Wood stove inclusive energy audit standards still missing in America

By John Ackerly and Caroline Solomon 

The DOE's weatherization program for
low income households is the largest 
weatherization in the US

In 1988, when wood stoves were at the height of their popularity in the U.S., the Department of Energy issued a memo clarifying that wood stoves in DOE-funded energy audits and weatherization programs should be included and could be replaced.  But, they also said that “DOE considers wood stoves to be a unique measure… and …  it is the energy audit which is the driving force for determining whether a wood stove should be replaced.”

 

This was a victory for the many states that wanted to use DOE funding to repair and possibly replace old wood stoves that pose health, safety, and environmental risks. However, fast forward to today – 33 years later – and wood stoves remain a “unique measure” and are often overlooked in DOE funded energy audits. Nearly 10 million homes have been audited and weatherized with DOE funding and all homes with gas furnaces, for example, had those furnaces inspected for safety – and efficiency.  But there is no consistency or uniformity for how a stove should be inspected or when it and how it should be repaired or replaced.  To understand how and when the breakdown happened, we went back in time and dug into countless documents, reports, and energy audit standards. Here’s what we found out.

 

In 2012, we wrote a blog about how energy audits were routinely overlooking wood stoves, many of which were unsafe, dirty, and hazardous. At that time, many auditing standards, including those approved by the Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), did not contain guidelines for how energy auditors should inspect wood stoves while in a home.

 

In 2013, AGH worked with the Building Performance Institute (BPI), who developed long-overdue standards on safety inspections for wood stoves. But the standards were voluntary, and eight years later, we found that virtually no one is using them, and most energy audit companies don’t even know they exist. AGH continued to work with EPA staff, who were also eager to see stoves consistently included in energy audits, but our impact was minimal.

 

In the summer of 2021, AGH turned again to the DOE, who runs the nation’s largest auditing programs through their Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). Senior WAP officials were very accessible and open to discussing the issue, and pointed to their regulatory language, which dictates that “all heating systems, regardless of type” be inspected, repaired if necessary, and even replaced under some circumstances. DOE has to approve each of the audit programs used with their funding. So far, so good.

 

Things began to unravel when we dug into hundreds of documents, from national audit program notices to state weatherization plans to work specification field guides to local application forms and field data collection forms. The problem is not that wood stoves are excluded, but that very few states have any detail about how to inspect a wood stove. Usually, documents from the DOE all the way down to a county audit program have all of the details about inspecting, repairing, and reporting on a gas furnace, for example. Boilers are often well-described, but details dry up very quickly when it comes to wood stoves. The result is a patchwork of state programs, with some meeting DOE regulations, and others falling far short.

 

The problem also involves national auditing tools, approved by DOE.  NEAT is the most popular energy audit tool and is used in about 35 states.  It addresses wood stoves in its Health & Safety audit mainly as an indoor smoke issue.  It references inadequate floor protection and oversizing but does not mention clearance to combustibles or cracks in the firebox or glass.  Adding to the issue is that DOE published Standards for Conformance that includes a lengthy list of “tune-ups/efficiency improvements” for furnaces and boilers, but not even one for wood stoves.

 

Far from being a unusual heating device, wood stove
are more common that many other heaters in the US

If wood stoves were just a tiny fraction of heaters, like coal stoves are, overlooking them would make more sense.  But there are more wood stoves in America than there are oil boilers, oil furnaces or propane furnaces, and almost as many as gas boilers.  Some states, like Maine, New Hampshire and Wisconsin have provided extensive guidance around wood and pellet stoves.  Oddly, Oregon, a state with far more problems with wood smoke, has little guidance, resulting in fewer inspections, repairs and replacements of old wood stoves.

 

One distinct feature of wood stoves makes them particularly in need of safety check-ups: unlike other heating systems, many if not most wood stoves are homeowner-installed, and these stoves are often not up to code.

 

AGH is now midstream in our effort to work with DOE officials, DOE contractors, state officials, and others to get feedback on how to correct this problem. One DOE contractor who is deeply involved in the matter says she thinks we can begin making substantive changes quickly, but systemic problems like this, take years to address. 

 

We are currently preparing a report that (1) assesses audit programs approved by the DOE, (2) assesses state Standard Work Specification guides and (3) Assesses how local WAP programs collect information about heating systems. Stay tuned for more in-depth coverage of this issue.

 

We expect our report will be extremely helpful to the DOE who could update guidance to ensure a minimum level of stove inspections to establish more uniformity how stoves are inspected and what repairs should be considered.  The report should also be helpful for states that want to address the safety and performance of old wood stoves.

 

We want to thank the scores of people who have helped address this problem, starting with folks at BPI who worked on it back in 2012 and 2013, to all the federal, state, and local WAP officials we interviewed this summer.

 

And thanks to all our supporters who provided data about how and whether their stove was included in their energy audits. If you have had an audit recently, please share the results with us (info@forgreenheat.org).

 

John Ackerly is President of the Alliance for Green Heat and Caroline Solomon is an AGH fellow.