Log burners

[vinoandbrie]

I am thinking of getting a log burner put in, but am keen to understand potential costs and issues.

I understand and have looked up the cost of buying the log burner itself, but am wondering about preparation and installation costs. Any advice welcome.

We have a chimney, I don’t know if it’s been blocked up - would a first step be to get in a chimney sweep / chimney expert (what are they called?!) to take a look and see what, if anything, we’d need to get done to make sure the chimney is as it should be to have a log burner installed?

Finally, we live in a conservation area. How do I check that we’re not violating any regulations by getting a log burner installed?

Thank you in advance for any pointers.

Hi, you may like to look into the health risks of wood smoke first. Wood smoke is toxic and seeps back into the house and neighbours houses. We have stopped using ours now I know. It is like having diesel engines running in front room.

See www.faniliesforcleanair.org for more info.

Good luck. Hazel

How much mess does it entail? Our landlady is talking about putting one in here, we have a chimney and fireplace but how bad is it having one put in?

MN screams for them to be banned

Has that happened?

The screaming or the banning...or is it one poster

Half our village have woodburners, but the real problem is they buy seacoal from beachcombers and burn it illegally. One lungful of that stuff turns me inside out.

I love mine! Just lit it, bloody lovely. Cant do without it.

Its a must!

I have a wood allergy and woodsmoke from stoves has been a life changer. In winter, I don't go out and have had to buy an air purifier for the house just so I can breathe properly. Apparently 70% of outdoor smoke can penetrate even a well insulated house. They give out PM2.5 particles which enter the bloodstream and damage organs in the body. Causing stunted lung growth in children. The smell from burning wood is benzene, which is cancerous. From my point of view, it's madness to have one in your house, and unfair to your neighbours.

allergic to wood? That must make life incredibly difficult for you.

A fair number in this village burn any old tat which greatly increases the pollution. I don't - untreated well-seasoned bone dry wood only. Log burner means I burn less oil which also produces carcinogens. Sorry if you have neighbours like mine, perhaps try and educate them? A correctly used logburner should produce almost no smoke and no smell, inside or outside.

it's not 'madness' to have it in the house. You have a male username, don't be an MN screamer. And I can see the source you used for your post, it's not totally wrong but the science is skewed.

Off the back of this thread I have been outside to have a look at my chimney whilst my woodburner has been on, as I'm all paranoid now!

When the fire was lit and heating up it was creating smoke out of the chimney which is expected, but then that diminished to absolutely nothing (the only sign being heat haze) once the fire was properly going. We burn untreated palettes mostly, but don't do anything special particularly. We also have a thermometer on it to check it's burning hot enough once it's going, but that's it really.

What are people doing in their woodburner that they are apparently creating all this acrid smoke?!!!

Also, are people really attributing an increase in respiratory problems to log burners? Considering that back in the day everyone had an open fire in their homes?

Mumsnet is funny sometimes

A correctly used logburner should produce almost no smoke and no smell, inside or outside.

No, ours doesn't smell at all, apart from sometimes a bit when lighting obviously.

We've just had one supplied and fitted . Old gas fire removed, chimney swept etc etc.

All in cost £2500

It is not necessarily what you can see or smell which triggers health and environmental issues.

I dont think they should be banned or anything daft but the one my mil had installed made Dd very ill. We thought it might be that as the problem started after they had it fitted but weren’t sure, then sil who lives close by got one too a d Dd started being ill there as well.
We can avoid houses with them or ask for them it to be lit and she’s not affected by the one our neighbours have but if you have a child with asthma it’s really not a good idea to have one yourself

Those that say woo or oil is the only option rurally, what about LPG? Currently cheaper per unit that oil and with a higher calorific value. For rural areas this is likely to be the fuel pushed until hydrogen becomes commonplace.

don't be an MN screamer

No one is screaming

For rural areas this is likely to be the fuel pushed until hydrogen becomes commonplace.

That will only happen once an economical and clean method of producing it in huge quantities is developed.

Ours doesn't smell. Dd2 has asthma and often sits by it with no issues.

Thing is, Wood is generally free. We’d have to have LPG installed and everything converted. We use LPG on our boat but it’s nowhere near as efficient for cooking as other fuels and lacks the cosines of a flame. We have a small wood burner on the boat too; lovely on a cold wet evening. Again, Wood is local or foraged.

Yes our wood is free.

Thing is, Wood is generally free

If you want to heat a house, this a bit of a myth. Trees don't cost us anything but it takes a fair bit of time and effort to convert them to logs, not to mention the investment in equipment and PPE.

Not a myth here at all. Kindling on dog walks. Landowners happy to share fallen or felled trees. Lots of locals have chain saws.It does take effort but we all muck in.

Also, are people really attributing an increase in respiratory problems to log burners? Considering that back in the day everyone had an open fire in their homes?

From the govt’s clean air strategy:
^This increase in burning solid fuels in
our homes is having an impact on our air quality and now makes up the single largest contributor to our national PM emissions at 38%. This compares with industrial combustion (16%) and road transport (12%). What people burn and the appliance they use will have a significant impact on emissions. A recent report by King’s College London, measuring local concentrations, found that wood burning accounts for up to 31% of the urban derived PM2.5 in London.^

As for open fires in homes - most people are aware of the Clean Air Act in the 1950s, and the reasons for it. It’s estimated that around 12,000 people died from various causes as a result of the 1952 Great Smog alone.

And back in the day the population was a fair bit lower overall.

And for clarity on why PM2.5 is a particular issue:

Health Effects of PM: Inhalation of particulate pollution can have adverse health impacts, and there is understood to be no safe threshold below which no adverse effects would be anticipated [1]. The biggest impact of particulate air pollution on public health is understood to be from long-term exposure to PM2.5, which increases the age-specific mortality risk, particularly from cardiovascular causes. Several plausible mechanisms for this effect on mortality have been proposed, although it is not yet clear which is the most important. Exposure to high concentrations of PM (e.g. during short-term pollution episodes) can also exacerbate lung and heart conditions, significantly affecting quality of life, and increase deaths and hospital admissions. Children, the elderly and those with predisposed respiratory and cardiovascular disease, are known to be more susceptible to the health impacts from air pollution [2]. Potential mechanisms by which air pollution could cause cardiovascular effects are described in the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution (COMEAP) report “Cardiovascular Disease and Air Pollution” (2006) (PDF, 1.75MB, 215 pages).

Doing a bit of research before ridiculing others can make one look much less silly.

Yes, domestic burning is an issue, particularly in built up areas. Yes, it is well evidenced. Yes, it causes health issues, and always has.

Also yes: there are ways of reducing the impact (dry, seasoned fuels rather than random kindling picked up and bunged into the fireplace, chimney swept regularly) and there are rural places where it is one of the better available options.

Ever read the headline " Tragedy as man killed by wood smoke". No? Neither have I

Ever read the headlines about how many people die from heart and respiratory diseases?

If you want to heat a house, this a bit of a myth. Trees don't cost us anything but it takes a fair bit of time and effort to convert them to logs, not to mention the investment in equipment and PPE.

It's really not a myth. In the UK it might be a struggle perhaps, but where I live it's completely normal for people to heat their house using fallen trees they've cut themselves and seasoned. We last bought kiln-dried wood over 10 years ago - we've cut all of our own since then.

We last bought wood in the 1990s! We cut all our own wood too... and process it into seasoned logs.

That's how I know "free" wood is a myth. It's only really free if somebody else does that and stacks it in your wood store without charging you a penny.