by Joel Ceausu
If you haven’t heard by now, your neighbour or a city inspector will tell you soon enough.
A new Montreal bylaw adopted last month sets rules governing the use of solid-fuel-burning stoves and fireplaces in all of Montreal’s 19 boroughs.
The new rules prohibit the use of solid-fuel-burning devices during smog warnings, effective immediately, and requires owners to declare them to the city no later than December 22, 2015.
Moreover, as of October 1, 2018, the law prohibits all solid-fuel-burning devices unless they are recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) and emit no more than 2.5 grams per hour of fine particles into the atmosphere.
All devices, whether in conformity or not, are permitted during electricity outages that last more than three hours.
Solid-fuel-burning devices include stoves, furnaces, heaters, and prefabricated or conventional fireplaces, designed to burn wood logs or other solid materials such as ecological logs, pellets or coal. (Gas and electric fireplaces are not solid-fuel-burning devices.) Fines for non-compliance range from $100 to $2,000 for individuals, and $200 to $4,000 for businesses.
The by-law was adopted to help curb fine particle emission which in Montreal is just behind transportation in polluting the atmosphere and is one of the main causes of wintertime smog. Pollutants from burning wood can adversely affect health and aggravate asthma, childhood bronchitis and lung cancer.
The city’s previous fireplace bylaw adopted in 2009 did not address smog alerts or EPA certification.
To declare a device or for more information, visit www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/woodburning, e-mail environnement@ville.montreal.qc.ca or call 514-280-4326.
Hello Rhoda
I commend you on your blog.
I also believe it is critically important that you address the most serious health threat we , especially our children, the invisible ‘night killer as it was defined by Quebec Lung Association, Wood Smoke!
I imagine you know almost nothing about the number one cause of pollution locally and provincially .
Most people were made to believe the EPA/CSA Stoves were reducing emissions.
With twenty years of proven evidence we banned this industry!!!
I have to suggest, as one who have devoted thousands of hours towards exposing the fraud and having succeeded in banning this ‘more than all cars, more than all transport pollution,
wood smoke pollution . You must do your duty to bring the knowledge to the public.
See : Wood Smoke Pollution.org
Also see FEBRUARY
KAREN Messier
Beaconsfield Contact
this ‘ proven much more dangerousFRAUDULENT TESTING ‘ of the stoves
Pointe Claire has done nothing to protect our children from this very dangerous smoke.
As we watch global warming and the water and fires and the escalating loss of over one Billion animals who fell in the Australian fires, when
we watch the water and winds spray dangerously
reaching the Windmill .. leaving it like a past voice crushed to the ground by winds.. level of St. Johaham
when we are silent .. we need to recognize
we are complicit!
Stella Haley