Dear editor,
I love my woodstove, love going to the bush to get the wood, love stacking it, stoking the stove. I love sitting back with a beer, letting that beautiful heat soak through me on a wet winter day.
Then, a few years ago, I had a heart attack. Recovering next to the stove one stormy night, a worried friend said “That stove may have caused your heart attack.”
This seemed crazy, but my friend’s not crazy, so I decided to check into it.
McGill University did a study in Courtenay, Prince George and Kamloops.
They discovered that in Courtenay “the risk of heart attack among residents aged 65 and higher increased by 19 per cent” because of smoke from wood stoves. Could that be me?
The BC Lung Association reports that the Comox Valley has “the highest level of particulate matter” in the Province because of wood stoves.
nother study rated Courtenay’s winter air as the worst in all of Canada.
That really got me thinking. What should I do? Move?
A while back, a neighbour came over, took me out into the yard and pointed to the smoke rising up from my chimney, spinning in a circle, and landing right on his house.
So, I replaced my old stove with an expensive, new one.
A month later I asked if it was better. He said “well…yes, maybe a little better.”
Then I cut back on how many days I burn. I made sure the wood was bone dry. That, my neighbour told me, really helped much more than the new stove. “I can open a window on the days you don’t burn.”
Now, my heart’s better, I still have a weekend fire, and my neighbour is happy.
Steve Schoenhoff,
Courtenay