Log burner safe?

[Bobbingcat]

Linked to recent thread on here- are log burners safe? Does anyone use an air purifier with theirs?

@GasPanic the one you’ve linked to via the guardian article.
in fact non of the studies are studying solely wood burners - they lump them in with open fires, coal fires, pellet burners, back boilers and gas fires. Nor do they specifically test solely wood - again they limp wood burning in with pellets, coal, smokeless fuels, anthracite and gas. Not good science at all.
Not one study bothers with the health outcomes of not having any heating either. For many of us it is use a type of fire or have zero heating, because either their is no alternative or the alternative is prohibitively expensive.
These studies are as worthless as those linking vaccines to autism etc.

Anecdotal I'm afraid, not published as far as I'm aware.

www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/indoor-wood-stoves-release-harmful-emissions-our-homes-study-finds is interesting. UCL also studies particulate matter pollution.

I'm pretty sure the studies are imperfect. They always are. Whether that means they are wrong about the effect of wood burning stoves is another issue.

In the past we had the great london "pea soupers" which were responsible for the Clean Air Act where we moved away from smokey fuels. It seems like with the rise of wood burning stoves we are going back 70 years.

We're banning coal and wet wood use, and trying to reduce car emissions with ultra low emission zones.

Allowing the continued use of wood burning stoves, especially in cities seems a bit disjointed. Why allow one significant polluting mechanism but not allow others ? Do we really want clean air or not ? If so we need to tackle all the sources of pollutants.

Clean air doesn't affect me much personally where I live and because I am in good health, but it costs people with health problems and the health service a great deal (see the BMJ article). If we are serious about improving air quality, especially in cities IMO we need to ban all smokey fuels.

As regards whether people want high levels of particulates in their living rooms, that is up to them I guess.

We have two. I'd like to replace the older one as it is dustier than the newer one. I'd go for the highest graded one. Our new one burns really clean and leaves hardly any ash. We only burn kiln dried wood.

In the past we had the great london "pea soupers" which were responsible for the Clean Air Act where we moved away from smokey fuels. It seems like with the rise of wood burning stoves we are going back 70 years.

As I'm not in London, I'm not particularly concerned.

I never did understand why anyone living in a city needed one in the first place though.

I've just seen an article about this. New regulations were introduced in 2022. And also there are other things you can burn other than wood: wood pellets, coffee logs (they don't smell like coffee), grape ecology. These are from byproducts of other industries and burn cleaner than logs.
And @DdraigGoch I live in London and I love my (gas) fire! Totally willing to spend the £2/day it costs to run these days. Really adds to the atmosphere of the room. I used to have two log burners when I lived in a larger detached house and at least one was lit most winter evenings.

I would have thought it is pretty self evident that a log burner is going to increase the amount of particulates in the space that it is used in.

But not in the living room due to the way the chimney works.
Anyone would think it's pumping out smoke into the room by the way people are talking on this thread.
You don't ever smell smoke in the room with them.

You wouldn't want a diesel car idling in your lounge, so why would you want a wood burning stove?

Because it means we can heat our home for free.

Fair enough - that's a good reason !

I don't sit in judgement on people who choose to use them - that's their choice. I'm pretty sure people wouldn't stop using them because of anything I said.

It's the hypocrisy of using them and then insisting that they don't have any unpleasant environmental consequences I take issue with.

This.

I just had mine swept today actually. I'm always slightly disappointed to see his hoover and not a magic brush. 😉

I mean, do we have anything that produces energy (heat, movement) that doesn't have an unpleasant environmental consequence? My gas boiler, my cooker, my car, my wood burner, the planes I holiday on... All frankly catastrophic for the environment. Having children is probably the worse thing I ever did, environmentally speaking.

It's very hard for us to live a zero impact life. Out of all of the things I do that have environment consequences burning locally sourced, properly seasoned wood is not weighing heavy I have to say

Well wind power is not anywhere near as bad, neither is solar, even if you take into account the building consequences.

Of the fossil fuels gas is about the best, because it burns cleanly, doesn't emit as much CO2 or nasty chemicals/particulates.

A lot of people in rural areas don't get gas - I don't know how gas stacks up against oil and oil against wood - I'd guess oil is better than wood - but I see why they might choose to use wood because there are less alternatives and because there is less concentration in the environment pollution.

