To think this woman is a patronising arse

[jennakong]

twitter.com/MusicalLottie/status/1582199505185034241
I don't know if this will copy and paste or not, but it's about a woman from today's Daily Telegraph boasting about her ability to live without central heating.

She's got a massive woodburner in the living room. So she's basically wintering as people did in this country until c. the 1980s. One room warm and the rest like a fridge.

Except most people don't have this relative luxury. All council property where I live has had the fireplace removed, no new builds have one. Open fires and woodburners tend to be reserved for the wealthy.

Please tell me we aren't going to be inundated with this garbage until next spring?

Wood burners are terrible for the environment.

It's designed to be hate-shared. The Telegraph is famous for it, particularly with "how I bought a house at 25" articles and in the last paragraph it says they got lots of inheritence. The paper knows how this stuff goes viral.

Read this thread too.. twitter.com/meemalee/status/1582286027087314946

If she has a wood burner then she has heating. I used to have one in my old house. I also had central heating but it didn't come on when I was using the wood burner because it wasn't necessary.

I know they are dreadful for the environment, coal fires too obv., but I just don't understand why the govt isn't hounding the hell out of private home-owners with one. Same with frequent fliers, highly unlikely to be the poor. A pretty egregious case of the rich getting the pleasure and the poor getting the blame, or the bill.

but I just don't understand why the govt isn't hounding the hell out of private home-owners with one.

You do realise that many poorer people, especially those living rurally where there is very little piped in gas, have coal fires or wood-burners? Are you seriously suggesting that they should be hounded into getting rid of them? What do you suggest they then do for heating?

Well it's a totally goady article.

But out in the wilds of the north Pennines (county Durham - cheapest housing in the country land) lots of people still have their solid fuel ranges because they couldn't afford to remove them or install central heating.

We don't have mains gas, we do have fairly frequent winter power cuts as the lines go down due to snow/wind.
Oil is £££ compared to ovoids/filched wood so everyone I know will be burning everything and anything to keep warm and cook on this winter.

Not everyone using solid fuel/wood is a rich arse.

Our neighbours across the way have one. They collect all and any spare wood that's lying around including preservative-soaked old fence panels and goodness knows what else. The smoke from their chimney is appalling and stinks to high heaven. They have been reported to the council (twice) and guess what - on both occasions the council officer came out to investigate the problem during the day when the culprits weren't at home, so nothing to observe.

Even the dog is looking at her as if to say "Girl....who you kidding"

We have a multi fuel stove, we burn smokeless coal. I'd love mains gas but there is none in this village, we're too far from the road to get oil deliveries and storage heaters are shit and very expensive so we don't have any other options.

To be honest, I thought this was about me when I read the title. I really am a patronising arse

Same here, mjlti fuel burner, no gas and own woodland so free logs, I'll burn what I want to keep warm.

I agree with @LizzieSiddal. I live very rurally, in a cottage, and have a wood burner, which is likely to be our only affordable source of heating this winter. We use seasoned logs rather than random scraps of wood. I don't feel I should be "hounded the hell out of" and also interested in what alternative the OP intends to suggest other then me freezing to death.

Unfortunately the woodburner comment has rather detracted from the original point. She clearly is patronising (or at best rather dim) as she clearly has heating.

My boiler died in the middle of the Beast form the East, took a week to be replaced and I was so moody. Hated being bloody freezing, tepid baths, boiling the kettle 58times to get 2 inches of water. I’m glad the woman in the article is happy but she can piss off

We've got a wood burner (no gas in this village) and we use our own seasoned wood from our trees in it. Not that we've lit them yet, it's still not cold enough in the evening so fleecy throws on the sofa are doing the trick.

Can't wait for her next article on how she only spends £5 on fuel for her car a month (bought an electric vehicle for £30,000).

👏👏👏

What hounding did you want?
Make it illegal (do you want fines or imprisonment as punishment)? Daily inspections? forced removal of all equipment, ban on new installations, only allowed to burn stuff from licensed providers?

My MIL didn't have central heating, just a gas fire in each of the two rooms downstairs. She was also mid terrace so heat loss / gain worked a little in her favour.

It did however mean that her last night at home she was lying on her bedroom floor in the freezing cold after she fell.

Wood burners if used correctly are not at all dreadful for the environment. However you have to know how to use a wood burner, check the moisture of the wood etc. and using the correct type of wood. Hard wood like oak or Ash is by far the best.

I don't believe in 'hounding' anybody. I just don't understand why there is such a heavy handed approach on one hand, why council tenants are forced to use gas oir oil ,and yet a very light touch with other things. Just seems weird and quite classist.

My house is ex-council owned and the fireplace has been boarded up, plastered over and probably blocked internally too with concrete, and the estate is a smokeless zone so I would be fined even if I installed a woodburner. Yet if I bought a house in a posh area I could burn a fire all winter long with no consequences.

I am a tenant (private), I live rurally and have a wood burner, I have the flue swept regularly and burn only well seasoned/kiln dried wood, it is a modern wood burner and I am assured it is as clean as it can be. We have no gas here and are reliant on other ways of heating the house. I am certainly not middle class or wealthy.

Up here there was an uproar because the council were trying to remove all the coal fires in their properties. I think the plans got shelved because of fears about power cuts (not uncommon in our area during winter) and also the cost of alternative heating for tenants.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-59998090.amp

Yes, rural is different, obv you're not on a main gas line. Same in Northern Ireland, most rural dwellers are fires and oil. Not quite as harmful out in the sticks, as lower density of population and less build up of fumes, etc. I am really not knocking rural dwellers or suggesting they freeze to death. Just don't understand why it's not a uniform smokefree policy in urban areas.

@jennakong
A smokeless zone just means you burn smokeless coal or use a clean burn woodburner.
So actually you could have a woodburner.

However the cost of logs in the uk is prohibitive compared to France where I pay €65 a cubic metre.