The Alternative "alternative" lifestyle.

[JWFITZ]

The days of willy nilly regulations are over. At this point the tax base is so weak that the government will not have the cash to buy the gas to come out and check out what you are doing.

But that's nothing new here in Hawaii.

[LaurelJ]

Actually they may not have the gas to come check you out but they are depending on our neighbors to turn us in. Not that that will actually happen in my neighborhood, everybody here pretty much does their own thing legal or not and and neighbors all just keep their mouths shut.

[Kapohocat]

quote:

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Originally posted by LaurelJ...

Actually, here in California wood burning here has become a big NO NO. Can't even build new construction with wood burning fireplaces here anymore...

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In your post it made no reference to the wild fires. Is that what prompted this ordinance? That would seem to be where the ban would come from. We have burn ban days here when we go into a dry period.


And in response to the original thread - how many of us would be willing to live in a family or FOC multigenerational house to cut costs? How many of you do?

[Bob Orts]

quote:

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Originally posted by Kapohocat
[brIn your post it made no reference to the wild fires. Is that what prompted this ordinance? That would seem to be where the ban would come from. We have burn ban days here when we go into a dry period.

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Wood burning fireplaces are the number 3 cause for particulate matter in air pollution.
It's the number 4 cause for the release of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic chemicals, and polycyclic organic matter.
But, since it's only now being scientifically studied, they are finding it as dangerous as tobacco smoke except in much higher concentrations.
When you think about it, it does make sense. FYI, CA isn't the only state with such restriction.

[missydog1]

In answer to question, I've lived in multi-generational housing since I moved here!
But it works best if there's an ohana or separate quarters. It's a shame that the ohana's are not allowed on ag land unless you have a farm. It's just a way of sharing the house with relatives without having to share the ktichen. Sharing a kitchen is one of the hardest things, because standards of keeping it clean, washed up, etc.. vary so widely.

In the 70's, I lived in Washington and Mendocino in areas where nearly everyone used wood stoves for heat, and many for cooking. At the time, I didn't drink coffee ... but I well remember how hard it was to wake up in a frigid house and first job is to start a fire. Of course the kindling was already ready and the wood dry if you had your act together. Not always the case.

The pressure to stop burning wood in fireplaces, in California, is old, goes back more than ten years -- so long I can't remember. People were trying to cut down on heating costs by burning wood, and it created heavy air pollution.

One of those deals where because burning wood seems more "natural" than burning oil that it was hard to grasp that it can cause pollution as much as auto exhaust. The wood smoke had gotten to the point where there was a chronic brown bowl of smoky haze -- and this was back in the 90's.

We had a wood-burning fireplace in our 1930's house in Oakland, but we only used it occasionally. We had a gas furnace for the real heat. Also we never burned pine or fir, only oak and madrone, which burns hotter and cleaner. It matters what fuel you burn. Like the guava wood sounds good, from the description.

Burning trash and yard waste are both prohibited here! It's legal to have a fire in the imu, but green waste is to go to the transfer station if you can't compost it. So the County does care about putting wood combustion into the air.

Neighbors need to be careful about where their smoke goes, if they burn wood. My neighbors burn and the first thing, trades bring it in my window and bam, my house is choke with smoke. REALLY unpleasant.

I have a solar hot water heater. It doesn't make hot water in periods of consecutive rainy days. Basically when it's raining, no hot water. Same with the one I had in Hilo. I'm amazed at the stories of getting solar hot water in all sorts of conditions. Don't get me wrong, I love having it, and most of the time it works!

[missydog1]

Second post to go back to JW's opening thoughts:
JW, I agree with your first post. I was around during the first back to the land movement, and most of us were CLUELESS, and there was so much BS floating around that anyone would buy and repeat. The real lessons I learned were from the rural communities I moved to where life had been very different all along than the suburbs where I was raised.

