To ask how you can justify using a woodburner in a city or town

[MojoMoon]

www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/09/eco-wood-stoves-emit-pollution-hgv-ecodesign?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

New wood burning stoves billed as more environmentally friendly still emit 750 times more tiny particle pollution than a modern HGV truck, a report has shown.

Only stoves that meet the ecodesign standard can be legally sold from the start of 2022 in the UK and EU, but experts said the regulation was shockingly weak.

The report used data on the emissions produced by stoves in perfect laboratory conditions and the pollution could be even higher in everyday use, the researchers said, with older stoves being much worse.

Tiny particle pollution – called PM2.5 – is especially harmful to health as it can pass through the lungs into the bloodstream and then be carried around the body and lodge in organs. At least 40 ,000 early deaths a year are attributed to wood burning in Europe.

Wood burners also triple the level of harmful pollution inside homes and should be sold with a health warning, said the scientist behind a study published in December. The researchers advised that the stoves should not be used around elderly people or children.

The government may have banned the burning of wet wood but has no plans to ban the sale of woodburners, despite the fact that the 8pc of homes that use them are almost entirely in cities and can use power or gas for heating. And are almost entirely fairly wealthy households.

(Those of you who live a "very rural" location, to use a common Mumsnet phrase and are entirely off grid may justifiably need one. But the question was cities and towns).

It worries me so few people know how dangerous PM2.5 emissions are, particularly for pregnant women and children.

YANBU: correct, woodburners should be banned in homes in cities and towns asap

YABU: no, they look pretty and who cares about science and health

The way gas prices are going, and being at the whim of countries that can just turn off the tap, or hike the price if their needs are deemed more important, I might get a wood burning stove as backup. I'm already planning to buy a spare gas boiler before they go off sale.

This is an ex communist county. Wages are low food costs high and without the traditional wood heating most would freeze in winter. But the air quality is far above London and I bet even with the wood heating their carbon footprint is a fraction of your average Londoners

It’s not about their carbon footprint, it’s about the air quality within their home and within their neighbourhood.

Hopefully they’ve got decent ventilation, burning wood indoors is not good for respiratory health, but it seems they have no alternative because of poor infrastructure.

Most in the UK do have alternatives so that’s what the post is addressing.

@KittyBurrito I have an ethenol fire which I use in late spring, early autumn evenings when it's not really cold enough to light the parkray.
It looks lovely and gives out loads of heat, could you consider one of those? No fireplace or chimney required.

@OhGiveUp thanks - I will look into it! How does it stack up in terms of emissions? Is it an open fire or enclosed? (We have pets and floofy tails and open flames don't really go together)

@KittyBurrito I use bio ethenol so it's perfectly safe and environmentally friendly. It's fume and emission free, hence you don't need a chimney.
Yes, it's open flame but your pets will be safe, my dogs have never got close enough to burn themselves due to the heat. You could use a fire guard if you're concerned though.
Take a look at them on Amazon, I think you will be surprised at the choice. I also order my bio from Amazon too.

@ozgirl75 you will have been (and continue to be) exposed to a variety of carcinogens throughout your life. Alcohol and red meat, for instance, are proven class 1 carcinogens. Chemicals in furniture, toxic metals and pesticides accumulating in the food chain etc. There is a heavy weight of evidence that all these things are killing us. If you have made it to your 40s, I would suggest you have escaped the wrath the woodburner. If you want to try to have as long a life as possible, evidence would suggest that giving up red meat and alcohol, not smoking, and staying in a healthy weight range are the best decisions you can make.

Wonder if the people in Lebanon have woodburners.

samharris.org/the-fireplace-delusion/

This is a fantastic essay on why people cling so hard to fireplaces (much like people find comfort in religious beliefs, conspiracy theories or any other irrational beliefs)

It finishes with:

I have discovered that when I make this case, even to highly intelligent and health-conscious men and women, a psychological truth quickly becomes as visible as a pair of clenched fists: They do not want to believe any of it. Most people I meet want to live in a world in which wood smoke is harmless. Indeed, they seem committed to living in such a world, regardless of the facts. To try to convince them that burning wood is harmful—and has always been so—is somehow offensive. The ritual of burning wood is simply too comforting and too familiar to be reconsidered, its consolation so ancient and ubiquitous that it has to be benign. The alternative—burning gas over fake logs—seems a sacrilege.

And yet, the reality of our situation is scientifically unambiguous: If you care about your family’s health and that of your neighbors, the sight of a glowing hearth should be about as comforting as the sight of a diesel engine idling in your living room. It is time to break the spell and burn gas—or burn nothing at all.

Of course, if you are anything like my friends, you will refuse to believe this. And that should give you some sense of what we are up against whenever we confront religion.

That’s very interesting.
I feel exactly like his friends. Fires are important to me. I can’t imagine life without them.

