[Greenbuilding] Dust dust dust!

[Corwyn]

On Mar 05, 2007, at 06:05, Richard Hakim wrote:
> While our house is being built we are renting a place that is heated 
> by a
> large soap stone wood stove made by a company called Tulikivi.  The 
> stove is
> OK but it because it consumes so much wood it puts out a ton of ash -

If you are building a well insulated house, you should be using less 
wood, so less ash.

> which
> flies around the room whenever I open the door to add more wood to the 
> fire.

This sounds like you are getting a backdraft down your chimney; and is 
something you should fix.  I get ash only when cleaning or blowing on 
the fire to get it started.  Most ends up right in front of the fire.

> I plan to have a similar stove in the house we are building and don't 
> relish
> the thought of breathing all that dust & ash, not to mention the 
> perpetual
> cleaning.  Is there anything I can do to prevent all the dust and ash?
> Would an air circulator with HEPA filter work?

Maybe.  If the particulates are air borne for a while, an air filter 
will help.  HEPA would seem to be overkill, that is, a less fine filter 
would capture the ash, and the HEPA would need cleaning or replacing 
very frequently.  You may still want a HEPA filter but have it after a 
bigger, less fine filter.

It should be noted that I am not a fastidious person, I don't clean 
that often, even with a wood stove, two people, and three cats.  If you 
are, you may need to consider other options than a woodstove.

It is possible to be ultra clean with a woodstove.  I toured a house 
when I was evaluating builders, where the wood pile in the basement 
looked like it had been built using a laser level, and there wasn't a 
scrap of sawdust, bark, or anything that I could see, even underneath 
it.  I couldn't believe it.

Thank You Kindly,

Corwyn

-- 
Corwyn
Kermit didn't know the half of it...
http://www.greenfret.com/
corwyn at greenfret.com