To say don't use a wood burner if you have children in the house?

There is absolute scientific consensus that wood burning is bad for your health, and has been for years.

This is exactly the set up of my friend with stage 4 lung cancer. Much higher risk than occasionally sticking the fire on for an afternoon. And not picked up until routine screening in their early seventies, so feeling fine is not really any guarantee that there is no issue.

We were sent this by our council -
https://www.cleanairhub.org.uk/clean-air-night

Well we’d have no hot water with out our wood fuelled Rayburn , we run it 24/7 in the kitchen almost all year round and have a large wood burner in the living room also on 24/7 in winter. I grew up like this ( in the same house) so did hubby our 3 children and ourselves seem quite fine! Bit of a drama post, out in the country it’s some people’s only heating!

A wood burning stove is a thing of beauty and people love that they can use free wood. I have hankered after one for ever, but am aware of the research and regretfully, wouldn't buy one.

However well designed they are, if you can smell burning wood in the room, that's particulates.

I know someone whose whole house and hot water system is based on a woodburning stove. They have been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer despite never smoking, That's anecdotal, obviously, but the scientific research is not.

People defend them passionately because they are beautiful and seem very natural. But there are definitely real risks to their use.

It is sad that so many families can’t afford to heat their house without harming their children ( and themselves )

I suspect there are as many as won’t be caring enough to reduce spending on other things

The UK introduced smokeless zones (now smoke control areas) in cities for a reason. I live in a city and we have pretty good air quality (especially now with electric buses). If you really live in the middle of nowhere then a woodburning stove is forgivable but my DSis lives in a rural town and she says the air quality is shite between diesel vehicles and so many of her neighbours having woodburning stoves, in her area they're not even legally obliged to use the low-smoke types.

uk-air.defra.gov.uk/data/sca/

You can't stop or start doing something every time a study is published. You need scientific consensus.

I adore my wood burner. Your post has just made me excited to go home and light it later this afternoon after a drizzly grey day!

It's actually bad for your health in surprisingly small amounts.

Fire has been the main source of human heating and cooking for several thousand years. If it was that bad we'd all have perished long ago.

I'm not saying it's good for us, but we all have to die of something and I'd rather live a life that's warm and dry.

For us, a fire isn't "just because it's cosy" - it's one of our principal sources of heat and is very affordable for us. We also have oil, but that's shockingly expensive.

@MojoMoon the whole world is on fire, and poisoned. I’m not being sarcastic. I think getting in a hump about wood burners is barking up the wrong small little twig, if you get my analogy. UK households are full of toxins, most of which do far far more daily harm - fabric softeners, dishwasher tablets, cleaning products, most of our children’s school uniforms have PFAS coatings, let alone the food we eat and expose ourselves to. Once you realise the horror is absolutely unavoidable it is depressing. But relatively and comparatively, there are far worse every day household causes of toxins than wood burners, many of which you will be guilty of and not be aware of.

do you know Anglesey? I know the area, it is very rural and quite deprived in some areas. Most of those houses are likely not to have gas central heating.

That people only have wood burners because it’s ‘middle class’.

Is it ok then, if they go up the chimney and out into the air so your neighbours breathe it instead?

In what way?

They had much worse health outcomes and died younger? Clearly this wasn't the sole source of that, but it's bizarre to claim that the past provides evidence that it must have been just fine!

You’re correct about air fresheners etc. VOCs have been shown to cause serious issues with children especially (including cancer and neurological issues). They’re in all sorts of things which many households use a lot of (paints, cleaning products, new furniture, fabric with fire retardant, flooring, mattresses, clothing etc). Unfortunately we can’t remove all risk from modern life. We have to try to strike a balance.

How did people cope up until at least the latter half of the twentieth century when central heating was uncommon and coal fires were the normal way to heat a room? Paraffin stoves were often an alternative. In addition to this, many adults were smokers so children were exposed to a lot of pollution in the house. I am not saying it was a good thing but I think a bit of perspective is needed here.

What a bizarre take on the subject!

People have other entirely incorrect but deep-held beliefs around air pollution - e.g. that there is less pollution in a car than outside it, and so that cycling must expose you to more pollution than driving. This is absolutely scientifically proven to not be the case, but people just won't believe it because it 'feels' like you must be less exposed in the car.

They should be banned.

We have friends with the most beautiful house, beautiful fire places in their sitting room and kids TV room - lovely roaring fires all the time... wood pilled up in their front door wood store... ticking all the insta boxes.

Kids have asthma and are constantly being shipped to a&e and given steroids and inhalers. duh.

People also don't acknowledge that the smoke goes out and poisons everyone else! Our neighbourhood stinks of woodburners in the winter... but it's fine because they are cosy and really middle class.

If log burners were seen as lower class / chavvy - suddenly we would all be aghast about them!

When the electric heating which is our only other source of warmth becomes cheaper than our properly installed and ventilated woodburner to use (we dont pay for our seasoned logs) then I will happily switch!

I disagree. It’s a very specific grievance and yet the OP seems very invested.

You call it severe, I call it acceptable.

Calling for a ban is over-reaching.

I mean, seriously?