Wood burner ban...

We only have oil and it is currently 3x the price it was when we last bought it! So we are not buying it and haven't turned the heating on.

We are managing with electric blankets and heaters, hot water bottles and the log burner.

We would be absolutely up a gum tree without our log burner and open fire!

We don't qualify for the fuel bill assistance as a detached house it is a high council tax band (but not remotely fancy, purchased for £350k a few years ago!) and changes to gas billing are irrelevant to those of us not near mains gas!

Whilst I appreciate everyone thinks log burners are awful they are a very valid source of heat!

I can tell you where the smoke ends up. It comes out of the chimney, cools down very quickly and sinks to the ground. The smoke from my neighbour's house very often gathers in the porch outside my front door, since that's the way the wind tends to blow.
Light your woodburner, go outside and walk round your house. You'll almost certainly smell the smoke from your woodburner.

They are essential in some homes.

People in nice warm well insulated houses are clueless about wood burners. Some of us need them to get our houses to a bearable temperature in the winter. If you burn the right stuff there is barely any smoke. If you get your wood from a sustainable source and it means you’re using less fossil fuels because of it then you’re not doing a bad thing. Go and drive your electric cars that have been charged with the electricity we generate by burning coal still! The hypocrisy of it all whilst having zero consideration for people who might not want to sit in a freezing cold house!

Can’t smell anything from our neighbours inside their house or when walking by. I only know it’s lit because you can see it from their chimney.

But they use good wood and store it properly I think they are still on the year before lasts delivery.

How can they ban them? Trot around to everyone’s house with a policy and tell us to take it out? They’re so heavy, the flue would need capping off…. Stop being silly. It’s not getting banned. Nobody will comply…unless they give us free heating?

We live rural and have a solid fuel Rayburn that I cook on & it heats the water so we’d be pretty screwed without it. We have a log burner in the living room 24/7 now , we’ve not had any heating on in the house yet either. It’s just another thing the government are trying to control. My husband also processes & sells timber & logs it’s is his main income at the moment so again we’d be pretty badly off without all of the above!

Can someone explain to me (sorry I don't know the science).... is a fireplace fire (with coal and wood) equally bad as a woodburner, in terms of pollution/health?

And does this mean that open fires outside, like small bonfires and firepit fires are also unhealthy? If so then it seems ironic that 'forest school' activities are seen as the most wholesome things to make our children do!

And what about BBQs?! I hate the smell when DH cranks that up - he seems to use stinky chemical firelighters as well as the coals.

And are you comfortable with causing your neighbours' dementia and their children's cancer and infertility?
Presumably you've already made your peace with the risks you're causing to your own and your children's health.

They're all very unhealthy. A wood fire inside would be more dangerous than a woodburner for the people in the house, but presumably the same as a woodburner for the neighbours.

I do, regularly, and I'm surprised that most of the time all I can see is a heat haze at the top of my chimney. I do it to check that the kiln dried wood I buy is worth the money I pay for it, a clean burn means it has a low moisture content.

I do understand what you are saying though, one of my neighbours burns any old shit in theirs and I can smell it as soon as it's lit. Several of my other neighbours have wood burners or open fires and I can rarely tell when they are going because they use dry wood.

And woodburners are hugely more polluting than cars. Hugely. One woodburner equates to 60 lorries.

Oh do grow up. (She says with a roaring fire on!)

Being concerned by unnecessary and extremely serious pollution is being grown-up. How do you think the NHS is coping? The answer is - badly.

Ok, that makes sense, cos I know fireplace fires can get a bit smokey inside.
I was just wondering whether the fact that fireplace fires use coal as well as wood makes a difference. (Off now to google how burning wood and burning coal compare, and wishing I had listened more in science at school!)

Maybe people are balancing their children's need for heating and financial security?

I genuinely can't fork out the £800 oil would cost us and have gone for £180 for a tipper truck of seasoned logs instead.

I suppose I could work every evening in top of the second job I already do at the weekends to keep us going through the CoL crisis? But it would take me a long time to be able to pay for a tank of oil in one go and the government has done nothing to address support for those of us not on the mains gas.

That said, having smelt the outflow of our oil boiler I cannot imagine it is any good for my neighbours wither and god knows how unethical sourchignthe oil actually is? I find the sanctimonious line hear really hard to understand. I could spout the same about people driving, flying, wearing fast fashion, throwing things away at the tip.....

From the British Medical Journal:

An analysis by the charity Global Action Plan and Hertfordshire County Council estimated that admissions, hospital stays, outpatient care, and prescriptions treating asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), pneumonia, and cardiovascular events linked to domestic burning were costing the NHS £54m a year.[1] The report said that lives would be saved and the costs of treatment cut if there was no such domestic burning.

Pretty much - to reach Norway's population density we'd need to kill 94.8% of the population of the U.K.

I have emphysema so I’m pretty anti wood burners but I think if you live rurally then that’s fine but they should be banned in built up areas as should bonfires and fire pits .

That's not the per hour figure.

It also ignores all the other pollutants produced by lorries.

The NHS is not coping badly because of log burners....

Think sorting smoking out would be far more impactful. Or obesity prevalence. Or physical activity in childhood..

My dad was a coal miner so had cheap coal. - fire was on from early morning till late. - still batting on 7000 steps a day with the dogs - woodburner going in my 70s fit as a butchers dog!

The whole thing is a bit ridiculous. People recycle their loo roll yet go on half a dozen short haul flights a year. Or go halfway around the world. We want other people to reduce their carbon footprint but are unwilling to do anything that might impede our lifestyle. Equally governments are very reluctant to take any meaningful action for fear of upsetting their donors. Or voters come to that. Leader of the Green Party is ridiculed. Combined with the fact that poorer nations are likely to suffer most and you have the perfect storm.

Me too, I think they're banned.

No, that's not hyperbolic at all, no sirree ...