A fabrication company in State Line is making a new stove that can burn more efficiently and meet strict Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines, and it just might be able to beat out international competitors in a wood stove design challenge in Washington D.C. this fall.
The Optimum stove, made by 509 Fabrication right on the Idaho border, was invented by a friend of the company’s owners in Hayden, Idaho, several years ago.
“It’s more like a wood stove than a pellet stove, but it still burns biofuel,” says Dusty Henderson, who owns 509 Fab with his father Gary. “Frank Reed built and designed the first model. He had it in his shop. He kind of did it on a dare that somebody told him you couldn’t burn one piece of wood at a time.”
