Domestic heating
Action 4.5: Disincentivise the second-hand market for worst polluting stoves and boilers
To implement policies that discourage certain types of stoves and boilers on the second-hand market, legislation on emission limit values for new equipment needs to be in place.
For EU Member States the Ecodesign Directive sets emission limits for new wood burning equipment to be placed on the market. Restrictions on the second-hand market for e.g. equipment that do not meet the same requirements would accelerate phasing out of potentially high-emitting legacy equipment from continued use. Based on these requirements, a national list of preferred wood burning equipment on the second-hand market could be compiled.
To assess whether the specific stove or boiler meets the requirements and is allowed on the secondhand market or not, standardised testing and certificates showing emission performance for each model of equipment would be needed. The Nordic Ecolabelling gives a review of European and other certification schemes’ threshold values that can serve as a reference. The Nordic Ecolabelling certification scheme sets the limit for particulate matter at 15 mg/m3 of flue gas for pellet stoves (Nordic Ecolabelling 2018). There are however some well recognised obstacles to this action – in particular, it would require amendments to existing legislation in many countries and can cause resistance among population. The mere suggestion of the action caused strong public protests in Sweden 2018.