I hate them with a passion. I was born & raised in a coal mining area & I was very small when the whole place was made a smoke free zone. You HAD to burn clean coal, the chimneys didn’t smoke and it didn’t smell. Now I’ve moved away and there’s a pub near me & even worse a wood-fired pizza oven takeaway 2 streets away and they both stink as soon as they light the fires/oven. They are filthy and a health hazard. You are absolutely not being unreasonable.
I should not be able to smell these bonfires 2 streets away!

The environmental factors are really important to me and I would never have one, but I also really hate the smell of woodsmoke, mostly because I'm allergic to practically everything, so I can't even dry my clothes outside because of my bloody neighbours. We live in a fairly large town and I know they have central heating because it took for-bloody-ever to noisily instal when I had a new baby.

@Loveshelly

I think the positives out weigh the negatives for fires in general. I spend a lot of time camping and will only go to places that allow fires. Learning to cook on one as a child. We had a wood burner as a child it was so amazing The hearth is the heart of the home.

Really of all the things to worry about in terms of the environment this isn’t it. A few people having something nice in their home.

and i do a lot of camping/caravanning and willl only go to places that BAN them! i have enough t o put up with when at home because of our neighbour and his constant fires ever night smoking out my house, strange how i have developed copd in the last 18 months isnt it? yes i blame him for it! he burns all his old fencing business waste and it goes directly into my bedroom

So if I'm rich and live in the country then its fine. I can also hunt not pay the right tax and numerous other crap that those working class must abide by

I think they are one of those household items that were seen as really covetable a few years ago. They became a bit of a status symbol. It might be connected to Scandinavia decor being fashionable, although burning wood there doesn't necessarily have the exactly the same environmental impact as someone in a town or city here.

Years ago we had a Victorian house with open fires. We lit them occasionally but they made me wheeze and gave out lots of embers which put me off so didn't make a fire again. We had pretty good central heating anyway. In our current house we have no proper chimneys, just a gas flew. We got the gas fire cut off because we don't light it and it just was getting dusty which meant it required servicing every time before we wanted to light it otherwise it wouldn't burn properly.

Those who worry about air quality and their children - do you also avoid scented candles, cleaning products, plug in air fresheners etc? Even new fabrics emit unpleasant irritant chemicals. Air qaulity within homes is frequently very poor.

Yes

Ha! Tell that to the French and see what they say about it. I think you might anticipate the response.

My house is freezing, no cavity insulation because no cavity. My boiler is old and I can't afford to replace. I manage with hot water bottles, heated blanket and the occasional use of my wood burner. My home in the worst weather gets down to 14 with the central heating on, live like that and then tell me not to use my burner.

In my *very rural” area of California, and in fact all over the state, we have “burn days” — depending on air quality. They announce it on tv and in the print media online which days are acceptable for wood burners or agricultural fires.
Works pretty well and has for well over 20 years.

dream that’s interesting. So the default is ‘no burn days’ ? Guessing this is as much to do with fire risk as anything else ?

Our house had a woodburner and I grew up abroad in houses with and without woodburners.
There is no denying the impact of burning wood and especially wood that is wet, green or even (!!!) chemically treated. Burning wood other than properly seasoned wood should just be heavily fined and woodburner removed from properties that do this.

However, I am grateful to have a fall back option for when the boiler breaks as has happened - we lit the woodburner and it made the whole house warm in a very short period of time. I like the flexibility it provides, and I would be upset if I had to remove it.

Those living in older houses that are not insulated to 21st century standards know this well.

I prefer to eat vegetarian meals more frequently, not drink alcohol, and not driving a car. That said, the woodburner does not get used regularly.

I forgot to clarify something:

Just because you’re burning “carbon neutral wood” (as it’s often advertised) this doesn’t mean that you’re not sending up harmful particles into the atmosphere!

I know that this happens if I have to use the woodburner, but sometimes needs must.

Overall we should all strive to be as carbon neutral as possible and avoid sending harmful particles into the atmosphere!

People are penalized because people are polluting residential areas.

Ironically, in the countryside people are using them less than in the past due to central heating etc. being more common & available than 75 years ago...

It's only because city dwellers don't like the smell, particles etc in their overcrowded little domains that they think there's a national issue & want to force change on everyone.

The same citydwellers who moan about the traffic on the roads next the houses they bought (next to the roads)...

I have asthma no problems with fires open or closed style. What sets me off are scented candles. It's embarrassing because I have to leave the room/house I am visiting to stop the cough and sometimes resort to my inhaler

One of my jobs when young was hauling coal from the cellar and making up the coal fired kitchen boiler. I don't suppose I did it a lot, but it left me with a lifelong dislike of open fires, woodburners ...

Our predecessors in our house had open fires. When we bought, we had a loft extension, and knowing that some folks were crazy about real fires we had the chimneys extended so this would still be possible. Now, a complete waste of money in having kept the chimneys open (they are capped at the top, removable though).

Not sure about legally banning the damned things, but I ain't ever going to have a woodburner (and living in London, sourcing wood to burn could be awks anyway). I'd rather wear two pullovers!

On a related theme, but separate, I wonder if the heating crisis looming will lead to a trend away from huge live-in kitchens across the back of so many houses? Much easier to heat smaller rooms ...