CVRD has improved its wood stove exchange program! If you have a stove that is manufactured before 2014, you can now change it out for pellet, gas or propane (and get $600) or a heat pump (and get $1000). These rebates are limited and will go quickly!
Up until this year, the wood stove you were removing had to be manufactured before 1994 so this change opens the door to a lot more people who have realized wood heat is not the way they want to heat their home.
Rebates of $250 are still available for those who want to remove a pre-1994 stove and replace it with a new stove (wood stoves made after 1994, but before 2014, are only eligible for the non-wood stove rebates).
Need to stop using public funds for new stoves
Breathe Clean Air would like to see an end to all rebates for new wood stoves as it makes no sense for public funding to be going towards supporting someone who wants to install a stove (especially in a more populated area).
New wood stoves will last for decades and will continue to use the unhealthiest fuel available. Even the best run stove puts out far more fine particulate pollution than any other source of heat (see our analysis: “Rebates for new wood stoves: Not an effective solution to pollution” for comparison charts).
That new stove will also mean more public money will need to be spent to educate people on burning practices and on enforcement when they don’t do better.
Those extra costs don’t exist with any other type of heat. Public funds should just support new appliances that are guaranteed to significantly reduce emissions of harmful fine particulates.
Thankfully, CVRD is only topping up the rebates for non-wood stove appliances. But they do have the ability to stop providing rebates for new stoves altogether.
https://www.comoxvalleyrd.ca/services/environment/air-quality/wood-stove-exchange-program.