Outside Wood Boilers (Millinocket, Corinna: apartment, house, neighborhoods)

[ribbets]

Happened to notice while reading through a couple of local town reports, that Corinna has set a code for the height of the stack from the top of the outside boiler to a minimum of 12' instead of the original 2' that comes on most units. Seems the neighbors were complaining about smoke. Wonder if you have to install guide wires to keep it all together.Maybe that how you get 'A wicked Good Draft".

[Mainer61]

Good for them...hopefully others will follow suit.

[forest beekeeper]

High barometric pressure days will still not allow the smoke to rise much.

It is my understanding that wood furnaces when used in residential neighborhoods cause issues with the smoke flowing into neighboring homes.

For most of Maine [the 52% that is rural] it would never be an issue.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

There is one wrathy woman in Millinocket that calls the DEP every time she gets a whiff of wood smoke. Her neighbor has a stack on his wood stove over 30 feet high and she still gets a whiff now and then.

[Acadianlion]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

There is one wrathy woman in Millinocket that calls the DEP every time she gets a whiff of wood smoke. Her neighbor has a stack on his wood stove over 30 feet high and she still gets a whiff now and then.

There may be another issue here besides her being "wrathy".

A former tenant of mine, who lived in the apartment that I owned in the center of the village, would be come extremely upset whenever people in the village would fire up their wood stoves.

She wasn't at all mean spirited, but was severely allergic to certain kinds of wood smoke as well as other fumes. When there was a major forest fire in Quebec, the wood smoke blew down to the coast in such volume that it was a visible cloud, and she was completely house bound, sealing and exterior doors with paper tape until the smoke cleared about a week later.

If the lady in Millinocket has severe allergies wood smoke in the community could be life threatening.

[Bydand]

I agree to a point, but if somebody is that allergic to something, they should be better equipped to deal with such a thing, than to expect everybody around them to conform to their wishes. That is being Wrathy. Living in Maine, it is a safe bet that somebody, somewhere will be burning wood for heat; if they cannot deal with it, they need to look for solutions IN their own home, not expect others to do without.

[island mermaid]

Originally Posted by Bydand

I agree to a point, but if somebody is that allergic to something, they should be better equipped to deal with such a thing, than to expect everybody around them to conform to their wishes. That is being Wrathy. Living in Maine, it is a safe bet that somebody, somewhere will be burning wood for heat; if they cannot deal with it, they need to look for solutions IN their own home, not expect others to do without.

I absolutely agree. Most Mainers HAVE to burn wood to survive the winter. The others need to deal with it. They moved to northern Maine, for crying outloud. My neighbors smoke allergies would not be of any concern to me.

[Bydand]

Not saying it shouldn't be of concern somewhat, but it cannot be a deciding factor in heating for other people.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

One of those ionic air cleaners you see advertised on TV will clean smoke, allergens, odors and even viruses out of the air very efficiently. There can't be many people left in the world that don't know that unless they have no TV and never read their mail.

There are people who move next to railroads and airports and complain about the noise. It's a whole lot easier to move the complaint nthjan it is to move an airport, railroad or a whole town. There is a reason that some visitors are called "summer complaints".

[AlisonL]

Wood smoke bothers my asthma, but not to the point I can smell it inside my house. Do I expect my neighbors to stop burning wood...no. I just do my best to avoid the smoke. Fortunately, its only during the winter months, and since cold also bothers my asthma, I am not outdoors anyway.
Now if we could just ban perfumes.........I've actually had to leave restaurants because some woman decided that more is better.