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DEGRADATION OF EMISSIONS CONTROL PERFORMANCE OF WOODSTOVES IN CRESTED BUTTE, CO
Citation:
Champion, M. AND D. R. Jaasma. DEGRADATION OF EMISSIONS CONTROL PERFORMANCE OF WOODSTOVES IN CRESTED BUTTE, CO. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/R-98/158 (NTIS PB99-127995), 1998.
Impact/Purpose:
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Description:
The report discusses the degradation of emissions control performance of woodstoves in Crested Butte, Colorado. Four seasons of field monitoring of EPA-certified woodstoves in and around Crested Butte has demonstrated some significant failures in emissions control performance. In some cases, mechanical failures were found and were thought to be major contributors to high field emissions. However, many of the stoves exhibiting poor or inconsistent performance had no noticeable physical damage. In these cases, fuel or operator habits, not the stoves themselves, were thought to be the causes of this performance degradation. This study examined certified stove performance degradation with two complementary approaches. In the first approach, 12 used stoves in the Crested Butte database, identified with poor, inconsistent, or otherwise "interesting" performance, were inspected, removed from their installations, and then subjected to emissions testing under simulated field conditions in a laboratory. These tests examined the stoves and demonstrated that only two of them were physically degraded to where emissions control technology was ineffective. In the second approach, four new stoves were purchased and the emissions performance examined under a test matrix of fuel species, fuel moisture content, and firing rate.