ALLISTON WETT Inspections for Wood Stoves, Fireplaces & Pellet Stoves

 

Your Alliston WETT Inspections Technician is trained to check for code compliance and safety with wood burning appliances. They often are involved when you buy or have a wood burning appliance like a fireplace or wood burning stove installed. They also may help with maintenance and the prevention of problems. When someone is Certified, it means that they are certified to perform safety checks and maintenance on  wood burning appliances. The term doesn’t apply to your wood burning stove or fireplace, but rather, to the person who is inspecting these appliances.

Alliston WETT Inspections has over 15 years experience

In Canada, wood burning appliances are regulated by the codes in CSA B365, but how do you know if your home is safe unless you have a Certified Professional verification completed? In Alliston  our WETT Certified Inspector will come into your home to verify your fireplace or wood stove meets the standards and requirements for safety and insurance purposes.

If you are heating your home with wood and have never had an a Professional Technician verify the condition and installation of your wood burning appliance your families Safety could be at risk!

Protect your families safety Having your chimney cleaned semi-annually can provide you with the “Peace Of Mind” knowing your fireplace or wood stove is safe. We can provide a report delivered on-site as soon as the inspection is completed!

Read about WETT Certified Inspection Details and Information

Alliston WETT Inspections and Home Inspection Hours

In most cases, a basic visual evaluation will be enough to tell the technician if the installation of your wood burning appliance is safe. In other cases, you may need a Level 2 or Level 3 evaluation to make sure that even the parts you can’t see are working properly. A Site Basic certified member can handle basic visual inspections, but it takes a Level 1 certified technician to actually conduct the more intensive evaluations. Technicians can also perform maintenance on wood burning appliances or fix major problems that you may have with them. If your fireplace has old flue tile we recommend hiring a  Chimney Sweep to clean chimney and then inspect for cracks or damage.

Every homeowner who has a wood fireplace in their home should be having regular professional inspection and professional cleaning at least once a year to make sure that it’s functioning properly and there is not damage to any components. After all, the fireplace allows you to have a fire inside your home, so the number of things that could go wrong is significantly higher than in homes that don’t have a wood fireplace. But losing your home to a fire is a tragedy that can be avoided entirely if you have regular professional wood fireplace inspections and do everything you can to take care of your fireplace.

You and your family’s safety is important. Having a Professional Evaluation of your wood burning appliance performed prior to using your wood burning appliance can provide you with the “Peace Of Mind” knowing your fireplace or wood stove is safe.  We can provide a Wood Burning Appliance inspection within 24 hours!

 $100.00 WETT  Inspection when included as part of Home Inspection package!

Call Roger today at 705-795-8255 or send email

Visit Wood Safety for valuable information on wood burning practices.

History of Wood Burning Stoves

Wood heat was not only the main source of heat for our fore fathers, wood fires also were used for cooking, heating water for clothes washing, baths and all the essentials of life. To accomplish these task there was normally an open fireplace. I am sure most of you have seen pictures of the pioneer housewife with the pot of food dangling on a hook inside the open fireplace.

A wood burning stove consists of a sealed combustion chamber (in which the wood is burned) connected via a stovepipe to a flue that vents smoke and other combustion products to the outside. It is the fact of being sealed that is one of the main distinguishing features of wood burning stoves. They are popularly believed to have their origins in the Franklin Stove though this itself was derived from earlier designs, and ironically initially employed an open, rather than sealed, design.

EPA ” Environment protection agency ” was the catalyst that dictated the newer generation high technology stove. The EPA mandated that all new stoves must emit only very minimal pollutants to the environment. To overcome the health hazard from the pollutants from the smoke, EPA set particle emission standards to which the stove had to meet, similar to the automobile industry, that the manufacturers had to meet in order to legally sell their wood stoves.

The next generation of Wood Stoves and Wood Inserts became popular as many homes had open fireplaces that were very attractive but very inefficient. These Wood Stoves and Inserts had a fairly good controllable airflow, usually with some sort of restrictive baffling system, allowing approximately 30% efficiency from the wood fuel. For many years these stoves heated the homes and were considered to be a wonderful heat source. Today, these types of stoves are illegal to sell in most states, due to the high particle emissions emitted from the exhaust chimney. As our population has increase, it has become necessary to reduce the particles being emitted from the stoves in the form of smoke. Studies have confirmed that the particles from the stove smoke are not only a nuisance, but also cancerous as the particles will lodge in the lungs of people.

Biomass fuel is essentially any type of renewable biological material that has good combustion. It obviously has the desirable characteristic that being renewable implies a life cycle, and hence a period of growth which typically ensures it is self-balancing as regards carbon output. The most commonly used biofuels are of course logs, wood pellets and other forms of reclaimed wood, but you can even burn husks from cereal crops and nuts (so long as your particular burner is capable of accepting it).

Alliston WETT Inspections – Installation Requirements for Wood Burning Appliances

Wood Energy Technology Transfer Inc. (WETT Inc.) is a non-profit training and education association managed by a volunteer Board of Directors elected by holders of valid certificates. Through its administrative designate, Wood Energy Transfer Inc. functions as the national registrar of the Certification program. Through professional training and public education, they promote the safe and effective use of wood burning systems in Canada.  Roger Frost has been a WETT Certified Inspector for over 15 years.

Read article on reducing clearances to combustible materials when installing wood stoves.

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