SMOKE: Identify the true enemy

Now wood fire smoke is bad too?

I have heated with wood heat most my life in Oklahoma, California mountains, Idaho, Montana and South Carolina.

Wood heat works well, but it’s not idiot proof like forced air gas, propane and electric seem to be. The key word here is “smoke,” which can be avoided with proper fuel and air requirements. Creosote making white smoke is unspent particulate that can often flash when an abundance of oxygen meets it when opening a wood appliance door.

Yet I drive through the countryside and see white smoke wofting from chimneys with ladders propped up to put out the next creosote chimney fire. Or a single wall chimney pipe sticking out of a fifth wheel travel trailer window! Too many try to get by with single wall snap together chimney pipe only to burn their own house down later that puts people in danger. Clearly wood heat requires some wisdom.

But throwing wood heat away with the bath water is just as absurd. I have a tree hugging tenant that refuses to burn wood and spends between $600-$800 a month heating with electricity. That’s a solution? Hardly. Talk about stressing the grid! I lived in the same house and my electric bill was never over $40.

Doesn’t the EPA remember when polar vortex hit in 2013, people’s electric, gas and propane rates quadrupled over night? There simply wasn’t enough easy idiot proof energy to go around.

Wood is good, but only when it’s burned wisely. Owning cars or firearms demand prudence and responsibility also. Maybe jail time would cure those who refuse to use Class A chimney products like Selkirk or Duravent that do not put our firefighters and our family’s lives at risk.

MIKE RENO

Post Falls