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It feels like it’s only a matter of time before they get banned?
As someone living in properly rural and cold parts who heats his house with copious amounts of wood, topped up with as little LPG as we can get away with I'm closing my eyes and putting my fingers in my ears. La la la can't hear you.
It's the primeval attraction to 🔥nobody can resist.For goodness sake some people even have open fires.
It must depend on the stove and the fuel though?
We’ve got two: one is a designer job and fills the room with smoke when you open the door if you’re not careful and is thoroughly temperamental, while the other one is more agricultural and doesn’t let smoke out at all ever and burns really hot. And I’m anal about using properly dry hardwoods.
Even the temperamental one is Swedish and they burn wood like crazy and are among the world’s top planet savers🤷♂️
Here we go again.
No its the primeval desire to spend very little on heating. I can't remember exactly but must be coming up a year, maybe more, since I used anything other than scrounged wood to heat mine, so under £50 a year.
I'd also like to see a detailed an unbiased study, I'd like to know how polluting a well run, modern stove, burning dry wood is. So many articles sem to refer to wet wood and so on, we know that's bad, how bad is a good stove on good fuel though?
They pollute inside the house too. It's amazing how many houses have them now, I used to want one but it's not cool any more 😉
I used to want one but it’s not cool any more
Of course it's not cool. It's a stove.
😐
And bacon, that too shortens your life.
This has been discussed quite a bit recently in the press and I’ve heard a lot of lobbying from one group in particular about this. With the phasing out of coal the popularity of wood burning is only going to increase. If I was an influential person with the ear of politicians it would be great if I could start a certification scheme, get it written into legislation and then have it law that my logo had to be on every bag of firewood sold in the UK. That would be I tidy little earner.
Funny enough a scheme of that nature has already been set up, you can be sure the woodsure scheme will be law before too long and the people behind it will do very well out of it.
it comes in to law in May i thought.
It's a well known fact that they emit particulates which are an issue in built up areas. In rural parts, not so much.
A lot like diesel vehicles actually.
Obviously how you run your stove and what you fuel it with is going to determine how polluting it is (like diesel again).
Is it polluting? Undoubtedly, yes. Does that make it unsustainable or dangerous? Well, that depends on if everyone is using one or not.
Doctors aren't wrong here however the argument is a lot more nuanced than a simple "particulates are bad so stop" statement.
What's the alternative people are being pushed to? If it's gas that makes little sense in the long term. It still pollutes and, as a resource, has a limit.
Instead, enabling electric based heating as a viable alternative seems more sensible. We want to avoid a situation similar to when they told everyone to buy Diesel cars. Also electric heating is essentially multifuel, i.e. electricity can be made in many different ways...and even if you're burning fossil fuel to make it, you only need to put controls the pollution in one place, rather than multiple places (i.e. boliers/fires in people's homes).
And bacon, that too shortens your life.
The research on that is inadequate. It's only been demonstrated to p<.01. If we all contribute, we could probably gather enough data to improve that to p<.009.
Not everyone has mainline gas. WE're only 6 miles from major towns, but we don't have mainline gas in our village at all.
We currently use electricity for our rather expensive warmth over winter.
So two things.
Study of it Vs oil. Because I'll only be burning more oil without my stove .... The main gas pipeline to grangemouth is ironically stopping me being on mains gas.
And two...when the flow of air is out the room and up the chimney by design - -hence why you need a vented room. How is this pollution entering the room unless you really can't operate a stove ?
But I agree why would you need one if you were on town gas
I now live in a part of the country where there is no mains gas for miles around.
We moved here 2 years ago and just about every new house we looked at had a wood burner as part of the spec. Definitely a life style selling point than a necessity.
What I was also surprised at is how poorly insulated new build homes still are.
We are on oil but considering getting a log burner as wood around here is plentiful, good quality and cheap.
Ground heat pump things are a no go as it’s straight into bed rock.
If I had the money I would build a properly insulated home with a windmill in the neighbours garden 😁
We want to avoid a situation similar to when they told everyone to buy Diesel cars.
my home is heated by a district heating system that burns a mix wood and government subsidy. The subsidy encourages the wood to be burnt as copiously and inefficiently as possible.
Having moved to a new house and wanting to install a woodburner for occasional weekend use, this puts a spanner in the works.
Looking at alternatives, has anyone used a bioethanol fire?
Looking at alternatives, has anyone used a bioethanol fire?
No, but we did install a balanced flue gas stove that looks similar to a wood burner.
I was very much in the pro camp. In our last house, a multifuel stove which was run 99% on self sourced and processed wood provided most of our heating and hot water.
I guess the internal particulates shouldn't be a surprise when you notice how much dirt there is generally in a room that has a stove.
has anyone used a bioethanol fire?
