Why does everyone install wood burners knowing how terrible they are for the environment?

[Don'tcallthepolice]

Just this

Old house in the middle of a forest that needs management so trees cut down all the time. Throws out tonnes of heat so don’t need to use LPG central heating. Trees grow pretty fast.

I choose not to drive or own a car. I use public transport for everything.

Can I now demand that everyone else thinks about the consequences of their driving a car? Accidents, pollution, noise. They're soooooo selfish and I reckon it should be banned. No need to drive at all. Just use zoom and the phone to speak to people and work from home - or use public transport.

Does that sound reasonable? If not, then get off your high horse.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow that sounds about right, particularly when there are perfectly good choices (again, this is more the case in urban areas). Why shouldn't people think about the consequences of using a car? Life would be a lot better if more people DID think twice about this!

@Patineur for a long time coal power stations and transport were the great big baddies when it came to air pollution. There have been unbelievable strides in changing both of these in the last 7 or so years. Not so for planes, and if you live near Heathrow, then you are right things are still deeply grim. But in most other urban areas the pattern is changing, and wood burning is now a major source of particulate pollution. And the point is - in a place like London, it is 100% unnecessary!

@CatherinedeBourgh true, that. Probably. (Though actually clean stove innovation in Global South has been completely transformative of health, esp for women). But yr point is also classic whataboutery. Act on both?!

www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/27/worst-london-air-pollution-in-six-years-as-home-fires-burn

In these areas, people who burn solid fuel have to use a certified appliance or burn smokeless fuel. In an SCA, burning wood on an open fire is illegal.

Heyden’s research included freedom of information requests to local councils and interviews with council staff. A sample of 30 councils revealed 2,524 complaints about chimney smoke between 2014 and 2020. Despite this volume of complaints, only two councils had taken court action, a total of four cases over six years.

Breaking news

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64261624

My theory:
The wood is a renewable source
Some people they can get it cheap or free.
It feels natural.
Don't trust the energy infrastructure of the country and want a back up source of heat
Like the aesthetic

Im coming back to this thread to update on a little experiment Ive been doing

We bought ourselves an air quality monitor. I was quite prepared to do a u turn on my view that our indoor pollution was not being compromised by the wood burner if thats what was happening

We've had this for just over a week now. We have been using the burner, probably more than normal as Im wanting to test the pattern of the readings

It measures PM2.5 and CO and VOC (and temp and humidity)

Using the fire, opening the door for refills etc, has negible effects on the PM readings, it hasnt gone above 4 in this time, there are no spikes as such and I think thats because when the fire door is opened,, not only do we throw a log in quickly but because it has such good draw, there isnt anything billowing out through the door, the air is going up the chimney.

What has been interesting is that when cooking, moreso on the hob (we have a gas hob) the increase in CO is noticed although not to a dangerous or unhealthy level. It seems our cooking is having more of an effect on us than the burner although it never gets into the amber readings. The air quality in our house has been consistently between 97% and 99% = good.

Ive positioned the meter next to where I sit but closer to the burner than I am so that it gets hit before I do in case there was anything wrong.

I cant speak for anyone elses house but Im much reassured by what Ive found out and am going to ignore people pronouncing on this without their having done the same experiments for their own houses

I would suggest anyone worried about whats going on in terms of their air quality indoors to get one. Either because it will reassure you or you can find out waht might be setting off poor air quality and do someething about it. Obviously not all burners are the same, the results might differ for an open fire.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/02/calls-grow-for-urgent-review-of-damage-done-by-wood-burning-stoves

airqualitynews.com/2019/07/05/exposure-to-pm2-5-greater-cooking-an-omelette-than-london-roadside-study-claims/

It also makes a good point about other sources of bad indoor air quality. Formaldehyde from MDF and other household things is a big one.

Same here. And the biggest reading I've had on my air quality monitor is when I bought a secondhand chair that had been sprayed with something like Febreze. It took days to go down.

Same for us re air quality. I brought a monitor home from work and was amazed and reassured at how low the readings are.

We don’t live in a smoke control zone and have a modern, approved wood burner so we can happily continue to use it daily. We’ve just received an enormous delivery of kiln dried wood 😊

We have no gas and use ours daily to avoid using too much oil. However 12 days of no electric last winter longest period 5 days make it a necessity I won’t give up.

@ancienthouse similar experience here. My wood burner doesn’t register, and the worst offender was a Jo Malone reed diffuser that someone gave me as a gift. Gave me an asthma attack too.

We got defuser gel on a painted shelf, it melted the water based paint. Steer well clear.

@bellac11 Where did you get your air quality monitor from and how much did it cost?

It connects to Alexa/amazon, I dont know how much OH paid for it because he gets special offers on amazon. There were others but I thought that would be better because he has an account already

Its been very interesting to see the reality.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64261624 Log burner rule changes and £300 fines

It's pretty irrational for the government to impose further restrictions on wood burners whilst leaving fire pits, garden chimineas, barbecues and bonfires untouched. Not only do they cause an awful lot of pollution but portable barbecues in themselves have been instrumental in causing forest fires which produce more pollution in a day than every woodburner in the country combined does in a year.

Bonfires etc.. are civered by statutory nuisance regulations.

I would totally support greater regulation of outdoor fires though, both from a pollution and safety point of view.

Arsenic particles found in London air, likely from people burning waste wood:

www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/09/arsenic-london-air-burning-waste-wood

From the first paragraph it’s most likely it’s waste building site wood - which could be from site fires or wood burners or commercial incinerators. These sources need to be filtered out of data used in scientific research papers, when studying effects of wood burners - it just sullies the results.

i agree, the smell is suffocating.
i like the smell of burning coal but agree that the smell around the houses nowadays is not good, and it makes me cough.

Indeed. But there is a suggestion at least some of it is people burning this kind of wood in their domestic log burners.

Which they shouldn’t. Even the manufacturers state that on their instructions for use leaflets. I should have made it clearer - this type of fuel and where and what it is burnt in, should be separated out from wood burners burning the correct fuel when emissions data is being collected.