If the property has a wood stove, the sale agreement should include the Form 2.13 Wood Stove Addendum. The Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to create “New Source Performance Standards” for all stationary sources of air pollution, and these standards get updated periodically. The EPA has been certifying residential wood heaters since 1988; and in 1991 Oregon passed laws designed around reducing and preventing air pollution caused by “solid fuel burning devices,” partly by ensuring all of Oregon’s solid fuel burning devices meet the EPA emission standards (or any more stringent standards put into place by the EPA or the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality).
ORS 468A.465 describes “solid fuel burning devices” as devices that burn coal, wood, or other non-gas or nonliquid fuels for aesthetic, heating, or water heating purposes in a private Residential Structure or commercial establishment.” This however, expressly does not include cookstoves, antique stoves (woodstoves built before 1940 with ornate construction and higher than normal value), pellet stoves, masonry heaters or fireplaces, and central wood-fired furnaces. Fireplace inserts can be considered “solid fuel burning devices.”
Under ORS 468A.505, in connection with a residential property sale, the wood stove must be removed and destroyed unless the stove was certified by the EPA under 40 C.F.R. part 60, subpart AAA or by DEQ. Typically, the certification will be a small metal tag attached to the stove; however if your stove has no tag, it may still be certified. EPA and DEQ certifications are done for the designs of the stove, not for individual stoves, so if someone clipped the tag off a certified stove, it is still certified. You can consult the manufacturer about certifications or look for the design on www.epa.gov/burnwise.
If there is no tag or if the manufacturer refuses to respond and you can’t find anything on the EPA’s website; Seller must remove the stove and destroy it before closing. Alternatively, the seller and buyer can agree in writing that it is the buyer’s responsibility, in which case the buyer must remove and destroy it within 30 days after closing DEQ guidance requires that the destruction of the stove has to be so complete that “it cannot be restored or reused as a heating device,” so just unhooking it and throwing the stove into the garage is not sufficient. If you have a professional disposal or scrap dealer work the stove over, you need a disposal receipt to give to DEQ proving that you decommissioned the stove. Noncompliance won’t end the sale transaction, but could invalidate homeowners insurance, delay loans, or result in up to $750 in fines.