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Informal Report on CSA B-415.1 meeting,
Mississauga, ON, Aug 30/07

by Norbert Senf

Introduction

CSA (Canadian Standards Association) B415 is the "Technical Committee on Performance Testing and Rating of Solid-Fuel-Burning Appliances".

The B415 Standard is the Canadian Equivalent of the EPA regulation (NSPS New Source Performance Standard). Canada does not regulate woodstoves nationally, but should it do so, this will be the standard that is used. It is designed to be compatible with EPA, so that manufacturers do not have to test to two standards.

It goes beyond EPA, in that it also defines the testing of furnaces and boilers. I originally joined the committee about 10 or so years ago, in order to try to get masonry heaters included. All we got was the following wording:

1.5 This Standard does not apply to
(a) site-built masonry fireplaces
(b) site-built masonry heaters

The standard also defines efficiency testing. Since it is a more modern standard than the EPA rule, there is a feeling in the technical testing community that some of its provisions may eventually be adopted by EPA, which is about 10 years overdue for a review.

B415.1 Task Group

This is known as "Task Group for Review of CANMET's Validation Test Report and Appliance Test Program". This is a task group of technical experts that was struck by the full B415 TC (Technical Committee) to address some specific clauses in the Standard, and make recommendations.

This was the Task Group's second meeting. It took place at CSA's new state-of-the-art headquarters and meeting facilities in Mississauga, near Pearson International Airport. It was very professionally organized, including catered snacks and lunch, power and data outlets at each seat, etc.

A who's who of the wood heating technical testing community was in attendance. 6 labs were represented, including OMNI, Intertek, CANMET, and Myren. Also present was Environment Canada, Tom Stroud and Bob Ferguson from HPBA, as well as 3 manufacturers.

I was personally pleased to have an opportunity to participate with several people who I know through the ASTM scene, plus Ron Braaten, who did most of the woodstove testing at the main federal CANMET Combustion Lab in Ottawa for many years. Ron is now a consultant, and heads much of the B415 effort. It was also great to finally meet Bob Ferguson, who has a very interesting technical background, indeed. An added bonus is that CSA headquarters is only a 5 hour drive from my house.

Technical Discussions and Tidbits

Although masonry heaters were discussed only briefly, I learned a lot from the discussions that is still of great use in trying to understand where we are at currently, in a testing standards sense, and where things might be going. I also got to fill in some important gaps in my knowledge.

Condar

For example, Bob Ferguson had experience with the Condar sampler in "the old days", with old woodstoves. Those stoves put out so much tar that the Condar was a real hassle, because you have to change sample collection filters all the time when they plug up. I suspect that this may be the reason it is generally regarded as "discredited in the NSPS process". With masonry heaters, we can run a Condar for a full run without a filter change, and it is a much simpler and cheaper way to get a good PM number. Furthermore, it is portable and can be used in the field. So, the technical community in which the Condar was discredited 15 - 20 years ago, had no knowledge about masonry heaters, and pellet stoves were far and few between. Maybe the Condar is perfect for clean appliances - nobody seems to have checked this out, yet.

In the recent MHA testing on the Swedish heater at OMNI, a Condar was run against the official EPA sampling method (known as Method 5). In back-to-back runs, identical results were obtained relative to Method 5. Two identical runs by a top tier EPA accredited lab is, in the statistics realm, pure gold. Good news for the Condar, in a masonry heater application.

Cribs vs Cordwood

This made for a very lively and informative discussion. The atmosphere was quite collegial and good-natured. Everybody laid their cards on the table, and there was a very good interchange.

Ben Myren has done a lot of work in this area with fireplaces recently, and suggested lowering the spacing for cribs from 1.5" to 3/4", with which everybody pretty much was in agreement.

One of the labs said that on an EPA crib test, the secondary air lightoff of the fuel charge is everything, and that he can manipulate the same stove to give you either 3 grams/hour or 20 grams/hour on the same fuel charge.

There was a lively debate about repeatability, and whether cribs were in fact any better than cordwood. Paul Tiegs stated that OMNI is getting excellent repeatability on cribs. (Standard deviation on the order of 0.35 g/hr).

One of the manufacturers stated that they have been testing their stoves and furnaces in Europe recently to European standards. He was very surprised to get a call from the lab and get asked what kind of wood he wanted to use, what size, and how he wanted it stacked. An American lab guy present said that they have been testing some "clean" European stoves here lately, and that some of them fall flat on their face with the EPA test.

Efficiency

B415 specifies three alternate methods for efficiency testing. Problems with the stack loss method for high dilution appliances, and stoves with fast changes of operating parameters, such as thermostatically controlled furnaces, were discussed.

Paul Tiegs stated that he now favors Jaasma's TCC (total combustible carbon) method for efficiency testing, and there was some interest from the other labs in this.

Masonry Heaters

An interesting suggestion during a conversation after the meeting was that the masonry heater community should design and execute a formal research project on masonry heater emissions under various operating conditions and over a range of firebox sizes, and that this could serve as a basis for accomodation with regulators.