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

I live in a 4 bedroomed house, why would I need to heat the whole house when I can hear one room?

You can do that with central heating.

@CounsellorTroi

I don’t think there’s any way of getting away from the fact that burning things releases toxins and carcinogens.

This includes candles in the home especially scented ones.

Very true. Scented candles release a lot of particulates too (but drift outside your home less I suppose? So you just damage yourself and your kids perhaps. And you probably don't have them on eight hours a day)

Going to rile a whole new demographic with that!

@JassyRadlett

What is the reason gas is being phased out?

Emissions. Household heating is a huge source of CO2 emissions.

There are still debates on what the long term solution will be but in the medium term heat pumps seem to be the preferred option.

Thanks @JassyRadlett. So I wonder why in the hell phoenix gas are being allowed to dig up the whole country here in NI to install their pipes when it’s being phased out elsewhere.

Because gas boilers add up to quite a significant proportion of CO2 emissions in this country, so there's a push to replace with less polluting means of heating (like solar, air source heat pumps). That's different to burning wood though, with wood it's the particulate pollution that's a concern, as well as CO2, and gas boilers give out very little particulate pollution so in that regard they're much cleaner. We need to phase out both, both are harmful, but in different ways. Imo wood burners could go immediately, they're of no use they're just ornaments, whereas phasing out gas boilers would be much more difficult and would need a viable, reasonably priced alternative, which we don't yet really have. We have a good alternative to a wood burner already, it's called a gas boiler, if you have one of those you should stop using your wood burner immediately and just use your boiler. They may not be the best ever technology in terms of CO2 emissions, but they're a damn site better overall than woodburners.

It’s a good question! I guess because it’s needed now, and gas phase out will take many years? Gas is certainly less harmful than some other forms of heating eg oil, so it may be it’s being looked at as a transitional fuel.

@BluebellsGreenbells most radiators have valves on them which control the heat. Turn down/off the ones in the rooms you don't want to heat. You can also get smart systems to do it for you.

@MrsRobbieHart the reason is because of the government's commitment to net zero. Although it's better than oil, gas is still a fossil fuel that results in carbon dioxide emissions when burnt. After 2025 new build homes will not be built with gas boilers and at some point in the 2030s new gas boilers won't be installed in other homes (but they won't take away existing gas boilers that still work, it's for when you need a new one). Heat pumps are the main alternative but they're looking at hydrogen boilers as well.

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.

The fourth has been pretty roundly debunked, from manufacturing to CO2 and PM2.5 intensity.

Wood pellets are made from waste wood from industry (when you cut up a log, you basically lose as much as 50% of it). That waste wood would otherwise be incinerated. Turning it into pellets is obviously not a zeo-carbon process but it does make a more efficient combustible. It's a complicated equation and I would not like to be the person in charge of deciding which area gets the pollution, the incinerator in the poor area on the edge of town or the middle-class suburbs.

@Datafan55 noone should be encouraging fire pits either. If it gives out smoke when it burns, stop burning it. We should ban all unnecessary burning that gives out smoke. That's one easy way of cutting air pollution. No fire pits, no woodburners, no bonfires, no coal BBQs, no candles (although candles are arguably quite small fry compare to the others!). I think the resistance to all that is that people haven't quite woken up to just how much our lifestyles are going to have to change for environmental reasons. But it will change, either quite gradually, or with an screeching painful about turn if we fail to act quickly enough.

Thanks @JassyRadlett, @ejhhhhh and @TuftyMarmoset.

Re heating with electricity - about half of your electricity bill is made of various taxes and levies. Only half of it is the cost of electricity itself.

Electric heating can be made much cheaper by moving those taxes onto more environmentally damaging fuels. When power was generated by more coal, it made sense but now the power system is increasingly clean and will become even more so in the next decade, so it doesn't make sense to tax the consumption of it so heavily but not tax the consumption of damaging fuels like gas, oil, wood.

Those fuels cause damage that we then all pay for - in healthcare for asthma, miscarriages, dementia, all of which have been linked to higher rates of particulates exposure. And that is aside from the tragedy of early deaths like Ella Kissa-Debrah.

These externalities should be reflected in the tax treatment of those fuels.

And then electricity will be cheaper. Air source heat pumps, infrared radiators etc can also help improve the efficiency of using it for heating, not like the old fashioned electric heaters.

