Bellefonte May Ban Outside Wood Boilers

Bellefonte, PA, was reported to be considering banning outside wood boilers this week. Council said there are only a few in the boro but they want to anticipate problems in advance. A local newspaper stated that the planning commission had looked into regulating them, but council is inclined instead to ban them entirely.

Nobody wants to be smoked out, and if your smoke annoys your neighbors, whether from indoor or outdoor stoves, you are infringing on your neighbor's right to breath clean air. If you have close neighbors, you should try to locate your chimney where the prevailing winds will blow your smoke away from your neighbor's house.

Users of outside wood boilers should lobby the manufacturers to make a clean burning stove that minimizes the smoke emitted. Burned efficiently, outside wood boilers are a great alternative source of heat. They are safe and remove the mess from the house.

In sparsely populated areas in the northern tier of Pennsylvania, the wood boilers provide a wonderful way to safely heat your home and clean up a lot of the forest scrap at the same time. Coal, available locally is used by many users of outside boilers, and burns quite cleanly. The number of boilers in the northern tier of PA counties has grown by leaps and bounds since the price of natural gas has doubled.

There will probably always be a controversy between those having a wood boiler and those who don't, just as there is between those who want to locate wind generators on their property and those nearby who don't want to look at them or listen to the noise from them.

I invite you to add your comments on these subjects in the comment section.