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

[Don'tcallthepolice]

Just this

This isnt answering your question or addressing it really however a friend of mine recently moved to Turkey and he said he was surprised that gas cost so much and as a result people were burning literal Rubbish in the streets! This is all kinds of plastics, food waste and god knows what else and its done on such a mass scale it could never compare to wood burning! In his country Gas was VERY cheap, if not free because it wasnt imported so seeing the way people are still burning nonsense is crazy.

People have all sorts of health anxieties and buy relevant equipment for them.

My point is that the “experts” often change their minds. A few years ago, people were told to avoid eggs because they were bad for us. Now we are told to eat eggs because they are good for us. Both opinions apparently came from scientific research. It’s the same story with babies’ sleeping positions. Evidence and advice changes.

Obviously, we should all listen to scientific advice and guidance, but also listen to our own gut instincts. My gut instinct tells me that sitting in front of a couple of burning logs in an enclosed metal box, vented to the outside, probably isn’t as bad for my health as sitting next to multiple HGVs running their engines (as some experts have apparently claimed)

We have one - live rurally, house is 15th century and entirely unsuitable for heat pumps or big radiators.

More than happy with it, if they get banned we'll just go back to a big open fire.

Yes, advice changes as knowledge and evidence changes. So it makes sense to listen to current evidence and advice and act on it, even if it is likely to change in the future. Best to do the best you can now and adjust accordingly as things change.

I’m afraid ‘gut instinct’ is something we’re fooled into thinking is useful in all situations. It isn’t useful at all when we’re in a situation we don’t know much about.

There are a lot of types of wood burners.
Ours is new, Danish and supposedly one of the safest re. particulates.

We only use it rarely, and it's really there as a back up in case we lose other forms of power/ heating.

That has happened when our boiler broke down and at the time we had (thankfully) an open fire (which is now changed to a wood burner.)

The biggest risks are burning wood that is not seasoned or burning plastic etc (people using old fencing, wood they find in the countryside, any old offcuts they happen to have.)

We installed our wood burner years and years ago before they were shown as ‘not that good for the environment’.

Why do we still use it? COST
Buying wood is still cheaper than to have the heating on. We can get wood for free a lot if the time and we are now both at home all day - DH wfh and me with a chronic illness that makes me extremely sensitive to cold.

So the wood burner is still in use, just like I use my car for any trip due to mobility issues etc….

MIL still has a wood burner. Old farm that doesn’t have central heating and never had. That’s her source of heating for the entire house along with a Rayburn. Totally unsuitable fir her but the cost of replacing it all is just not affordable for her.

Basically, many reasons to use a wood burner….

Because the diesel particulate pollution outside / forever chemicals in my food and water / greenhouse gases from all the millions of flights a day /ecosystem collapse from mass deforestation / colon cancer & diabetes from eating anything that isn't lentils / passive smoking and lead painr from my childhood in the 80's /asbestos in my work place ....and so on are going to kill me anyway.

Heating your home with gas is just as bad for the environment, it's predominantly methane which is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 and is belching out of pipelines all over the place. Everything humans do and they way we live is destroying the planet so why fixate on one small thing which will allow me to keep my family warm and still be able to pay my mortgage given the current energy prices.

What needs to happen is for our government to start investing in renewables again, to invest in decent public transport for all of the country, community heating schemes and laws to ensure new buildings use passive house technology.....might even create some sustainable jobs and economic growth in the process.

My property had an open fire which was not very efficient

iI upgraded to a wood burner, which produced much more hear into the room

secondly, I was able to source huge amounts of free wood !

@ReedRite I read a very well researched article on diesel pollution and schools a few years ago that covered this. It looked at the history of air pollution and the banning of sea coal in medieval London because of the fumes it gave off. As well as being unpleasant, people back then believed ill health was caused by miasma (bad air) so were very concerned by air pollution. I think it was King Edward III who banned the sea coal. Anyway, it went on to look at the particulates in diesel verses more traditional fuels like coal and wood and explained in detail why they are more dangerous. The particles in diesel exhaust fumes are a complex mixture of solids and liquids including metal ash, hydrocarbons and sulphuric acid. These tiny particulates can penetrate deep into human soft tissue. They are apparently much smaller and, where we can cough up the smoke particles from wood, diesel actually changes the microbial profile of the lungs.

