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Back to the woodstove? Not quite…
There was a time when a Vermont schoolhouse meant a woodstove in the corner and somebody’s job was keeping it fed. The state is offering money to bring wood heat back to public buildings — but the boiler-room version, not the cast-iron one.
The Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation is taking applications for its Advanced Wood Heating Assistance program, funded by a $300,000 USDA Forest Service grant. Town offices, garages, schools and even grange halls can apply. The grants reimburse up to half a project’s cost — to a maximum of $50,000 for a brand-new system, or $25,000 for upgrading an existing one.
The “advanced” part is the catch for anyone picturing smoke and split logs. These systems run on locally sourced pellets, chips or cordwood, can be fully automated, and are built to meet current air-quality rules — a long way from the woodstoves that gave wood heat its sooty reputation. The state’s pitch leans local: by a 2016 estimate cited by FPR, 80 cents of every dollar spent on wood heat stays in Vermont, versus about 22 cents for oil or propane.
It’s not just theory. Craftsbury Academy installed a wood-pellet boiler with a similar grant in 2022, and Joe Houston, operations director for the Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union, told the state the system has been a solid improvement.
There’s a reason the money is on the table. Automated wood systems can cost two to five times what a comparable fossil-fuel boiler runs to buy and install, according to the state’s wood-heat roadmap — a day-one expense that the long-term fuel savings take years to repay. The grants are meant to soften that upfront cost.
Applicants don’t just file a form, either. The state runs a pre-application process first — an intake call and a site visit from mechanical engineers, with approval from the US Forest Service’s Wood Energy Technical Team before a formal application is invited. Questions go to wood energy specialist Molly Willard at FPR.
More information is on the department’s website.
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Categories: Education, State Government
Oh, so now wood heat is safe because there is new technology? Just another grift. Next year it will be unsafe again. I’ll keep using my Blaze King.
Wood heating, whether as pellets or cord cut is local, plentiful, and renewable with a 30-50 year cycle. There are some who still critique it because it releases carbon, as does any combustion heating method. There is a raging debate in Burlington of whether to invest in improvements to the McNeil woodburning electric plant or to scrap it entirely. But Burlington is the place where debate and indecision has taken literally over 60 years to come up with a solution to getting cars to downtown from the south from I-189. In Burlington, the owner of a wood-fired bagel bakery has invested thousands of dollars to manage the smoke because of chronic complaints by a neighbor. We need to get over our irrational opposition to using wood for heating air space in buildings. Wood smoke generally smells nice. Get over the carbon-phobia of this renewable resource.