Heating with Wood

[JimGagnepain]

We bought a Woodstock soapstone stove, with a catalytic converter. Once it gets up to temperature, the damper is routed through the catalytic converter. You cannot even detect the smoke coming out of the smoke-stack. However, until the temperature gets high enough, you can visibly see, and smell the smoke. It usually takes about 30-40 minutes to get up to the necessary 400 deg F.

[Fabman]

But I welded on electrical power plants for probably 25 years on and off during my carrier and one think that I welded on when I first got started on power plants was what was called a precipitater. It was a large building that was about 300 feet high and about 150 foot square and it had 40 foot x 240 foot electro-lite panels hanging straight down, three wide in it.
These panels had electricity flowing through them with a positive charge on every other one and a negative charge an the others.
What they done was to create static electricity in the panels which was sort of like the older model TV screens and they would attract particles from the smoke until the hopper got full of what is called fly-ash.
You wouldn't believe the difference in the air coming out the smoke stacks when they are turned on and I say the air, because when they are off when they are dumping the hoppers, there is black smoke that pours out but when they are finished and turn the unit back on you can barely see the cloud white smoke that comes out and that disappears a few hundred feet down wind.
But I just got a boiler on-line that took me over a year to build, and while she is surly heating the house and shop like a champ, the smoke is pretty bad when ever I shut it down when the water get up to 180 degrees and I have decided to attempt to build me a lot smaller precipitater and use the electricity that runs the pump and blower to electrify it. I am a bit scared that the city might have something to say about this, however there are two houses close by that has wood stoves inside that puts out plenty of smoke. I am just a bit worried because this is a boiler.
Anyway, It is just an idea right now.
Dennis