primary concerns were economy and effectiveness.  I am simply tickled to death to discover that it is also SUPER efficient from an environmental standpoint.

Mine is lots dirtier than this one

I love mine because it has the whole fan thing which circulates the warm air in the room, (and the fan is thermostatically controlled, so it’s not just whirring away using juice if there’s no heat and someone forgets to turn it off) and I love that it has both damper and draft, which appeals to my thrifty as well as my eco-freak self.  (Damper allows me to control how much heat goes up the chimney: open to start the fire, then closed to maintain it.  Draft controls how much air I feed my fire, which conserves wood) And now I love it even more!

Here are a couple of the many places I went to research:

Great discussion leading to many other research topics (with many dissenting opinions, which Thorni loves)

A CSM article

An environmentalist’s guide to responsible wood heating

(Most of the info here I found substantiated elsewhere, but this was a great link for lots of info in one place)

So anyway, I’m a happy gal enjoying my fireplace tonight.