On Feb 16, 5:37*pm, "Ed Pawlowski" wrote:
This was in the Hartford Courant today as a sidebar to an article about wood
burning stoves. *People are complaining they are being made sick by the
pollutants. *Gas sure comes up as being very clean.

POLLUTION

Environmental officials have analyzed.how much soot -

particulate matter - home heating devices produce.

» One home heated by oil produces as much pollution as 39 homes using gas.

» One home heated by an EPA-certified indoor wood stove

produces as much pollution as 2,000 homes using gas.

» One home heated by an outdoor wood furnace produces as much pollution as
3,000 to

8,000 homes using gas.

Source: DEP

The calculations are incomplete and therefore bias.

I live in a rural area and you can ofter get "tops" after the logging
is done. The tops will just lie there are rot away. If you heat with
those tops, you are releasing X amount of carbon.

If you heat with gas, you are releasing less carbon, say Y where YX.
Therefore gas looks good.

However, those tops are going to decompose my themselves anyway and
when they do, they will release Z amount of carbon, where Z=X.

If Y X - Z; then burning gas will produce MORE carbon than burning
wood because the wood's carbon is going to be released anyway through
that pesky natural decay process.