KEYSER - Pond Meadow subdivision resident Jody Leatherman stood beside his Central Boiler brand outdoor wood burner on a recent sunny fall afternoon, watching little puffs of white smoke rising from the smokestack.

"I don't see how there's that much pollution," he said, looking up in the sky. "I heat my garage, office, house and two water tanks with this. It would take at least four indoor wood stoves to do the same thing."

Leatherman, who installed his current outdoor furnace approximately two years ago, has been in a battle with his neighbor, Sharon Nicol, over the amount of smoke that she says pours from his boiler and rolls over onto her property.

"I was unable to work in my own yard because I was coughing and choking on the thick smoke blowing onto my property," Nicol said recently, noting that the emissions from the boiler leaves a fine mist on her patio furniture, the surface of her pool and her patio doors.

"We breath these fine particles of pollution and they lodge deep in our lungs," she said, adding that breathing such pollution can "trigger asthma attacks, heart and lung disease and cancer."

Leatherman maintains, however, that the outdoor boilers are environmentally friendly because they only burn wood or fuel oil.

He and his wife also take exception to the accusation that they've been burning household garbage in the furnace.

"There's never been one piece of garbage put into that wood stove," Chris Leatherman said. "It voids your warranty. If you even put one single piece of plastic in there and burn it, they can tell."

"It ruins your stove," Jody added. "I didn't pay $14,000 to burn garbage in it."

And while he admits the boiler does emit some smoke, and that "it goes wherever the wind blows it," Leatherman said the benefits of the heater far outweigh what he calls a minimal amount of smoke.

"We save $800-$1,000 a year just heating water," he said. "If I heated all this with fuel oil, that would be a lot of money.

"This is one of the best stoves I've ever seen."Leatherman also said he does not understand why there were no complaints about the previous property owner's furnace, which was located behind the house and up against the hillside.

The current boiler, a larger model, is located next to the property line separating the neighbors.

According to Richard Poling with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Air Quality, the location of the Leathermans' boiler is part of the problem.

"It's in a bad location," he said, noting that he has been out to the Leathermans' property on two different occasions to inspect the boiler.

On one occasion, according to Chris Leatherman, the furnace was emitting so little smoke that "he had to ask me if it was burning."

On the second occasion, Poling visited while the Leathermans were on vacation and left them a note informing them they were in violation of a nuisance code, and they must not fire up the furnace between May 1 and Oct. 1.

Leatherman said although the furnace is used to heat their water, the family uses other sources of energy to operate the hot water heaters during the summer months.

"We only use it in the winter. How can it bother her when she's not outside?" he said of Nicol.

He does, however, plan to extend the smokestack height in an attempt to help keep the smoke from bothering Nicol.

"We'll do whatever we can do," Leatherman said. "But this is one of the best things I've ever had to heat the house."

Liz Beavers can be reached at lbeavers@times-news.com.