To be candid, my fellow hippies were mostly naive and pretty full of it, and were constantly creating health hazards knowing nothing about living in the country and having new kinds of waste systems. I will never forget moving to Taos and living on this mountain with seven hippy families, and one day the couple with the baby who moved there from NYC or something, come ask to borrow our pressure cooker because they have hepatitis and need to sterilize stuff by doctor's orders ...

Um, they had been washing their baby's diapers out in the open stream that provided drinking water to all the houses on the hill. Washing the diapers out ABOVE where the water entered their pipes. No clue. Luckily, we lived above them.

And these same groups of people with this level of knowledge, knew EVERYTHING there was to know about diets, and cures, and living off the land ... from listening to them. Luckily we had one lady among us, from Louisiana, who had been raised in the country and knew how to create a great veggie garden, and taught the rest of us.

City kids going back to the land. My housemate, who was really into the idea of having goat's milk, had no idea how to get clean milk, so it all soured in big jars in the frig. Once a week she would make "homemade vegetable soup" by opening ten cans of vegetables and throwing them in a stockpot. Seriously.

Several people I know burned their houses down, not understanding how to use wood stoves, or propane gas stoves for that matter, or lanterns.

And lest I sound too smug about it all, I was pretty dumb myself. 16 when I went to "live on the land" and raised in a nice home with indoor plumbing and all that. I did know enough to boil the water we pulled out of our groundwater/rainwater well, but not much more.

The good news is, those people from those times who are still alive, are a lot more akamai now, having paid a whole lot of dues for being idealistic and naive.

[gtill]

Fireplaces have changed drastically, and because I'm moving into a neighborhood, that's where I'm going. And I agree the smoke is a problem if not tended properly, especially in neighborhoods.

The've had no burn regs in Washington state for years, but only during inversion times when the smoke don't rise. But again with a low emission sealed and vented fireplace it does rise because of the heat generated. A complete ban sucks.

[DickWilson]

For those really serious about a back to earth life style the "Mother Earth News" has been around for a long time and can certainly keep you from having to relearn those lesson those of us who survived the movement in the sixties got in the school of hard knocks.[]
Including as I remember some truly functional wood stoves with secondary combustion chambers to reduce particulate matter.

dick wilson

[aprild]

Kathy,

It is impossible to get madrone firewood in Mendo any more. Been so for over 10-15 years. Oak is even hard to get. Many are burning fir--no other choice. Isn't that weird? I knew it would happen 30 years ago, but my neighbors hauled truckloads of madrone out of my area to sell. Now there is no more. Speaking of stoves, though, I put in an airtight Vermont Castings in the '80's and it transformed my world: stays hot all night, house warm when I come home from being gone all day. Love it, love it, love it. But so sick of carrying even this smaller amount of wood. Sick, sick, sick of it. All the romance is gone.

Yes, in most places in California you can't put in a wood-burning fireplace or stove in new construction and for good reason. That's the problem: if the population is small and houses spread out, wood is useful, if houses are close by, high population, all sorts of problems arise, including not being able to breathe and deforestation.

Laurel, your garden sounds wonderful. Where do you live?


april

[aprild]

There's a ton of gorse in Mendocino on the coast that is a problem to eradicate. Someone has Jay's same idea as an alternative to burning it in open piles. I'm reproducing some info posted on another forum and I quote:

There's an old technology called wood gasification. It was used in Europe during WW 2 to run buses and other vehicles with internal combustion engines. Wood and coal was used in some cities and towns in the gaslight era to make "producer gas" for use for home lighting, cooking and heating. Try googling "wood gas" or "wood gasification" or "producer gas" and you'll find some interesting practical information. Here's a Google search on "wood gas"

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22wood+gas%22

For example, there's a website posted by a couple giving a detailed account of their adventure touring Australia in a wood-gas powered van, fueled by wood gathered along the way. They include the mishaps and repairs needed along the way, and what they learned from the experience. They include drawings and discussion of the design of their gasification unit.

http://members.tripod.com/~highforest/wo...fired.html

Here's a great index page on appropriate technology and the use use of sustainable energy wood for cooking, heating and powering vehicles

http://journeytoforever.org/at_woodfire.html

april