I agree with your thoughts about wood fired heating systems being a disaster in terms of the environment -- but there are systems where they use pellets made from sawdust -- which is probably just going into a landfill otherwise, and there are corn pellet systems. They are very efficient and I don't know about heating an entire house here in Minnesota, but a friend has the sawdust pellet system in Baltimore and almost never has to turn his central heating on. Seems to me we have to use a variety of things in order to get off our dependence on oil and natural gas and monopolies.
Diane Wiley, Tangletown ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 1:35 PM Subject: Re: [Mpls] Safety Alert- Old Chimneys! > In a message dated 8/25/04 11:51:02 PM Central Daylight Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > > > > > > > Many if not most of Minneapolis homes predate central heating, having > > been originally heated by numerous wood stoves that were sometimes > > later converted to coal. In a typical "foursquare" house there was a > > central brick chimney and a larger house would often have a second or > > even third brick chimneys in the ends of the house. These chimneys > > worked well, adding strength to the structure and acting as a giant > > brick heat sink that kept the home warm during long winter nights. > > Jon Sez, I agree with Dyna that chimneys should be inspected every few > years, especially on older homes. The vast majority of Mpls. homes however > were built with central coal fired boilers after the turn of the century. There > can hardly be a handful of homes left that used individual wood burning fire > places or stoves for heat.I can't endorse pulling out chimney lining and using > only structural brick for a fire lining. That's inviting disaster. > A fifteen year old water heater has pretty much done it's duty, it's > gonna call it quits sooner than later. Replacing it with a 40 gallon gas fired > heater with a seven year warrenty should cost about $350 for the heater and > maybe a hundred or so for labor depending on who you use. You certainly don't > have to have Excel install one of theirs. > As to the effeciency of wood or pellet fired boilers or heaters for > the cities: where's all that fuel going to come form? There's a goodly supply > of Oak along the river bank but after a couple of years I think it might be > pretty depleted. I don't golf so I suppose we could log the local courses. Fuel > pellets are usually made from Aspen which starts growing in abundance about 150 > miles North of here. Might be some shipping costs. Also anyone who can even > vaguely recall the fifties remembers what the old buildings downtown looked > like, absolutely black with the grime of coal fired heating plants. Anyone think > a Metro area of 3 million using wood for fuel could create a cleaner > atmosphere? > > > Jon Gorder > > Cathedral Hill > REMINDERS: > 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. > 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. > > For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html > For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract > ________________________________ > > Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy > Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