A friend recently posted photos of the injuries her daughter received from Bioethanol- honestly horrific although its reckoned in time she should make a full recovery. You would't look at the injuries and think 'this person is going to be ok'. A problem with ethanol is it can burn with a near invisible flame meaning you can inadvertently add liquid fuel to something you are unaware is already lit. I wouldn't chose petrol as a fuel for an indoor fire.
We use them in film for continuity when you have a fireplace in shot - (hide a bioethanol burner amongst fake logs so the size and shape of the fire doesn't change over days for filming) part of the attraction in that context is they don't put out much heat.
I guess the internal particulates shouldn’t be a surprise when you notice how much dirt there is generally in a room that has a stove.
We are 5m3 worth of wood (and shock - well seasoned soft wood too in the most part) burnt so far this autumn/winter. I can't say there is any noticeable dirt build up in the room or anything obvious when dusting (I wield both a splitting axe and a duster, get me)
Not saying there is not an internal pollution issue but large particles/dust is not a problem for us.
We had an open fire in our house. I was looking to replace with a log burner, but in the end just removed the fire and external chimney. Must admit that the house is a lot less dusty than it was. Ironically it’s also warner (and quieter) as the vent on the living room wall blew really cold air and external noise in to the room. If I had the cash I’d take the whole internal chimney breast out as it’s huge.
I think log burners are great where no viable alternative exists, not so much in built up areas. Quite a few around here and judging by the colour of the smoke coming out of some chimneys they aren’t being run efficiently.
I think its good to raise awareness to issues and help people make good choices, but i find articles like those in the Guardian are terribly sensationalist and unhelpful.
Yes stoves pollute, but even the government consultation paper before banning coal and the sale of wet wood had no figures for modern stoves, run on dry wood and properly operated.
Yes stoves polute inside the house a little, if you've never had the occasional faint smell of smoke on opening the door to load a log I'm surprised. Operate the stove well to minimise this. IIRC particulates go in a bathtub during a 'burn', high during the initial 'get the new fuel load up to temp' then dropping slowly as the resins burn off, hitting a low when its a hot bed of charcoal burning mostly (the blue flames you see then are CO, burning to CO2, and there is no smoke/particulate hardly), before I think rising a bit as the coals cool before extinguishing. So reload once bright flames have gone but while you have a hot bed of coals and you'll minimise smoke into the house and also get the new fuel load hot and clean burning fast. Also before opening the door, open the vents, then crack to door open a cm and hold for a few secs, then open slowly so you don't draw smoke out the stove. reload carefully but hopefully without reaching in too far (a gloved hand coming back out the stove will draw a little smoke out). I'd like to know if this is how the stove in the tests was operated or not.
On top of that, everything in the house can add to internal pollution, cleaning chemicals, off gassing from plastics and even wood, these lead to measurable amounts of some unpleasant chemicals such as formaldehyde. In a properly ventilated house this isn't a problem for most of us. Similarly dampness, unless a house is properly ventilated. I'd like to see the particulates issue 'sized' for an average house and person, against these other issues, to get an idea of how bad it is. Then i'd like to see the effect of the stove on those other pollutants measured, the stove pulls huge amounts of fresh air in as it exhausts the gases up the flue. It definitely pulls moisture levels way down, it likely pulls other pollutants way down too. So I'd like to see the overall affect of the stove in a normal house for a 'susceptible' person.
Then, until we have a 100% renewable and 'clean' electricity at an affordable price to power home heating, we must accept what ever we do has consequences and balance sustainable/low carbon impact but polluting wood against cleaner but unsustainable high carbon release fossil fuels. Balancing that is not easy, I think we need to be informed much better and make our own decisions.
Campaigners and health experts are calling on people who have alternative heating not to use their wood burning stoves this winter amid growing concern about their impact on public health.
The key words are "who have alternative heating".
So all you life-style stove owners, just use your central heating - it'll be cheaper & more efficient.
And while we're at it, remember that you folk with mains gas get your electricity 5% cheaper than us without can get it.
Life style? Need?
Camper vans
2nd cars
3rd cars
Hot hatches
4WDs
Motor bikes
Spare rooms
Hot tubs
Mancaves
Dogs
Motorbikes
Plastic grass
Block paving
Multiple bikes
Just a few things off the top of my head that are lifestyle choices yet have a huge effect on our environment, either in terms of manufacturing, emissions, or both.
I've said before, I'll happily get rid of my stove if we go that way, but there's a shit load of other stuff to go after too.
And for all you saying that it's your only choice, unless you still live with yer maw, you chose to live there. 😂
Dogs
Don’t you mean trail dogs ?
my home is heated by a district heating system that burns a mix wood and government subsidy. The subsidy encourages the wood to be burnt as copiously and inefficiently as possible.
