The Fairbanks North Star Borough has an air pollution problem. That sounds surprising for a small Alaska population center with vast wilderness all around it. But on some winter days, especially the really cold ones when an inversion forms, fine particulate matter gets trapped. Combustion goes up then, too, as people need more fuel to heat homes, buildings, and vehicles. “Ice fog” is what it’s called, and it’s hard on the health of people who live at the lower elevations and have to breathe the polluted air until the weather changes and it blows away. The problem only grew worse with the increase in fuel prices. As heating oil went up over $2 per gallon in about 2005, more people began using wood stoves for their heating needs. This exacerbated the problem, and figuring out solutions has been an ongoing and contentious discussion in our community.

One of the clever programs implemented by the borough was to help homeowners with old, inefficient stoves replace them with new ones that meet a much-improved particulate emissions standard. Rose suggested that we look into this program, but I was skeptical (hey, being skeptical is a big part of my job description). I liked our old stove – I knew how it worked, and we’d achieved a happy, mutually beneficial relationship. Why gamble on some newfangled thing with a catalytic converter and low emissions when it might not heat as well?

A helpful person at The Woodway explained to us why we should take that gamble. The new stoves are much more efficient because you get a more complete burn out of the wood you put into them. Okay. If I could get the same heat out of less wood, that was a tangible benefit that would make the gamble on less particulate emissions worthwhile. So we plunked down our money and ordered a Blaze King Princess.

While we waited for the stove to arrive, we planned how we would accomplish the switch-out. Moving hundreds of pounds of steel and stove brick around is a brains-over-brawn problem, so it was a good thing that we had not just Rose but her niece Sarah Olsem at hand to accomplish this rather difficult task. I built a ramp that enabled us to roll a dolly-load of wood stove out of the truck and into the house and then turn around and do it again backwards with the old stove. With Rose and Sarah’s brains and strength we got it all done remarkably smoothly.

Our old stove — an old friend slated for destruction

Perhaps the strangest part of the experience was when I had to take the old stove in to the borough to prove that their program was indeed switching out stoves. I had to drop it off and obtain a “Certificate of Destruction.” They pointed to a dumpster out back and said to drop the old stove off next to that while they did the paperwork. I walked the stove to the edge of the truck bed and tipped it off. Clang! It seemed like an ignominious end to an old, faithful friend. Thirty years of trusty service in its house, and dumped because wood-burning technology had moved on. We still miss it. (Not really.)

Out with the old, in with the new

I had to monkey with the stovepipe for awhile before we got the new stove fully set up, but soon enough its test burn was proceeding brilliantly and we were reading the manual with great interest. Reading wood stove manuals with great interest is probably not something many people do for entertainment, but this newfangled contraption was fascinating. There are basically three controls on it: the door, the catalytic converter, and an airflow dial. Juggling all three, you get efficient, long-lasting heat. There is one built-in temperature monitor, and we added two more to different spots on the stove and pipe.

The Princess on the first test burn

It was months before we really needed heat and got to run a stove load of wood through the full process. The door has a glass front, so you can watch what’s going on. Once the catalytic converter was engaged and the air intake was turned down for a more long-lasting burn, combustible gases would ignite in the box and the world seemed turned upside-down, with flames concentrated in the top and licking downward. Very cool.

We keep our thermostat at 62 F for the daily highs, so a warm fire in the evening is a top priority. Getting things up to 68 or 69 feels perfect, but with the old stove we were used to this level of comfort being effectively gone by the small hours of the morning, not to be regained until the next morning (on weekends) or evening (on weekdays). The Princess, however, was not satisfied with our former lifestyle and insisted that with her advanced technology we aim a bit higher. So we did, stocking up a full stove before going to bed and turning it all down to a slow burn. To our amazement, except on really cold, -30 to -40 F nights, the stove was still warm in the morning. The house temperature also tended to be several degrees higher than 62 F, which, perhaps not surprisingly, lulls one into lingering over coffee and facing the day with a little less hastiness.

We’ve had the Sweet Princess for a year now, and as summer comes to a close and things cool down we’re looking forward to another good year together.

Some details: We have a fresh air feed directly from outside that runs up the Princess’s skirt. The unseemliness of the bright silver air duct was taken care of shortly after the photo above. We also had ordered our Princess satin legs, which she now has. I’ll get a better picture up soon.