The Alliance for Green Heat has a limited number of indoor air quality monitors to distribute to firewood banks that provide wood to homes where many experience indoor wood smoke. There are a variety of monitors available and all are easy to set up and give clear visual information about your air quality. Each has a way of engaging the user and recording indoor air data. The Govee, pictured below, lights up in green when air quality is considered safe, and red when it reads unsafe concentrations of PM2.5.
Once monitors are provided to the interested firewood bank we encourage banks to familiarize themselves with how they function. Once firewood bank leadership has grasped the learning curve we hope to loan them to multiple wood recipients to try in their homes over the winter. We would like to start a conversation around indoor air quality awareness, each participating home’s baseline PM2.5 reading will be unique to their home, wood burning habits, and stove condition which opens the door for thoughtful dialogue and comparison of what each user finds.
In time, we hope to document participant’s experience with the air quality monitor and pair it with the real time data collected from their home. AGH will provide some compensation to the occupants of the home if they are willing to fill out a few surveys and share all air quality data and photos of their wood-burning stove. We want to see if and when air quality information inspires people to address the underlying problem. Ideal homes to use them may have young children or elderly who are more sensitive to wood smoke.
Monitors will be mailed directly to the firewood bank and can be kept by the bank or by a household that values it. Sampling and deployment of the devices can be established by the firewood bank. By providing this tool to the firewood community with limited resources we can underscore the importance of understanding our indoor air. I If your bank is interested in issuing these monitors and organizing participants from your firewood bank community, contact Hannah Stinson or complete this engagement interest survey and pay attention to question 3. For more information about low-cost indoor air quality monitors see this blog written by AGH President John Ackerly who tested several devices in his home which is heated by a pellet stove.
Acknowledging that something is harmful to your health is difficult at times, especially when the same thing is connected to comfort and survival. When it comes to wood stoves and wood heat there is sometimes nostalgia in the warm, comforting smell. For others, it can be annoying. Any smell coming from your wood stove is an indication that something is wrong and it should be addressed, particularly if there are young kids or elderly in the home. Wood smoke contains numerous carcinogens like formaldehyde, benzene, acrolein, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and particulate matter that is 2.5 micrometers in size or smaller. PM2.5, when inhaled, goes deep into the lungs and body carrying with it toxins. Air quality monitors are an important first step for anyone curious about the indoor air impact of their wood heating device.
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