The Great Wood Stove Change-Out

The GSC (Great Stove Change-Out) is a public-private partnership initiated by Hearth Products and was started in Oregon and Washington State. This wood stove "trade-in sale" gets cleaner and more fuel efficient stoves into homes fast.

Ingredients:

• Wood stove industry
  
• State or local air district officials
  
• Energy conservation offices or local gas utility

Seasonings:

• Willingness to surrender old stove for new one
  
• Willingness by industry and air officials to encourage change-outs
  
• Willingness to track (including the destruction of old stoves)

Utensils:

• Publicity - to raise the level of awareness
• Teamwork - especially between air officials and industry

Servings:

A good goal for year one: change-out of 15 percent of existing dirty stoves.

Instructions:

1. Start with a kick-off press conference co-hosted by the air district
   and the wood stove industry. Hold event in a working junkyard (or metal recycling facility) with an old stove being demolished. The press eats this up!
2. The program "cooks" for 6 to 10 weeks with story placements and intermittent press events throughout this period. Best done in the January - February time frame rather than fall - when people are replacing stoves anyway.
3. Give an award to the dealer who removes the most particulates as a final press hit.

Hints from the Chef:

• The consumers receive a discount on their new stove, but only if they surrender their old stove, which must then be destroyed.
• Use a "tracking form" that records the family's name, address, and telephone number, as well as the type of stoves that went in and came out of the house.
• Signatures on a form for the dealer and the junkyard person provide tracking right to the end.
• The air quality district can do an audit if desired.
• Industry officials can do an emission inventory impact analysis based on the mix of the replacements.

The Great Stove Change-Out Case Study