MILLINOCKET – Carlene George-Adams wants to be a good neighbor. She says she likes John McLaughlin and has good relations with his family. She sympathizes with his need to save money by running his outdoor wood-fired boiler to heat his home and is the first to say that its smoke is only intermittently heavy or bothersome.

That’s why, she says, she tolerated the wood boiler’s emissions since he installed it last August, and never complained to town officials when McLaughlin successfully sought an extension of the town’s wood-fired boiler ordinance operations deadline from April 15 to May 1.

But when George-Adams got up for work and saw heavy smoke billowing from McLaughlin’s chimney early Thursday, she just couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

Her complaint to former town councilor and fellow Katahdin Friends Inc. worker Gail Fanjoy resulted in McLaughlin becoming the town’s first resident to be served with a notice of violation of the ordinance, town Code Enforcement Officer Mike Noble said.

“If that thing had been shut off May 1, I would never have made the phone call,” George-Adams said Thursday of the message she left with Noble per Fanjoy’s advice. “I would have just went by what the town ordinance was.

“After eight months I need a little relief from the smoke. It gets really bad sometimes,” George-Adams said.

The McLaughlins have until 9 a.m. today to shut down the boiler or they could face fines or other court action, Noble said. He declined further comment.

Tammy McLaughlin expressed regret at the boiler’s smoke causing anyone discomfort and promised that it would be shut down by 9 a.m.

“We did have all intentions to have it shut down by May 1,” McLaughlin said. “You don’t just flick a switch to shut off these boilers.”

Her boiler, she said, has to be shut down in phases, a process she is unfamiliar with and didn’t want to attempt with her husband working out of state until Thursday night.

The boiler’s manufacturer will guide them through the shutdown process when her husband returns, she said.

“We’re not doing this [running the boiler] to be defiant,” McLaughlin said.

Under the ordinance, which went into effect Nov. 26, all outdoor wood-fired boilers can operate from Oct. 15 to April 15, must be at least 50 feet from a neighboring home, be rated to burn no more than 27.4 grams of particulate matter per 100,000 Btu per hour, and be at least 24 inches above the roof line of the closest neighboring home.

Town Councilor Scott Gonya proposed the ban in August, saying several Penobscot Avenue residents live near a resident whose boiler emits so much smoke that the odor has infiltrated their homes and exacerbated asthma, colds, coughs and other forms of respiratory distress.

Lincoln and East Millinocket are among the municipalities statewide that are considering or have enacted ordinances banning or limiting the use of boilers.

The council voted 5-0 on April 12 to grant a temporary waiver to McLaughlin and all other residents who use outdoor wood-fired boilers, citing sympathy for McLaughlin’s situation – the boiler is his home’s primary source of heat – and noting the month’s mid-30-degree weather and snowfalls.

Fanjoy sent an e-mail to Town Manager Eugene Conlogue, Noble and the rest of the council, except for Councilor Jimmy Busque, on Thursday that included time-stamped photographs of the heavy smoke. Conlogue sent his response, saying that Noble was issuing the notice, later Thursday morning.

McLaughlin said she regrets buying the boiler.

“If I had known it was going to cause such problems, I would have never gotten it,” she said.