🚀 go-pugleaf

A cheap, simple and effective modification of your woodstove can reduce its  
smoke emissions drastically.

Simply drill a pinhole in the smokestack or chimney large enough so that,  
say, 0.001% of the stack fumes are vented directly back into the house.

It works on the same principle as siting the sewer effluent pipes of  
factories or communities *upstream* of their water intake pipes, or making  
automobile horns that sound as loud *inside* the car as they do outside.

Once YOU are breathing as much of your smoke as you're asking your neighbors  
to breathe, you'll sson find ways to stop smoking (insulation?  
weatherization? natural gas? solar?).

In a 13-month study of Seattle air quality (9/89-9/90) during which  
particulate matter never exceeded 70% of national air quality standards for  
what is conidered unhealthful air, UW and EPA researchers Koenig and Larson  
directly linked asthma/respiratory emergency-room visits at 8 Seattle-area  
hospitals with exposure to particulate matter on the previous day.  Nearly  
half the 2,955 persons visiting hospitals were 20 years old or younger.

Levels of particulate matter matter are measured by averaging readings over  
24 hours in micrograms per cubic meter of air.  150 is considered unhealthy;  
a first-stage air quality alert is issued when it reaches 300.  During the  
study period, Seattle's highest reading was 103, and the mean was 29.6. 

Seattle air is actually considered pretty good (cough, cough) compared to  
many places, but apparently it's still bad enough to make our young people  
sick.

Source: University Week vol. 9 #30, 6/25/92 (UW Health Sciences circular).

John Wolff,    Los Angleles del Norte, WA