That's not true: the RHI rate is paid per kWh generated up to a specified limit, at which point it drops to a lower rate. If you burn inefficiently all you're doing is racking up your fuel supply costs.
I've read rhi can encourage strange behaviours. I've read of producers of kiln dried wood earning more from the rhi gained on the wood heating the kiln, than selling the product.
In Sweden and my mate installs wood burning stoves and he showed me that I had been setting the fire wrong. You want the fire to burn at maximum heat to get the most efficiency. To do this you pile the big logs at the bottom and light it at the top then let it burn all the way down and start again. Prior to doing this I was getting loads of smoke and blackened glass. After it burns really cleanly
That’s not true: the RHI rate is paid per kWh generated up to a specified limit, at which point it drops to a lower rate. If you burn inefficiently all you’re doing is racking up your fuel supply costs
depends on whether your fuel costs you anything
If you get one of those temperature gauges for the flue they have an optimal range marked on them and it's pretty hot but not as hot as you can get - no idea how accurate a guide that is.
Chopped down a load of trees last year so got masses of firewood to get through so not giving ours up anytime soon. Got two wood burners, one on the patio for novelty value. Never noticed any additional dirt or dust in the room, can see this might be the case with an open fire, but how does it happen with a wood burner with doors shut?
Camper vans
2nd cars
3rd cars
Hot hatches
4WDs
Motor bikes
Spare rooms
Hot tubs
Mancaves
Dogs
Motorbikes
Plastic grass
Block paving
Multiple bikes
I don’t have any of the above so maybe I should reconsider getting a stove 🧐
Edit - Shit! I’ve got block paving but it came with the house and I don’t look after it because I hate it.
And for all you saying that it’s your only choice, unless you still live with yer maw, you chose to live there. 😂
Bit of a shit argument, should we just pull everyone out of the countryside and into towns then? There are other choices but oil and LPG aren't exactly cheap or sustainable.
As for the rest, it's not an all or nothing proposition.
And for all you saying that it’s your only choice, unless you still live with yer maw, you chose to live there. 😂
Not sure me deciding not to live here will bring gas to the house for next owner.,.which due to the housing situation in this cpuntry- there will be a next owner
open a window.
bloody snowflakes.
NEXT
The only time I get any blowback from mine is starting it on a really cold windless night before the flue warms up.
it’s pretty small though(yeoman CL3) so we can run it hot without overheating the ground floor. Loads of people I know have stoves way too big for the room and run them clamped down all the time. Only downside is you can’t fit big logs in it, but got a friendly tree surgeon now who delivers good wood cut to the right size.
depends on whether your fuel costs you anything
For district heating? Doesn't seem very likely.
you pile the big logs at the bottom and light it at the top then let it burn all the way down and start again
Interesting, I’ll give it a go. I’ve always intuitively done smaller to bigger going upwards to bring the fire up to hot quickly.
Some people seem to just have one oversized damp log barely smouldering and putting out all smoke and no heat, and I imagine that is where most of the pollution comes from.
depends on whether your fuel costs you anything
For district heating? Doesn’t seem very likely.
Why do you suppose that?
For those saying I don't see any dust in the room where my stove is, just remember that PM2.5 particles are not visible to the naked eye.
PM2.5 Basics
When scientists, doctors, politicians, and environmentalists talk about particle pollution, they’re usually talking about PM2.5 (particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 microns). This super-fine, largely invisible pollutant is more than 30 times smaller than a single stand of human hair.Due to its microscopic size, PM2.5 is easily inhaled and has the potential to travel deep into our respiratory tracts. Once there, it can cause chronic irritation, trigger allergies and asthma, and increase our risk of developing serious infections and disease such as COPD. More recent studies have also linked high particulate pollution levels to fertility complications and reduced life expectancy rates.
Indeed but as I asked earlier. Where they coming from .
The stove net sucks air inwards...... So is it just sucking all the PM2 in from the rest of your house or is it sucking the PM2 in from outside ?
From another article linked to in the original article
Wood burners triple the level of harmful pollution particles inside homes and should be sold with a health warning, says scientists, who also advise that they should not be used around elderly people or children.
The tiny particles flood into the room when the burner doors are opened for refuelling, a study found. Furthermore, people who load in wood twice or more in an evening are exposed to pollution spikes two to four times higher than those who refuel once or not at all.
The stove is the source of the PM2.5 particles.
The thing is, from what I understand from diesel cars and particulate filters, hotter burning of fuel means less "smoke" because smaller particles are produced. These smaller particles (like PM2.5) are actually as bad, if not more harmful to health than larger "smoke" particles. Therefore the whole 'buy euro 6 diesels' was a sham. For wood burning, the 'Ready to Burn' scheme feels very similar in terms of reducing "smoke" output. The stoves are still going to be harmful to health, both of those using them and others outdoors and nearby.