@Don'tcallthepolice The risk to the environment is just one aspect. It's more about being bad for the health of the people sitting in the room with it.

If you open the door and smoke comes out, the particulates can cause lung and heart disease.

There are many types of wood burners and the newest ones have ratings that show how much emissions they produce.

Road pollution from traffic is a bigger issue.

We re exactly the same, good to know you had the same advice on heat pumps
we ve just got permission to put tiny vents between the wood framing to the outside to use the big open fire

Unless the wood is kiln dried/ seasoned it is bad for your wood burner (you will get problems) and your health.

Too many people think they can burn anything.

You can't.

Well, if they are so bad for you I’m totally fucked because I’ve lived in houses with stoves since the age of 8. And we burned a mixture of coal and wood. This house is the first I’ve lived in as an adult with no fire or stove, and it’s draughty and the central heating can’t cope with minus 8 temperatures (Scotland), so I have been researching wood burners.

To keep warm for much cheaper - for free if you have your own wood like many do

I live in a large old house in the country with no gas, and have oil central heating and a huge wood burning stove which supplements it. Old houses need warmth.
The stove is tied into the heating and hot water system with a Dursley thingy. I have an open fireplace, too.

My oil bill is astronomical and I would have a colder and miserabler life without my stove.
I use it to the max with a Stirling engine fan, which whirls hot air up round the hall and landing, and an old iron gallon kettle which does for the washing up every evening(and provides a workout). I also cook many things on top of it.
The chimney breast in the upstairs bedroom is warm every night.

If/when retired DH calls it a day on wood and chain saw duty, I think we will have to move. 😢

How would you suggest we heat a house with no central heating and no mains gas?

Your question is poorly phrased, OP. Woodburning stoves are an important resource in rural areas, where there is no mains gas but there is a ready supply of wood and people have the space to store it.

However, I’ve never heard a convincing argument not to ban them in urban and suburban areas. There is no justification in this context beyond ‘but they are cosy and look pretty.’

We love ours, but don't use it every day. We put it in because the huge open fire wasn't very safe for the puppy we were planning to get, and it's now much more efficient.

Because we have no mains gas. Oil costs a fortune and we need working electricity to power the CH pump. When the power goes off (approx every 6 weeks) we have no other way to keep warm than our open fire. DH collected wood from the garden, dries it in the woodshed then we burn it the following winter. When the kids were young, we used cloth nappies and never used wipes at all.

In that case, you shouldn’t have a gas hob either….

And many type of carpets/furniture which release all sort if stuff in the air when they are new.
You should never use plastic boxes, esp in the microwave.
You don’t use pans with Teflon coating either.

There are MANY things in our houses that increase pollution and are bad for our health. I doubt there are many people actually acting on all of those.

OP - you may as well ask - why do people keep burning fossil fuels to power their central heating?

You'd get the same answers.

We all do things that are bad for the environment. Driving, flying on holiday (in fact any holiday I guess), eating meat, buying things in plastic, owning pets... According to Earth Overshoot Day the UK needs 2.6 Earths to sustain current consumption. Let's assume you are at the average UK consumption, how on earth do you get your personal footprint down from needing 2.6 Earths to a sustainable 1 Earth? Never mind wood-burning stoves, you'd probably need to ditch heating altogether, plus meat, plastic, flying, driving, pets, new kitchens, new clothes, in fact just about everything that makes life pleasant.

Ref my previous post, I lived in a rural area which didn't have a ban on fires or wood burners

I live in a different place now
This also originally had an open fire
I have another wood burner
Use smoke free coal & wood
Lovely & cosy on a cold winter night !

That’s a fair pint and if you live rurally then it’s likely there is no other realistic option however a very small % or the uk population are in this positions. Lots of people have been installing wood burners because they “look nice” without any thought to the environmental implications compared to their current arrangement