Vouchers of $1,000 or more offered to replace old wood stoves
Wood stoves are serious business in New Hampshire – as many as a quarter of homes in the state use firewood or pellet stoves as primary or secondary heat – so lots of people are likely to be interested in a project that could pay $1,000 or more to replace old, inefficient stoves.
If so, they had better hurry. A similar program in western Massachusetts ran out of money in less than a month, and it had more money to give out.
“It launched December 6, and I’ve already got 60 applications,” Michelle Edwards, of the American Lung Association, said three days after the Wood Stove Changeout program began.
The program has $183,000 to disperse, which means at least a third of it was spoken for by Friday noon. (The Massachusetts program had more than $200,000.)
The money came from a settlement between the federal EPA and G&K Services, the parent company of a Manchester laundry that washes towels contaminated with industrial oils and solvents. It violated air pollution rules and agreed to pay a penalty, part of which is being used in this program.
The Wood Stove Changeout program involves stoves made before 1990, when EPA standards for emissions kicked in. These devices emit relatively large amounts of soot and other pollutants, both indoors and out.
“Older stoves not only pollute externally, but they give off a lot of smoke and particulate matter when you open the stove and it comes into the room,” Edwards said.
That pollution can worsen asthma and other breathing disorders, hence the America Lung Association’s participation.
Covering part of the cost of replacing old fixtures or items is often considered a cost-effective way to improve pollution or energy efficiency.
The highest-profile example was the $1 billion federal Cash for Clunkers program, which gave people up to $4,500 when they traded in an old car for a new one with higher fuel economy. New Hampshire has also had state programs offering rebates if people upgrade their home heating systems and another one that gave vouchers if you turned in an old refrigerator/freezer.
Last year, the state even ran a program offering vouchers of $1,000 if people replaced old wood stoves.
It was confined to the Keene area, where weather patterns can trap pollution from stoves.
This latest program is open to all of Hillsborough County, as well as Rockingham County on the Seacoast and Merrimack County, which includes Concord.
People who have stoves built before 1990, when stricter air-pollution controls became mandatory, can get vouchers for use at participating dealers. You have to turn in your old stove, which will be recycled or destroyed.
Vouchers include:
$1,000 to switch from an old wood stove to one that’s EPA certified.
$1,500 to switch from a wood stove to a new pellet stove or gas stove.
$2,000 to retrofit an existing wood stove with a new catalyst or retrofit an outdoor boiler with cleaner components.
$3,000 for a switchout if you receive Medicaid or participate in the Low Income Heating Assistance Program or the Women’s Infant and Children’s nutrition program.
$4,000 for switching an outdoor wood boiler, also known as a hydronic heater.
Edwards said most applications so far seek to replace a wood stove with a newer stove, rather than a pellet stove or other technology – perhaps because firewood stoves can burn even when the power is out and thus make better backup heaters.
The largest payout concerns outdoor boilers because units more than a couple years old slipped through a regulatory loophole and have little or no pollution controls.