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

@Ddot Me? I don't own a car. Got two bicycles though (greedy)

On drying clothes, check out Lakeland's heated airer.
Not having a tumble dryer is pretty normal in a London property - no room for it in my bijou home- so not sure it's a rural issue to dry clothes without one. The lakeland heated airer is excellent - many threads in Mumsnet housekeeping singing its praises.

@CovidDoesNotExistDuh

Because airers work in a cold damp house?

Some kind of heating and airflow is required you berk.

I don't currently live rurally, but I'll be moving back end log burners or dual fuel stoves are the only option in some places.

Yes, they do. As long as the humidity in the house is lower than the moisture content in the clothes stuff will dry. I avoid using heating and everything is dry by the second day at the very latest in the depths of winter (and no it doesn't smell if it's hung properly - unlike clothes which have been around woodsmoke, yuk).

@Roughasabadgersbum

It's great you have a carbon monoxide monitor but that tells you nothing about PM2.5 particulates.

They are also linked to dementia, cancer, cardiac arrest and miscarriage so it's not just asthma

@cjpark

To me, woodturners are of the 00's! they should be put in room 101 along with glittery slogans written on walls and diamanté furniture. No need - bad the environment when there is plenty of cheaper alternatives.

Big old house out in the sticks. No mains gas or water, frequent power cuts. Roads often closed in winter. So tell me the cheaper alternatives please. We already do the layers of clothing thing. Oh and we live in a wood. We stack and season wood for three years until it goes for burning. Can’t see the point of them in towns though.

The fireplace delusion is alive and kicking here on Mumsnet!

As you said, this isn’t about rural areas - but even there, why add 750 HGV-worth of fumes to your and your neighbours’ lungs??

Who remembers the big campaigns for cleaner stoves for poorer countries? Smoke is a killer… can be slow, can be fast.

Ok, I might rein it in on posting at least a bit since I need to do my actual job tomorrow.

I'm glad this thread has been so active and on the front page so much because it means people have seen it.

I'm really heartened by the posts from people who did not know the risks but now are more aware. That's why I was hoping for. Please spread the word. It's not well known enough.

I know lots of people thought they were being green when they bought it but were unaware of the increased risk to themselves, their children and their neighbours of asthma, cardiac arrest, miscarriage, cancer and dementia posed by exposure to PM2.5 particulates even when using dry seasoned organic foraged wood in an eco stove.

It's been fascinating to see some of the kneejerk arguments against it which echo a lot of early responses to the smoking ban - my nan smokes a pack a day and is fit at 100 years old, the French smoke loads and they live longer than we do, if smoking was so bad, why are there so many old people, alcohol is bad for you too and no one is banning that, what about the tax paid on cigarettes, it's my freedom and right to smoke if I want to etc etc.
Quitting smoking is hard so you can see why people resisted a ban - it's an addiction. Quitting using your woodburner in London is easy. Yes, it may be much harder and maybe even impossible for Rural Folk (I did specify towns and cities in my question though). But being rural doesn't mean the risk of dementia, miscarriage, asthma and cardiac arrest is removed. You really might want to rein it in as much as you can especially in front of your kids and while pregnant.

We are talking here about localised air pollution - not climate change (not that climate change is not important). In London, on days with high levels of PM2.5 particulates (cold days with low cloud), hospitalisations from asthma attacks and cardiac attacks rise and people die. Including children - see Mums for Lungs and the Ella Kissi Debrah Foundation. It also linked to higher rates of dementia with the higher personal and financial costs that imposes
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29897947/

23-31pc of PM2.5 exposure in London is caused by wood burning - that could be knocked out immediately if councils were given the power to ban wood burning stoves. In London, wood burning stoves are not essential sources of heat for homes with no other choice - they're pretty and cosy and atmospheric and most entirely found in large homes in wealthy areas. No one on my estate has one but the Georgian houses in Islington I can see from.my window often do.

If someone posted on AIBU that their neighbour on a London terraced street smoked all day at home in front of their kids and then came round to their house every night and smoked cigarettes in their children's faces (before heading off to do it in all the other houses on the street), they would be told YANBU and also to grow a backbone and tell the CF neighbour to sod off. Maybe even to log it with the police (both a woodburning and Mumsnet joke there)

So if it isn't absolutely vital for you to warm your home with a wood burning stove, then please don't be that smoky CF neighbour for your own health, your kids and everyone else in your neighbourhood.