But in cities where you have alternatives like gas then I think it is a lot harder to justify, especially since the more people do it the more it will wreck the air quality. The government will probably do something about it sooner or later.

If you can't go completely green, then choosing the least polluting alternative is for me the best option. In the countryside that may be wood, but in the cities it's gas.

Never in a million years would I bother with a stove if I had gas.
I live in the sticks with no main gas and frequent power cuts. A stove makes sense here but I am looking forward to moving next year to civilisation and a gas fire.

That's just the first article on google. There are countless ones and other research. Health organisations warn against them. Anyone can read the advice for themselves.

I'm sure if I looked hard enough I'd find something that discredited smoking being a risk.

I think people get on the defensive and try to convince themselves they aren't a risk because they can't cope with the idea they've exposed their children to something dangerous. But the weight of the evidence is against them I'm afraid. I'm certain this will turn out similar to asbestos in years to come.

We love ours
Life is a risk and using our log burner is a risk we are ok with

@GasPanic particulates do not come into a room from a log burner in any harmful amounts, in fact the studies show that using a gas job or cooker releases far more pollutants than a log burner does - even when briefly opened for refuelling. But no one here is calling for gas hobs and ovens to be immediately banned or replaced. Even electric isn’t the clean fuel everyone seems to want believe it is - not even solar or wind power is clean, it’s just not in your back yard. The persons back yard it is in just can’t shout louder than anyone else.
Studies do not show the consequences of people not having a heat source on their health and economic output. When they do, then an proper discussion can be made for whether it better to outright ban them or not.
Everything in life has a risk - even drinking supposedly clean water has a risk, (but people seem happy to do so even with the risk of drinking small plastic particulates) however these risks need to be taken with a balanced view and not blown out of all proportion.
At the end of the day, it will be exactly the same for me hose of us with fires as it is with those that have 4x4 cars - when the power and heat go off, we will become everyone’s best friend for warmth and hot food and drinks; just as those 4x4 owners are everyone’s best friend during snow and icy periods, yet vilified in nice weather.

Of course it’s safe, but you’ll have all these crazy eco people telling you otherwise. Just ignore them.

If your fire is a gas one then it's not really what I was getting at. I can understand why people in cities might want the effect of a fire burning in the living room as a supplement to their central heating (there are some quite convincing gas/electric ones these days). I can't see though why people in cities (crowded places with precious little fresh air at the best of times) need real wood fires. It's not exactly off-grid living, is it?

In terms of GHGs, if you must burn something then wood has the least impact. This is because a sustainable forestry will replant the tree which captures carbon as it grows and gets chopped down itself to return to the atmosphere. It's a closed-loop system at least where CO2 is concerned, wood is a renewable resource.

Gas may well emit fewer particulates (I wouldn't be too sure about oil) but you're never getting that carbon back into the ground. It is therefore a trade off between air quality and GHG emissions.

In cities, the answer will eventually mean moving away from natural gas too. I think that the government is pinning its hopes on hydrogen. Trouble at the moment is that in order to cleanly extract hydrogen you need plentiful sources of clean electricity. We don't have that, we're heavily reliant upon burning fossil fuels and even then there are blackouts threatened. If the government built up a good baseload of nuclear power stations (renewables aren't realistically going to be enough to supply the UK's demands unless long-distance electricity transmission becomes viable, then concentrated solar thermal power stations in North Africa may be the solution) then hydrogen production could help soak up excess generation.

I love mine - winter is miserable, depressing and joyless without a fire. A good blaze is so atmospheric and does wonders to lift the spirits! I’m even more glad we have one now that energy bills are rising so dramatically - it makes the house so warm and toasty.

Yes, us crazy eco people with all the scientific data that set out the risks and harm of the particulates these fires spew out that people like you choose to ignore.

FFS. What an ignorant, prejudiced comment.

What data do you have? I'd like to read it.

We have one. Husband loves it, I absolutely hate it. It makes the house stink and ash comes billowing out coating everything whenever you open the door. Dreading it getting cold and the rest of the family getting excited about using the booody thing.

Sounds like the seal is buggered. When was the last time any maintenance was done on it?

I find that opening the door an inch, waiting a second for the draught to enter and then opening it the rest of the way prevents this happening.