SPOKANE, Wash — The weather pattern in Inland Northwest has been mundane through the middle of January. A ridge of high pressure is leading to strong inversions. Those inversions can hold pollutants at the surface — many of which come from old wood stoves.
“The stove we had was 20-years-old,” said Spokane County resident Rick Scott. He decided it was time to upgrade to something easier to manage. “As I get older too, you know, chopping wood, getting it, storing it,” he said. “You also have to look at the safety part of it, especially if you have an older stove.” They decided on a new gas stove, and learned about Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency’s Wood Stove Changeout program. He applied and was preapproved. “It’s a nice help to help purchase this stove,” he said. “This program in a nutshell, provides a financial incentive for any Spokane County homeowner who has a wood stove who wants to replace it,” said Lisa Woodard, the Communications and Outreach Manager at Spokane Regional Clean Air. She calls it a win, win situation for the homeowner as well as the rest of the neighborhood. “Wood stoves are the number one source of particle pollution in our neighborhoods during the winter time,” she said. Early data shows this program, which is funded by a Department of Ecology grant, does make an impact. “The last two-year grant cycle that ended in May of earlier this year, we replaced 91 wood stoves, and that equated to about 6000 pounds of particle pollution from being emitted to the air on a daily basis,” Woodard said. Jake Thompson from Accent Stove and Spa said there is a reason even new models of wood stoves will be more efficient for a home and better for the environment, “In older stoves, there was just an open flue from this steel box here,” he said. “With that catalytic combustor in here, that acts as just an air filter, so it’s catching a lot of particulate and reburning it before it’s allowed to go out.” Those who are preapproved for the program can save anywhere between $500 and $2500 on the new stove depending on the type of stove they pick. “We’re all trying to reduce our heating costs. A lot of people heat with wood as a supplemental heat source,” Woodard said. The application can be found on the Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency website: https://spokanecleanair.org/burning/changeout/ “We’ve got a little bit of winter left, so might as well do it now and enjoy it for the next couple of months of cold weather, and then be ready for next year,” Thompson said.