@EvilPea hello my evil friend! 😆😈

It appears that there are many of us. 😁

@MojoMoon - I agree, don't like them nowadays and we've got rid of ours due to health concerns (DC have asthma as do I). On one occasion I had to come home and use my inhaler after walking in our local area at dusk. I used to love our burner though so get why others do... it's a shame but I can completely understand why they'll eventually have to be banned ☹.

So you live in london with transport everywhere, where I live we have buses that dont really follow time table, plus expensive, you can wait over an hour then give up. No tube here. We have train station but limited to where it goes. Sorry about car comment but was tired. I have a small petrol car which I need. I try to be green, yes you said it's a different thing but I think you will admit everything we do or eat affects the air we breath. Everything has to be reared or manufactured which causes air pollution. If we all did something extra that would be a start

•I try to be green, yes you said it's a different thing but I think you will admit everything we do or eat affects the air we breath

Unironically the less ‘green’ option of natural gas is better for your health.

Although even those release nitrogen dioxide though … but not nearly to the extent of wood burners.

We’re really seeing a naturalistic fallacy at play here

OP did you see the link i posted upthread from the wood heat association dusagreeing with you and the Guardian? Obvioudly they have both expertise and a vested interest so i was wondering if you could comment on thrir argument.

@KeflavikAirport

OP did you see the link i posted upthread from the wood heat association dusagreeing with you and the Guardian? Obvioudly they have both expertise and a vested interest so i was wondering if you could comment on thrir argument.

They are extremely clear in their own report that the issue is open fires and older stoves. They are more interested in “saving” biomass boilers using wood chips/pellets, which is fairly novel in urban centres. There is a weak environmental rationale for biomass boilers, but ultimately releasing the carbon trapped in wood into the atmosphere via burning wood isn’t great for the environment.

The other issue is that wood burning stoves are long lasting household appliances. No one is upgrading their stove every 5 (or even 10) years to meet modern requirements, even if that stove is pumping particulates into their living room.

DEFRA are very clear that 38% of the UK’s PM2.5 emissions came from domestic combustion, and that most of this is from wood burning stoves & open fires. This is the largest source, more than manufacturing and transport.

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/emissions-of-air-pollutants/emissions-of-air-pollutants-in-the-uk-particulate-matter-pm10-and-pm25

@KeflavikAirport
Unlike the scientific research they are criticising, the wood heat association's "research" has not been published in a respected peer reviewed scientific journal.

Their conclusion is "more research is needed" - clearly they've take a leaf out of the tobacco industry playbook. Tobacco executives knew in the 1950s that cigarettes caused cancer but successfully delayed any attempt to require them to highlight this by requiring information on packets or to ban smoking in public by fifty years, often by producing research that said "more research is needed".

Much like, despite the fact some people whined relentlessly, it turned out you can ban smoking in public places without causing riots, closing all pubs or forcing people into lives of relentless misery.

Using a wood burner in London could be banned tomorrow with equally as little problem as banning smoking in restaurants. Using a wood burner in London is not in anyway essential, it is a life style choice.

The wood heat association doesn't quite have the balls to say "our products don't cause dementia, cancer, asthma and miscarriage" because the scientists can't quite bring themselves to entirely ignore the science. They can just say "more research needed" into exactly how much of air pollution in London is caused by wood burning.

The thing is - whether particulates from wood burning make up 15pc or 20pc or 30pc of PM2.5 exposure in London doesn't matter. Even at the low end of estimates, banning them would lead to a sizeable improvement in air quality.

Are they the sole or biggest source of particulate exposure in London? No. The wood burning association can attempt to delay action by doing research pointing out that other things cause it too and saying we should do "more research" on that.

We also need to reduce car usage (even EVs produce particulates from brakes and tyres) and ban the use of diesel in London more rapidly. We should also ban garden bonfires and provide waste collection instead.
But even as a cyclist, I know that at least some car and lorry usage in London is inevitable and vital. So we can't just ban all traffic or diesel vehicles overnight.

Likewise, particulate exposure from frying over gas etc means stricter rules should be in place over renting properties without proper extractor fans. But it would take time to replace them all and is complex - it should be done but it cannot be done by tomorrow

But banning woodstoves in London is simple. It's low hanging fruit that would instantly reduce harm to people.
And the only damage would be to someone's hygge vibes.

