The EPA Takes An Ax To Self-Sufficiency: Most Woodburning Stoves Wi...

When they take my woodstove away, I’ll have cold, dead hands. That ain’t gonna happen. – Shorty Dawkins, Associate editor

This article comes from The Organic Prepper

by Daisy Luther

When you think of that little dream homestead in the woods, what does it include?  Probably a well and septic system, a little stream bubbling nearby, a chicken coop, a sunroom for winter growing, and a cozy fire to curl up next to.

When my daughter and I spent a year living in a cabin in the Northwoods of Canada, our woodstove was our lifeline. It was the only source of heat in a place that reached -42 degrees.  It was the only way we could cook when our power went out during snow and ice storms (as it did frequently).  It was the cozy center of our home, and we survived for an entire frigid winter for less than$800. After that experience I vowed never to live in a home without a woodstove.

If the EPA has it’s way, however, heating your home self-sufficiently with wood could soon become illegal – or at the very least, insanely expensive.

Off Grid Survival reports:

Shortly after the re-election of President Obama, the agency announced new radical environmental regulations that threaten to effect people who live off the grid. The EPA’s new environmental regulations reduce the amount of airborne fine-particle matter from 15 micrograms to 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

This means that most wood burning stoves would now fall into a class that would deemed unacceptable under these new draconian measures. The EPA has even launched a nifty new website called Burn Wise to try to sway public opinion.

On their site, while trying to convince people to get rid of their old stoves and buy the new EPA-certified stoves, they state that these older stove must be scrapped and cannot be resold.

From the EPA Site:

The local air pollution agency says I can’t sell my old wood stove to help pay for an EPA-certified wood stove.  Why is that?
Replacing an older stove with a cleaner-burning stove will not improve air quality if the older stove is reused somewhere else.  For this reason, wood stove change out programs usually require older stoves to be destroyed and recycled as scrap metal, or rendered inoperable.

(source)

One of the easiest ways for the government to force this issue is through homeowner’s insurance policies. If you have a mortgage, you have absolutely no option but to carry homeowner’s insurance.  Even if you own you homestead outright, most people consider insuring their homes and property to be a vital safety net. When your policy comes up for annual renewal, the insurance company can require an inspection of your home. At that time, compliance can easily be forced by either charging insanely high rates or through the cancellation of the policies of those who have “outdated” woodstoves.

Read more here.