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

[Don'tcallthepolice]

Just this

Loads of studies showing the damage they do. Loads of posters saying they don't agree so they are going to do what they want anyway.
Human race in a nutshell.

There’s an awful lot of about, still!

Also, dismissing evidence if it doesn’t chime with what we like doing.

😂
I've got 2. My house would be freezing without them.

Absolutely!

I don’t want it to be true, so it can’t be.

My neighbours just got one as it’s cheaper to heat the house than central heating and they don’t want to be cold. They refuse, quite rightly, to freeze because gas is so expensive.

Have you reported your neighbour to the council
Sounds like they’re clearly braking the law

Our next door neighbours have a coal open fire which they use.

We dont smell it that often and the smoke certainly doesnt permeate our home and we have our windows open all year long, they never close

I read comments like yours quite a lot and can only assume you are exaggerating for effect, unless you live on a steep slope and their chimney is right next to one of your (open) windows.

Apparently a kWh of heat generated by seasoned logs costs on average 10.4p, how much are you paying per unit for gas?

moneyweek.com/personal-finance/605530/wood-burning-stove-vs-central-heating

They aren't bad for the environment. It is better to heat your home with waste wood than with fossil fuels. We had an old coal fireplace and replaced it with a woodturner over a decade ago. We use it far more than we did the coal fire. We have also just had several ash trees cut down due to ash dieback, so we have enough wood to keep us going for a few years.

Breathing releases carbon dioxide. Does that make human and animal life bad? There is a carbon cycle. We burn the calories as we digest or the wood as we heat our homes. We create carbon dioxide. A sapling uses it to grow into a tree. We then chop down the tree and the same thing happens all over again.

I don't pay for my logs. They are seasoned for 2 years in a shed before I burn them and delivered for free and put into my wood store.

So they cost me nothing.

I buy an odd small bag of coal so that if I want to keep the fire going when I'm out I can do and that costs maybe £60 a year.

We are entirely electric. No gas supply and up a footpath so location unsuitable for oil/calor gas deliveries. We have a log burner for back up heating but only use it when necessary.

Breathing doesn't release particulate matter. Obviously.

Ehm... to keep warm...?

I can't breathe properly when I'm in a house with one on, catches my throat. Don't need to see data to know that's not good!

I have two and they're both fuelled by our own trees, a process which takes 2-3 years. If I rely on oil heating which is our only other option the cost is really prohibitive and I don't see any environment advantages.

I’m less bothered about wood burners that allow people to heat their homes. I think it is more worrying seeing the dramatic uptake in garden fire pits. People play around and burn all kinds of junk and random damp unsuitable wood in with no thought to the environment. They are less necessary than wood burners indoors that at least heat a home.

Also. I don't have gas. I have oil. It's £1 a litre or thereabouts for 900l and the year before I got the stove in I used 1500l. If you buy a smaller quantity the price rises significantly. And you have to pay that all in one go. And pay it up front.

If you get a direct debit with a supplier that locks you into one company.

@Everyonehasavoice we are pretty sure it’s one particular neighbour, but a few people have burners so it could be any of them really. Difficult to report on those circumstances unless you reported them all. Could also feasibly be someone from the next street for example.

@bellac11 believe what you want. But why would I shell out on an air purifier if it wasn’t an issue? In our case, having the en-suite window open is enough to stink out the bedroom, if we have forgotten to close the bathroom door.

I meant to tether my post to TheHauntedPencilCase. Sorry.

We re the same
We have to pollard our lime trees every three years. So burn the wood.
Plus someone planted leylandiis years ago. We had them reduced in height about 3years ago and are still burning them.

The particulate matter in diesel is particularly toxic. Humans evolved alongside wood fires so, as long as people are sensible and don't burn damp or unseasoned wood then it is usually fine, whether in an open fire or a wood burner. Wood burners keep any smoke contained. Ours is so efficient that it uses very little wood and there is almost no ash left at the end. It reduces our use of central heating a lot, which is evident in our utility bills.

My friend is a super-green person living off-grid practically and he believes log burners (used correctly, which he says most people don't) are the most environmentally friendly choice of all. He has 3 in his house.

I’d be interested to see the evidence that the particulates in wood burning smoke are less harmful to the body than those from other sources, eg road traffic. This is new to me.

Can you point me in the direction of the studies on this please? I’ve only seen studies demonstrating the increase in dementia, cancer, heart disease, lung disease etc from particulates as a whole.

We installed one to replace an open fire many years ago, without being aware of the pollution risks. Making the same decision now, perhaps we would have saved the money and bricked up the fireplace.

We use it infrequently to burn kiln dried wood only. Because we are off grid, it has come in really handy for when our oil boiler breaks down, or when we cannot afford to buy oil / we are low and oil prices are very high. It looks nice even when it's never actually used and for us it's a heating "back up" and something for special occasions.

Whilst I don't doubt there is harmful pollution from all wood burners (and this is a big part of why we don't use it very often), a lot of the evidence available doesn't take context much into account. It's hard to find specific information about how harmful burning kiln dried wood in an "eco" burner is, in a rural area. Many of the studies quoted in Guardian etc conflate this with burning wet/unseasoned wood in more old fashioned burners in urban areas.

They won’t be the best choice for his health, though!