Rural folk, please note I am specifically talking about London.

This comment also stood out to me. Can’t help but sense resentment being the catalyst to this argument. Whilst I don’t have a wood burner I burn wood & house coal in my open fire. I burn mostly on the weekends & during the evening when the temperatures drop & I have my chimney professionally cleaned at least one a year, a vital additional cost. This argument is only coming to light from those aggrieved that as the energy costs rise, they have no alternative to electric or gas.

This argument is only coming to light from those aggrieved that as the energy costs rise, they have no alternative to electric or gas.

I have a fireplace (installed before we moved in), certainly no fuel poverty and yet I can still understand it’s a serious public health issue.

House coal is thankfully being phased out.

www.gov.uk/government/news/restrictions-on-sale-of-coal-and-wet-wood-for-home-burning-begin

Thenka @Mojomoon. The reason I ask is because I worked in the sector back in the mid-90s before particulates were a concern. I'm wholly ready to admit my knowledge is out of date but I do think the case for wood pellets made using either coppiced and waste wood is better than you've painted once you take into account what would happen to the waste wood otherwise: I remember several municipalities using them successfully for collective heating in council housing (not in the UK).

@KeflavikAirport the issue with burning pellets is that wood is a carbon sink; burning it releases that carbon back into the atmosphere which then has to be reabsorbed, which currently it can’t do.

Putting it back into the ground isn’t actually a bad option from an environmental perspective.

Yes I know, which is why pellets should be made either from fast-growing coppiced species or waste wood that would otherwise be incinerated.

@MojoMoon Not ALL diesel is equal. Some of the best modern diesel engines are very different to the old ones that belch out fumes.

I see your point, but don't see how a government ban on open fires or woodburners is practical or possible.

Unless every open fireplace or chimney in the country is blocked up, it's not going to happen. Ditto solid fuel Agas etc.

I was brought up in a home where the only source of heating and hot water was an open fire. Lived like that till I was 16 when CH was installed.

I think the issue around particulates is more complex and grey than you make out. Most people are exposed to more pollution on the streets than in their homes.

It seems we can't, as a population, hold the idea that we need to reduce global CO2 emissions and also do so in a way that does not wreck localised air quality.

There have clearly been a lot of wood burners installed around me (neighbours at the back have just had one installed as part of an extension). You can really smell them in the evenings and PM2.5 is a know health hazard and commercial units over a certain size have to have particulate control systems fitted. Domestic has always lagged behind.

Of course gas boilers have their own issues with NOx and actually a combination of wood and gas burning in urban areas is going to be worse than either alone as it will increase the likelihood of smog formation.

@OverTheRubicon

Ok since you don't understand my point about the 'magical big corporation' as you put it, I'll explain.

People want to stop people buying meat, milk, plastic 'tat', etc. That's all well and good, but asking people to stop buying it won't stop the production. And people are easily manipulated, if it's available, they'll buy it. You might stop one person buying, but others will just buy more. It won't decrease production, which is part of the overall problem.

Your solution to wood burners is asking people to stop buying or using them. The real solution is stop making them. And then probably ban the use as well, but that likely won't happen unless boris or one of his cronies falls ill.

House coal sales are being banned from May 2023

What if you want a barbacue?

@mustlovegin

House coal sales are being banned from May 2023

What if you want a barbacue?

House coal is not the same product as charcoal. You’d be in for a very disappointing (and toxic) BBQ if you tried house coal in your grill.

@JinglingHellsBells

What your source for saying people are more exposed to air pollution in their street than indoors?

This UK study says the opposite - ultrafine particulate exposure is higher indoors

www.globalactionplan.org.uk/news/revealed-indoor-air-pollution-3-5-times-worse-than-outdoor-air-pollution

A new study from Clean Air Day reveals that ultrafine particle pollution is on average 3.5 times higher inside the home than outside - and in one case peaked at 560 times higher than outdoors.

We commissioned air quality testing experts NAQTS to study four properties around the UK and found remarkably similar patterns of ultrafine particle pollution.

Our data showed that outdoor air pollution adds to indoor air pollution, building up in the home, and taking longer than outdoors to disperse.