Improve air quality

Last updated: 2026-07-28

Reduce wood smoke in your home

Follow these tips to reduce smoke and improve air quality inside and outside your home.

Preheat your chimney before starting a full fire by using a small kindling fire. This allows for better air circulation and combustion.

To properly season wood, it should be cut, split and stacked in a covered area for 6 to 12 months (including the summer months) before burning.
Never burn green, wet, treated or painted wood, garbage, plastic, cardboard or glossy or bleached paper. This releases toxic emissions inside and outside of your home.

Fire needs oxygen to burn cleanly and efficiently. Avoid overloading your stove or damping it down too much.
Smouldering fires produce more pollutants because the wood is not being combusted completely.

After adding wood, run a hot fire for 10 to 15 minutes. This helps the wood burn better and will produce more heat using less wood.
Reduce the air supply gradually after starting or feeding a fire. Reducing air too quickly can cause the fire smoulder and create excess smoke.
Check the chimney for creosote build-up. A build-up of creosote might mean your fires are not as efficient as they should be. Have your chimney cleaned regularly to prevent a chimney fire.

Install an efficient wood stove

Check that your wood stove meets current standards set by the Canadian Standards Association or the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
EPA approved woodstoves employ some simple technologies that allow smoke to be combusted prior to leaving through the chimney, resulting in:
- a reduction of up to 98 per cent of the pollutants that come from your stove; and
- an increase in efficiency of up to 38 per cent.
Replace your existing woodstove with either a new EPA approved woodstove or a clean burning ULC approved pellet stove and you’ll qualify for a rebate of $300 to $800.

Reduce vehicle idling

More than 10 seconds of idling uses more fuel and produces more carbon dioxide than turning off your engine and restarting it.
Modern vehicles only need 30 seconds of idling at start up. This is true to temperatures as cold as -30°C.
Idling for more than 30 seconds - except on extremely cold days when the oil is really thick - may harm your engine. An idling engine is not operating at its peak temperature. This means the fuel does not undergo complete combustion. This leaves fuel residues that can:
- condense on cylinder walls;
- contaminate oil; and
- damage engine parts.
Idling only warms the engine. It does not warm the wheel bearings, steering, suspension, transmission or tires. The only way to warm these parts is to drive the vehicle.

Temperatures warmer than -30°C: warm the engine for a maximum of 30 seconds. Your engine will be warm enough to drive by the time you scrape your windows.
Temperatures colder than -30°C: warm the engine for a maximum of 3 minutes.
Make sure windows are free from snow and properly defrosted before driving away.
Drive slowly for the first 5 kilometres until the engine is warm.
Avoid using a remote car starter above -10 °C.
Use a block heater, oil pan heater and battery blanket to ensure the fluids in your vehicle are ready to go when you are. Always keep an eye on the engine temperature to make sure it does not overheat.
Install a power saver cord to cycle the power to your block heater only when needed. This will save up to 60 per cent of your vehicle plug-in costs.

Avoid the drive-thru. Save gas and pollute less by going inside for your order.
If you're driving around doing errands, turn off your engine for all stops longer than 10 seconds.