I agree completely OP. I used to have an open fire in my last house and wanted to fit a wood burner in this one. However we have opted not to when I find out how much they pollute your local and indoor environment. I can't wait until they are banned. My whole village absolutely stinks of wood smoke throughout winter. So much so that it can be difficult to breathe walking up my road some days when the air pressure isn't right. I dread to think what it's like for poor people with asthma and COPD etc.

Please keep spreading the word. I don't think most people understand how bad they are.

And are almost entirely fairly wealthy households.

Ah, the standard urban-centric MN bubble.

Tell that to the hundreds of thousands living in fuel poverty rurally.
Some of us can't afford the oil, or worse, bottled gas that are the only modern heating option in many remote houses.
We can lash out a tenner on a bag of coal a couple of times a week though. Or save for a £50 dumpy bag of logs from a local farmer.

Without those options, many rural houses would be literally freezing. Unless you've lived in a gaff where the back door ices over & you can only afford to heat a single room, you might not understand that.

For those "very rural" people asking about power cuts and the need for back up.

Ok, how about you are banned from using them unless the local council waives the ban for a day if you have a power cut? If there is a widespread long lasting power cut, each day the local council can issue a proclamation saying that it's ok today.

Sorted.

Still no reason for them to exist in big cities

We've just lit ours.

@ChargingBuck my question literally says "in towns and cities"

Yes, that is urban centric. It's in the headline!

People burning unsuitable wood, with too wet, not sufficiently seasoned or treated wood adds massively to the pollution.

I don't disagree but many people can't afford to heat their homes any other way. Treated wood is expensive. Smokeless fuel is expensive. Central heating, electric and oil radiators are all expensive.

People shouldn't be using woodburners if they can afford other options but many people can't. They shouldn't be penalised for being poor.

If you do the maths on it you would need to run the average wood burner for approx 730 years to match the output of a HGV

(assuming you ran the burner for 90 days per year , and the HGV had a working life of around 12-15 years)

@KeflavikAirport

The fourth has been pretty roundly debunked, from manufacturing to CO2 and PM2.5 intensity.

Wood pellets are made from waste wood from industry (when you cut up a log, you basically lose as much as 50% of it). That waste wood would otherwise be incinerated. Turning it into pellets is obviously not a zeo-carbon process but it does make a more efficient combustible. It's a complicated equation and I would not like to be the person in charge of deciding which area gets the pollution, the incinerator in the poor area on the edge of town or the middle-class suburbs.

Waste wood being incinerated onsite is better, no? Keeps particulates outside of residential areas. Makes local air quality better

Eek. DP has always coveted a log burner and we are hoping to move to an area where there are loads in the future. Massively rethinking this now. I don't want my wee ones to be surrounded by smoke constantly. Thanks for this thread, it's genuinely really useful and definitely something people need to hear. Air pollution really isn't spoken about in the same way as CO2 emissions.

Unfortunately in very cold weather air source heat pumps are not good enough to heat the house properly.
So when you need them most they may not work.

The big problem is retrospective energy proofing homes and that’s what the government should be focusing on.

@NautaOcts

I’d also be interested to know how the harm from domestic woodburners compares to that from people having bonfires to burn garden waste as I feel more impacted by that.

I think both should be banned.

In rural areas, air pollution isn't really that much of a concern. If the population burning is spread out enough, and the levels of traffic low, it's not too much of a concern. It's when particulates from wood/coal burning mix with traffic fumes that it's really harmful to health, so I've no real problem with enforcing smoke free zones in urban areas only. We already have them, but they're not enforced so they're just ignored, and the legislation needs to be tightened up to include all burning.

Wood pellets are made from waste wood from industry (when you cut up a log, you basically lose as much as 50% of it). That waste wood would otherwise be incinerated. Turning it into pellets is obviously not a zeo-carbon process but it does make a more efficient combustible. It's a complicated equation and I would not like to be the person in charge of deciding which area gets the pollution, the incinerator in the poor area on the edge of town or the middle-class suburbs.

Nitrogen oxide levels are higher in some suburban areas than city centres (certainly in London) so pollution levels are already very high there, with serious consequences for respiratory health.

@MojoMoon ^For those "very rural" people asking about power cuts and the need for back up.
Ok, how about you are banned from using them unless the local council waives the ban for a day if you have a power cut? If there is a widespread long lasting power cut, each day the local council can issue a proclamation saying that it's ok today^.

Maybe, although you'd still have to be allowed to install them, or not.
They'd have to be used occasionally to keep them working/ready for if needed.

You also have to buy fuel in advance (enough, just in case)... And then it's there rotting or simply filling a shed if it's not used.