to think I should get rid of my evil woodburner and ask what to replace it with?

[Toomuchstuffwillkillme]

Just got in from work and the house is freezing, which after the glorious Easter weekend is making me think unseasonal thoughts about heating currently I've gone to hide under a large duvet in solidarity with the climate change activists.
Obviously reading my mind, the radio chooses this point to inform me that 'when your wood burning stove is lit it's equivalent to having a 7.5 tonne diesel truck idling right outside your house'.
I loathe our woodburner, though it looks glorious when lit I never light it because it stinks (even more than it should do!) and makes me feel ill. So when I chuck it out, what should I do with the unsightly hole in the lounge?
Do you all still love woodburners, or can any helpful MNetters suggest a (preferably not astronomically expensive) more eco- and lung-friendly alternative??

Flipping love ours. unhelpful

You get some really nice looking gas burners, it’s what we went with as I didn’t want a wood burner for environmental reasons. No smell or mess and a remote control on/off switch

They’ll take my wood burner out of my cold, dead hands!!! I love it!

I would - its only a matter of time before they are banned

www.ft.com/content/0e367636-a205-11e8-85da-eeb7a9ce36e4

www.telegraph.co.uk/interiors/home/wood-burning-stoves-do-new-rules-mean-heater/

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46823440

We’ve got a gas stove , it’s a Broseley Hereford and it’s basically their woodburner converted to gas so very authentic looking .

@Nicolastuffedone

Have you seen the David Attenborough's programmes? Especially the one with suicidal walruses?

I ALWAYS wanted a fireplace, but gave up on it when I saw that and turned to militant recycling. Currently looking into turning my garden into a CO2 capturing machine.

We don’t use ours anymore as it sets off my asthma. They were sold as eco friendly not so long ago which is why so many people got one.

plonky and floral thanks, I like the look of the gas ones (though we have no gas point in the right place and a nearly unlimited supply of wood, so DH will love me for suggesting that!). Are they that much greener? I guess we have a gas boiler anyway so if we turned that off/down and lit a gas stove it's not that much different. Though they're talking about banning gas boilers in new builds quite soon.
I imagine they're a lot better if like me you're a bit sensitive to smoke and get wheezy/allergic when most people claim they can hardly smell a thing?

Yes PlumCake that's exactly where I'm at. It's frustrating... even more so when I know I should really just wear extra jumpers

Happy with mine as it is a v good model and extremely efficient. Hate smoke so am quite surprised mine doesn't set me off. Bloody expensive to buy though but it does heat the whole house.

Smokeless coal?

Ohhhhh I want a woodburner so much but we’re planning on moving so can’t justify getting one for whoever we sell the house too! So jealous!

Strange. Woodburners are apparently"evil" but we get paid by the government for using a log gasification furnace as an eco measure.

katya trust me your neighbours don't want you to have one.... I didn't realise years ago just how bad they were for your health, let alone the environment. To be fair I didn't really think about it. When our NDNs light theirs the whole garden smells, don't like the thought of us inflicting that on the rest of the street really.
This is written by the guy who was talking on the radio earlier - it's food for thought: www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/17/air-pollution-london-low-emission-zone-deadly-toxic-fumes

No new build houses have chimneys and it really bothers me whenever I see them now. So obviously wood burners are possibly going to be a thing of the past.

I’m not sure what I’d put in instead, I do love a wood burner.

Had one for two decades, then developed asthma as did OH. Did some research on log burners, bloody hell, between the aspiration of tiny particles plus the pollen etc. coming off the logs sitting in baskets. So glad we moved and left it behind. I cannot even sit in a house with candles burning now.

Hi, if your wood burner smells smoky then you might want to get your chimney looked at. We had a wood burning Rayburn into a chimney with poor airflow and we got a cowl for the chimney which helped it to draw. Made a world of difference.

We have a wood burner, it heats the whole house. It also smells beautiful, both DH and I have asthma and it doesn't set it off. We get our chimney swept regularly and our wood burner is very efficient. We live rurally, everyone has them around here.

My parents have a wood burner, they use it in midwinter when it's really cold though not that often. It smells significantly better than ours. Our chimney appears to draw really well, no problems lighting the fire, fire can burn really hot no problem. We put a thermometer on to check the flue temp, and used a moisture meter to check the wood wasn't wet. The wood burner is supposed to be an efficient one ok for 'smokeless' zones etc. and the HETAS guy who installed it a few years back said it was fine, though I'm not 100% sure I trust him! It doesn't smell really wood smoky either - the smell isn't strong, but is kind of nasty, and I can almost taste the particulates in the air when it's on. And the more research I did to try to figure out what to do about the problem, the more I kept reading that wood stoves were just a Really Bad Idea full stop. So now I have fallen really out of love with the whole idea, plus I don't want to expose the kids to the smoke, visible or invisible. The big cold lump of cast iron just sits and looks at me reproachfully. I guess I should try shelling out on some 'smokeless' fuel as an experiment, but part of the attraction was that we have loads of wood - mainly sycamore - available and I'd hoped we could simply burn that for free. I was deluded. Afraid the wretched thing needs to go

We have a woodburner - not much choice in a village with no gas and a giant room with minimal space for radiators.

Burning briquettes instead of wood has made a massive difference - take much longer to burn, fire is hotter, we spend much less time faffing about with the fire, we don't spend as much, you can get ones that are made of waste from forestry or other industries which makes you feel a bit more sustainable and as an asthmatic I can tell the difference inside the house.

We are never going back to burning wood again.

We live off grid, we rely on a wood burner, and a wood aga for cooking. We like it, but we have no alternative. Besides, Wood is free and we burn about 8-10 forklift pallets stacked 4ft high per year

We probably

Neighbours seem to burn their wood burner constantly. I have a fine layer of black dust on my garden furniture daily and lungs full of the asthma particle.

Ill get rid of my woodburner when diesel cars are banned, along with nuclear fuel and fracking

We had one in our last house (rural, no gas). I bloody hated it. Easy to light, impossible to keep going - even with "expert" supervision. We've now moved and got central heating which is fine as well as a lovely open fire for the really cold days but similarly difficult to keep going (despite us both being pyromaniacs!). Can't be bothered storing fuel so am looking to convert it to as realistic as possible a gas stove.