The Oregon Senate passed “Heat Smart” Bill 102 last year in an effort help clean up the environment by exorcising over 300,000 non-certified wood burning stoves from Oregon homes. The latest revisions to the Oregon Property Disclosures look like this regarding wood burning stoves:
Stoves that are not certified or installed without a permit must be removed from the property prior to closing.
The Oregon DEQ website states:
Selling your Home – Removal of an Non-certified Woodstove
Beginning August 1, 2010, if you are selling a home with an uncertified woodstove in it, you will be required to remove this device. The 2009 Oregon Legislature signed Senate Bill 102 into law requiring the removal of any non-certified woodstove from a home when it is sold. This bill is part of a program to help protect Oregonians from uncontrolled wood smoke. Oregon DEQ will be proposing rules in the next few months to establish the removal notification requirements for homeowners. If you would like to be informed of these rules as they are being developed, please click here.
The implication for sales after August 1, 2010 is fairly clear but it start now. A buyer today would have to remove the stove that was legally included today.
6 Comments on “Oregon Wood Burning Stoves Go Up In Smoke”
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Thanks for the info guys….
I’m curious as to what you think will realistically happen when the ever popular “Unknown” box is checked on the seller’s disclosure?
These laws always seem to have the best of intentions but, in reality, just don’t have any teeth or much effect in the end (smoke alarms, lead paint, LP siding, mold, etc, etc)
I’m not trying to put a negative spin on the law but am more anxious to see it enforeced. From my end as an inspector it’s just frustrating to see all the “Unknowns” and “N/A” boxes on the disclosure form. Once those boxes are checked it’s like it just falls into the endless ocean and is never talked about again.
Thanks for the great site and info….
We tell all of our clients that you can’t get in trouble for disclosing too much. Say what you know, research what you should know. “Unknown” won’t be a successful defense if it can be shown that it was something you should have known. For a buyer, and their agent, “unknown” should be a flag to find out. Of course, if you have an issue on a disclosure statement, contact an attorney for legal advice.
Do you mean “without”? “Stoves that are not certified or installed WITH a permit must be removed from the property prior to closing.”
Yes. “WITHOUT.” Corrected.
Hmmm…seems like there are better and more impactful things they could spend their time on that wood burning stoves in homes.
This really is tightening the noose.
If the seller removes the wood stove, puts it in the garage at a friend’s house, sells the home without it, and then after the fact, simply gives it back to the buyer, the new owner would then be installing it without a permit, and if a fire ever occurred, his insurance company would bail on him. And if he tried to get a permit, he won’t get it because it’s not a certified stove.
They are essentially telling people they have to throw out their personal property, and that is just flat-out wrong.
I can see them requiring all new stoves to be manufactured to some standard for clean air, but what do they want to do next? Tell anyone driving an old car from 1967 that they can’t sell it to someone else?
This is insane, and it’s meddling. And frankly, it may even be unconstitutional. Who are they to tell me what I can and cannot do with my own personal property?