Professionals Lead ASTM Proceedings

For immediate release:

Holland, Ohio April 27, 2009 – In the latest teleconference of the ASTM task group for masonry heaters, members of the Alliance of Masonry Heater and Oven Professionals, Inc. (AMHOP) paved the way for the next steps in determining a fueling protocol for masonry heater emissions testing.

Rod Zander, Timothy Seaton, and Ken Matesz, all AMHOP members, attended the meeting. Mr. Zander is AMHOP Vice President and Chairman of the ASTM Task Group, Mr. Seaton is President of AMHOP and Secretary of the task group, and Mr. Matesz is Secretary of AMHOP.

The April 24, 2009 phone meeting was held as specified by the task group at their meeting in Reno, Nevada, as part of the Hearth Patio and Barbecue Association (HPBA) Expo. The agenda had been set to make a final decision about which of three potential firing protocols would be adopted and refined for final balloting.

AMHOP, prior to the Reno meeting had financed the preparation of both a cribwood and a cordwood firing protocol, formatted in ASTM language, by Bob Ferguson of Ferguson, Andors, and Company, a Vermont based laboratory and hearth products consulting firm. His draft cordwood and cribwood documents were two of the three to be considered at the April 24 conference call.

The third document to be considered was a document not yet properly formatted for ASTM use, known principally as Colorado Regulation 4.

The April 24 meeting clarified for much of the group that cordwood, the obvious normal fuel for masonry heaters, is just as likely to yield sound and realistic testing data as tests with cribwood, a test fuel constructed in a lab using dimensional lumber. Rich Curkeet, of Intertek, Inc. expounded in detail on the dearth of evidence that cribwood was in any way superior.

Ken Matesz of Masonry Heater Store, LLC, moved to advance the cordwood test method prepared by Mr. Ferguson. After a second and discussion, Ben Myren of Myren Consulting, Inc., amended the motion to include cribwood testing parameters as an alternate method within the same document. At the vote, all but one of the thirteen attendees agreed that adopting the cordwood protocol with a cribwood alternate specification was the best way to proceed.

Bob Ferguson will be preparing the final document pending payment and scheduling arrangements. The persistence of Alliance of Masonry Heater and Oven Professionals, Inc members in preparing semiballot- ready documents was invaluable in moving the masonry heater testing process forward.

The ASTM task group has agreed to meet again May 8, 2009 by phone conference.