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By CRAIG CROSBY
Staff Writer

Cutter installed an outdoor wood boiler and last year heated his home on about five cords of wood that he purchased and a few more he cut and picked from around his home. Overall, Cutter figures he saved about $7,000 in heating costs last year, enough to nearly pay for the new boiler.

"I don't know about you, but I can't afford that," he said. "I had to fight with my wife and son to put it in. Now they think it's the best thing since sliced bread. People don't know until they actually have one."

Cutter is not the only one to turn to an outdoor wood boiler. Tied by underground piping into existing heating and domestic hot water systems, the distinctive pitched roofs that cover the boilers have popped up with increasingly regularity as costs of petroleum have continued to climb, said Jim Brooks, director of the Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of Air Quality.

But with that popularity has come a corresponding increase in the number of complaints into Brook's office from angry neighbors complaining of smoke wafting onto their property.

"People were essentially getting smoked out by their neighbors," Brooks said. "We went from two complaints in 2004 to about 50 or so chronic complaints in 2006 and 2007." With little regulatory authority over the boilers, however, the DEP has acted quickly to establish rules establishing standards for emissions, setbacks and to prevent nuisance smoke. A public hearing on the proposed rules is scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 16, at the Augusta Civic Center.

The proposed rules would strengthen emission standards in two phases.

The first would require boilers sold after April 1, 2008, to meet a particulate matter emission limit of .60 pounds per million Btu's. Many boiler companies have already been working toward the .60 limit thanks to a voluntary limit initiated by the EPA, Brooks said.

The limit for new boilers would be lowered to .32 pounds per million Btu's by April 1, 2010. The rules would also establish minimum setbacks, mandate different smoke stack heights depending on where the boiler is and limit burning to material for which the boiler is designed. The practice of burning garbage, tires, chemicals and other substances would be banned.

While Brooks feels the new rules will prevent future problems, there are provisions for dealing with complaints against existing boilers if its smoke crosses into a neighbor's yard for more than 15 minutes in any hour.

"The homeowner could be subject to a cease and desist enforcement," Brooks said. "Generally we'll try to see what the problem is and see if it can be fixed."

Brooks said his department will not circle a neighborhood looking for the so-called nuisance boilers, but provides little comfort to Terry Markham, owner of Best Way Wood Heat in Readfield. The opacity test, which gauges the smoke level in an area based on how much light is limited, is far too subjective, Markham said. "There are too many interpretations," she said. "It could be abused."

She also balks at setback requirements as much as 200 feet.

"You need a big chunk of land and you need to be centered perfectly to be able to use these," Markham said. "It's going to tie the hands of so many citizens in this state."

Edward Miller, executive director of the American Lung Association of Maine, which pushed the June legislation that prompted the DEP to adopt new rules, believes there should be a limit on where the boilers can be placed.

"Nobody has the right to pollute someone else's air," Miller said. "It's not about burning wood, it's about burning wood responsibly. Our intent is to put these where they're more appropriate and where they won't cause a problem."

Best Way Wood Heat sells Heatmor boilers, which Markham believes will be able to develop the technology to meet the .60 pound limit in April. Reaching the .32 pound limit by April 1, 2010, is much more difficult.

"At this point you're asking an outdoor wood boiler to be cleaner than an indoor stove," Markham said. "Boilers give central heat and hot water, indoor stoves that they're relating emissions to can't do that. The indoor stoves can achieve emission ratings because they reduced the size of the fire box."

Smoke from the boilers can exacerbate lung conditions, Miller said. There has been testimony from people who can't sit in their backyard. Miller recalls the story of one Washington County couple that could not let their son play outside.

"Even in the house they had air cleaning equipment that was filled with soot from the boiler next door to them," Miller said. "Many of these wood boilers are very highly polluting."

But Markham recalls another complaint lodged against one of her customers. The boiler was never used, yet a neighbor complained of smoke emanating from "somewhere," Markham said.

"That's how bogus some of those complaints are," she said.

Markham said she has heard from business and homeowners who are able to keep their properties because of the money the boilers save them in heating fuel. The new rules could make those stories rare.

"There's such a variety of businesses that use this product, and they're the people that create revenue for the state and jobs," Markham said.

If neighboring homes were closer Cutter would not have installed an outdoor wood boiler, but he is glad he could.

"To me it's a nice boiler," he said. "It's done everything I want it to do. The people that have them, love them. The people that don't have them, hate them."

Craig Crosby--861-9253

ccrosby@centralmaine.com

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