Evansville Planning Commission--- Amends Dec. minutes; Addresses external wood burners and much more...

Last night at the Evansville Planning Commission, there was a full agenda of items. To begin the meeting, the commission moved unanimously to amend the prior meeting minutes to reflect input by participants on the portion of the meeting that related to the development impact on the Evansville School District. The earlier meeting of Union, Evansville and the School District had ended with expressions of commitment to a joint impact study of this issue.

Moving on, the Planning Commission looked further at the issue of external wood furnaces. It may seem that the discussion of wood furnaces has gone 180 degrees over the past months, but it is not the Planning Commission, but all of America that is grappling with the issue of how to channel the power of wood, but do so safely for the homeowner as well as the health of all the neighbors.

On the table for discussion was a motion for a moratorium on external wood furnaces. Ron Arnt of R&A Heating gave a summary of the state of these heating units.
1) The industry is in the midst of frantic change moving to upgrade quality to meet city health needs all across America.
2) The demand has been huge.
3) He is working with at least 4 cities in the drafting of ordinances on this issue and will advise Evansville of the text of these ordinances.
4) Ron did not object to a moratorium till the industry and the regulators get it right. He just opposed an outright ban.
5) Currently there is only one external in Evansville but there are many in rural areas.
6) Standards need to be extablished on contractor installation requirements as well as what type of fuel are appropriate. Standards of course must be extablished on the units themselves as to efficiency and pollution. There is a wide difference between models as to type of heat exchangers used and the resulting pollution.
7) It is ok to take some time with a moratorium to get this right because many vendors are sold out till next heating season anyway.

If you attended the meeting and have something to add regarding this discussion, feel free to add on the comment line.

This is a developing story.