Yes, there are. And within limits, they help. I am one of the very few in
my suburban neighborhood who actually heated his home almost entirely with
wood that I felled, split and burned. I used a little gas to fell the
trees, haul the wood and split the wood. If you have a decent sized house
and you want to heat with wood, you'd better use gasoline to help, or don't
bother with a full time job.

I didn't heat with wood because I was "environmentally conscious". I had a
house with two heat pumps and I am a cheap SOB. Heat pumps are massive
frauds on the scale of Social Security, but those are two more rants.

The problem with catalytic converters is that they have to be glowing to
work. It takes a while to heat it up and get it "lit off." When the fire
diminishes, the converter doesn't work. The converters really do help the
stove throw out extra heat, and it was neat to lift up the cook plate and
see the ceramic grid glow red. They also cut down on the creosote in your
chimney.

I also went through a converter or more per season, and they weren't cheap.
I also got some of the castings hot enough that they warped.

That stuff about heating with wood just doesn't work for most of the
country. It takes several cords of wood and enormous effort to keep your
house warm. And even if you are willing to spend the time, we were also
talking about getting to work, etc. Hope you have enough extra energy to
ride that bike.

You can wiggle all you want on the issues, there is nothing here or on the
horizon which will replace oil. Consider the humble string trimmer: think
about all the work you can get out of an ounce or two of gasoline. Think of
what you would have to carry around in the way of batteries to equal that
work.

I would like nothing more that to tell the oil-selling countries to take a
leap. Other than Canada and Britain, countries with significant oil
reserves are our arch enemies. But wishing doesn't make it so. We have to
make immediate short term plans to stabilize and protect our oil supply, or
we will lose our way of life.


"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Dave Stadt" wrote

Wood burning stoves have been outlawed in some places due to the polution
they produce. In the US we are almost forced to consume unrenewable fuel
and in many cases it is due to environmentalist hard line stands.

Aren't there some kind of catalytic converters, for wood stoves, in use?
--
Jim in NC