Worried about smoke from wood burner

[Igglepiggle3]

We have just had a log burner installed and have a couple of young children. Youngest is 3.
Today the stove started to smoke. We sent the children straight out of the room and opened windows, put on fan etc I’m just worried the smoke could have done them some harm. It was t too much and we went into the room after the smell had cleaned. Just concerned as when I went to check in the smell a couple of times it hurt slightly to breathe in and I now have a headache!
I am a massive worried so may be over reacting!

Weve got a multi fuel stove but just use wood in it.Weve never had loads of smoke in the room just a tiny waft if you open the door to put more wood in

We have CO alarms in all rooms with stoves or fireplaces. The odd waft of smoke has never registered on them. The only time I have had one go off was when I was making marmalade in a giant pan on top of the gas stove.

we have a small open fire that we burn logs on - maybe one or two evenings at the weekend. We're in a well-spaced suburb - are we being dreadfully ant-social?

I always find it harder to light my stove when it’s foggy, I think it something to do with air pressure. As PP mentioned warming the flu can help.

The chemical smell will go after a few burns but you’ll probably notice it again when you light it for the first time next autumn.

Did anyone read about the recent research that says open fires (and log burners?) have been linked to dementia due to the pollution it produces. I’ll try and find it.

PM2.5 pass straight into the brain via the olfactory bulb. There is increasing evidence linking this to the evolution of dementia, possibly either through epigenetic mechanisms or through activation of inflammatory cascades.

While wood burning stoves (well kept, etc) are undoubtedly better in this respect than open fires, the pollution from said stoves is not inconsiderable, especially in the atmosphere outside the houses using them.

This is exacerbated in cold conditions, (ie. exactly when you would be using them) more especially when there is fog. Temperature inversions hold the pollution nearer the ground rather than letting it flow up and away. Add to this the flow dynamics of air around and between buildings, trees, etc, and you have pollution enveloping your, and adjacent buildings rather than drifting upwards, adding to the toxic environment around dwellings.

Pollution from domestic wood burning, most of this from stoves, reached 48 000 tonnes in 2018, the highest level since records began.
46 800 tonnes of this was PM2.5, far exceeding that produced by vehicles, industry or construction. (Gov Statistics - latest available)

PM2.5 are so small that they can enter a house even through apparently airtight windows and doors, so a draught-proofed house is no defence against your or your neighbours' wood burner particles.

Of course, being unable to ventilate your own house is very undesirable, leading to build up of internally generated VOC and PM2.5

These articles are from 2015/2016 - surely the log burners would have improved in 5 years?

Apparently not much. There is also the problem I mentioned of the testing of these burners under conditions far removed from those of everyday use.

There are a lot of vested interests involved here, not least politicians' chances of re-election and their own possession of said articles.

So are stoves worse than open fires? Because open fires have been around for centuries!?!

@Igglepiggle3

So are stoves worse than open fires? Because open fires have been around for centuries!?!

Yes the evidence suggests that they are worse. There is also a plausible causal pathway that would explain why they are worse (open v. closed system).

Life expectancy has considerably increased over the past few centuries, so the fact that they have been around doesn't mean that they don't cause harm.

The question is how much harm and balance the risk of that relevant to modern life in general.

@Jemenfouscompletement

I agree, you need to be careful if a woodburner smokes, but I've had one for years and my DC are fine (so am I). There are risks with just about everything but I can think of nothing more depressing than winter evenings without a real fire.

Just because you and your children are ok now doesn’t mean damage isn’t being done , my lung disease was diagnosed when I was 50 .

I have used a log burner for many years. When they are new sometimes you do get a smell from the paint on the woodburner itself as it dries and hardens. I live in a rural area where air quality is good and woodburners are a common method of heating. Proving your ventilation in the house is good I would not be overly worried about air quality. I am a bit surprised that if you had the woodburner properly installed they did not provide a CO2 alarm which I had understood was now mandatory.

Wood burners give me a headache and make my asthma worse, I really dislike them.

I live our wood burner. But you know, we need it for heat rather than as a fashion accessory.

One day ill live in a house with central heating.

Ours smokes when we first light it if it’s really cold and still outside. I find if I put a bit of paper on top of the kindling and also light that it helps to heat the flue, so the smoke is drawn upwards rather than out of the vents. It took me a few goes to figure this out though, but i haven’t had a smokey room since I realised how to stop it.

Would one incident of a Smokey room have any major affects on health? More concerned about the kids than anything

The reason why it smoked at first but then seemed ok is that if the flue is very cold it won’t draw. Once the flue warms it starts to draw the air up. Ours does this when it hasn’t been used for a while.
We were advised to close all interior doors to the room and open a window slightly. This helps to create a draw. We were also told to warm the flue for 10 mins with a blow torch before we tried to light the fire. It’s a faff, but once it’s been lit it will retain heat in the chimney so lighting the next day should be much more straightforward.

Did you have a proper flue liner put down the chimney?

There was something on Country file about these a while back. As far as I remember they tested the woodburner of a woman who burned wood which had been kiln dried or something like that and when tested produced very little of the harmful emissions and were under the safety limit.

Yeah there is a liner and all the proper necessities in the chimney. And sorry if not clear but a carbon monoxide detector WAS fitted - decorators removed it. Have only had a month and the room it’s in (living room) is open plan - so no doors to kitchen and we have big patio doors in the kitchen. When it was Smokey we opened the patio doors and put children in adjacent room. Also got fans going. I kept going to see if it was clearing and it was bothering me somewhat but not my husband.

And when I say bothering I mean when breathing in

My asthmatic DD couldn’t be in the same room as the wood burner at mils house and her asthma is pretty mild

I doubt a single event will be harmful long term. However an EHO has compared the emissions to an idling diesel engine. Like other posters I find they irritate my asthma as do open fires in an enclosed space and smoky bonfires.

It's not what you asked and has already been said but woiodburners create indoor and outdoor pollution in the form of particulates. These are invisible for not great for yours or your children's respiratory health and certainly not the environment. I was so gutted when I learnt this as I always naively assumed they were pretty innocuous. I think a lot of folk think the same. I'm guessing there will come a day when restrictions get tighter around their use which will be a huge shame as I love ours 😕

I spoke to my husband and agreed we would only use when kids are in bed. He always thinks I’m over reacting. I never even thought about it before we purchased the stove. I just thought about safety ie a stove with closed door and safety guard would be safer than an open fire with guard. We didn’t have a fire at all in our old house so I’m new to all this

Has your wood been seasoned?

I can’t stand the smell of them personally. My DH loves them, but he also is asthmatic, so I am pleased after seeing the thread, that have never agreed to get one installed.

On cold, foggy still days. Open the door(s) of your wood burner and put your hand in (obviously before you light it!) If you can feel a cold draft coming down the chimney and into the wood burner then it's odds on it will smoke when you light it because the chimney is full of cold, dense air.
The trick we use with ours is to use a hair dryer to warm up the exposed section of flue pipe between the top of the wood burner and the top of the fireplace. After about 10 minutes of heat, the cold air will have been pushed out of the chimney by the warm air and you can light the fire as normal.