Older Pierce County wood stoves become illegal Oct. 1

Old wood stoves will be illegal in a large part of Pierce County come Oct. 1.

So-called “uncertified” stoves cause more pollution than the newer ones, which is why they’re being outlawed next week in an area of Pierce County that struggles with air quality, according to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.

A new rule banning the old stoves “will help keep the air healthier for everyone,” spokeswoman Joanne Todd said.

In 2009, the Tacoma area was declared one of the 31 most polluted in the country by the Environmental Protection Agency, which created a Tacoma-Pierce County “non-attainment area.”

Officials targeted their air clean-up efforts on the zone, which includes Tacoma and the county’s other biggest cities. The work was enough to get the cities off the dirty air list in February.

But part of the deal was sticking to a plan the Clean Air Agency made for the area. That includes banning older wood stoves, which were a big part of what got the area on the bad air list in the first place.

The county meets federal standards most of the year, but winter months mean more homes burn wood for heat and that means pollution.

That’s where the new ban comes in.

Figuring out whether a stove is certified takes some work.

A stove will be illegal starting Oct. 1 if it has solid metal doors on the front, and probably if it has two glass doors. Most uncertified stoves are more than 25 years old.

A stove with one glass door could be either certified or not. To find out for sure, owners can email woodstove@pscleanair.org, or take a photo to a hearth dealer, according to the Clean Air Agency.

And UL-tested or approved is not the same as certified.

The Clean Air Agency has tried to give stove owners time to figure all that out by spreading the word about the new rule for several years. And it’s helped replace nearly 3,000 old stoves, especially for lower income households.

Residents who qualified got $1,500 toward a cleaner source of heat, about half the cost. The money can go toward devices such as a heat pump, furnace, pellet stove, propane stove, or natural gas stove or insert.

Wood stove users who qualify as low income have the option of replacing their older stove with a certified one.

They also could opt to recycle the stove instead for $350 if they brought the device to the agency, and $200 if they called to have it picked up.

The agency used up the program’s roughly $2 million budget for the 2013-15 biennium, and about 350 people are on a waiting list for the new stoves.

The agency expects to learn in the next couple weeks what funding it will get from the state Department of Ecology to distribute more stoves over the next two years.

About 20,000 of the older, soon-to-be illegal stoves are estimated to still be in the county.

People with no other source of heat can apply for an exemption and ask permission to keep their uncertified stove. But the process is selective.

“You’re not going to qualify if you’ve yanked out your baseboard heaters, or don’t want to turn them on,” Todd said.

Violations for people who keep burning in uncertified stoves (regulators notice if too much smoke is being produced, or if someone is burning during a ban, which can bring an uncertified stove to their attention) will face a $1,500 fine. First-time offenders can reduce that, sometimes to nothing.

Violators also have the option of putting the fine toward a cleaner source of heat to replace the offending one, Todd said.

This story was originally published September 20, 2015 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Older Pierce County wood stoves become illegal Oct. 1."