Or does every small town stink of smoke?

[Flamingnuisance]

I drive for a living and I have noticed that as I enter smallish towns and villages the smell of wood smoke hits me and when I exit the vehicle I then stink of bonfire. It’s not bonfire it’s wood burners in peoples homes. When did people think it was a good idea to go back to the old days of smog and smoke? What’s it doing to our health and our children? It’s getting worse now with the energy crisis but these things are thousands to install and when do you even recoup the money? I just don’t get it. And yes I think it’s mighty selfish to use one. And these people act like they give a shit about the environment.

🤣

The government could help prevent this no end if the will was there. The increase in the price of gas is in part due to external factors (the other part being Brexit). But if they delinked the price of electricity from the price of gas (which is no longer necessary as gas fired power stations now generate a much smaller % of our electricity) then electricity could come down in price and electric heating would be more economical.

If they encouraged the energy companies to offer smart time of use tariffs and compete by offering new and original products rather than just a race to the bottom on fixed price deals this would help houses without gas to heat affordably with electricity which is less polluting than fossil fuel.

There is a definite increase in people buying log burners due to the cost of gas. We have two and use seasoned wood purchased from a local farmer. We have said people really should have a "lesson" on how to get the most out of their log burners when installed they is a definite art to running them and maintaining them. We have friends who didn't think their chimney needed sweeping every year and who tried to/have burned unsuitable trees as they didn't know they shouldn't. Folk burning pallets/green wood simply won't get the benefit of heat but perhaps may not realise why.

@JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon but the wood we use is free...
and yes, far more work and hassle. But free.

I've got a woodburner. It was in the house when we bought it, and as we have no access to gas here we kept it. We do have central heating but it's an oil fuel supply and that's really expensive so we've been using the woodburner more. Especially now it is minus-whatever degrees and 4 ins of snow on the ground.
The thing about woodburners is, if you use properly dried wood they burn really well, and heat the house. Wet wood, or unseasoned wood with all the sap still in it, burns sullenly if it burns at all, it produces lots of smoke and not much heat.
It does cost money to keep one functioning properly, but it's still cheaper than using the heating oil. It's also very useful when we get snow as we save the ashes for spreading on the paths instead of grit/salt.
I would like to invest in a greener form of energy but we don't have the capital to do so, nor can we save anything for that with prices for everything so high.

Wet wood burns really well in our woodburner and throws out plenty of heat. We do occasionally use unseasoned wood if we find the odd branch or two.

So why did you get a quote for a heat pump? That suggested that you were considering alternatives, that was why I made the suggestion.

Great that you have free wood though.

@ButEmilylovedhim (love your user name!!)

I'm sorry to hear that, it must have been terrifying and it's no wonder you're finding it triggering this year. Has the issue that caused the arson been sorted out?

I hope that by next winter you're able to relax a bit more!

@Flamingnuisance

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

There are far more productive ways to try to get laws changed than spamming MN with your constant nonsense threads.

& yes flamingnuisance suits you.

@Flamingnuisance

There is another issue you have to contend with.

I've had a quote for a heat exchanger - £16,000 - so I'm saving for when our boiler dies. It's in the plan.

But the heating engineer recommended heat exchanger PLUS log burner, until I pointed out that we already have one.

His reasoning was a heat exchanger could provide sufficient background heat for 90% of the year but will be insufficient for seriously cold weather, and will need a booster such as a log burner. They don't use fossil fuel so as long as the wood source is local, they count as net zero.

I can understand that visceral hatred of smoke smell, as we had a house fire many years ago and it still has a Pavlovian effect on me now - I feel queasy when I smell woodsmoke and bonfires!

Unfortunately, many of my neighbours have either wood burners or original open fires in their homes (also small town). And they are now using them far more often as they can't afford to stick the heating on as much. I can't hang washing out without it smelling like a bonfire. It's a Clean Air Zone here but nobody appears to care at all.

The issue that caused the arson? Do you mean the arsonist?

Not so much wood smoke, more weed where I live :(

i agree, i hate it and my lungs are awful at the moment as its cold with no wind to carry away the particles...i live in a city in a very "naice" area full of midle-class people who've installed woodburners as well as either owning diesel 4x4's or (at least environmentaly better) electric cars....the only excuse for burning wood is poverty and that's certainly not the case in my area. People seem gleefully ignorant about the pollution generated by burning wood.

Luckily I don’t live in a small town but on the edge of a village so I’m not annoying people.
Our house is draughty and rattly. I can’t afford to have the heating on so I light the fire in the evenings.
I work for a tree surgeon so wood is the obvious choice of fuel.

Those who moan about wood burners should be supporting fracking. If gas is cheaper than logs then people will use it.

That should cover us until we have enough nuclear to provide power on foggy still days when renewables show their main weakness.

I agree. Because our fireplace is old, I would only ever use seasoned. However, the wood I use was £110 per bag last year and is now £148 per bag this year. I used 3-5 bags a year, weather depending. I am lucky enough to know that the wood from the company I use has travelled about a mile and the trees are always being replaced.

But- you can buy a bag of unseasoned in our area for £70. So- as the cost of living crisis hits even harder, you know that more people will be making different choices. Coal is now £14 per bag. It used to be £8. (Again, we can't use coal but our local shop sells it.)

There isn't the gas to frack in the UK safely and economically and even if there was, just like NS gas and oil, it would be sold back to us at european/global rates.

These are private industries, not state ones, unlike in other countries.

Not a new phenomenon. I’m 52 and have had an open fire or wood burner all my life. In fact I have 2 in my current house. I can have the gas central heating on all day and it will only just get the room as warm as when the log burner has been on for an hour!

There is nothing to stop a state owned company fracking the gas now we are out of the EU.

There is plenty of gas to frack in the UK mainly due to the massive coal reserves we are not using.

It’s debatable whether they are good for the environment or not. In carbon terms many debate they are net zero. In particulate terms they can cause an issue for human health. But then also an unheated home causes issues for human health.

Everyone’s just getting on doing the best they can. I don’t think this winter of discontent is the one we should really be complaining about people trying everything they can to keep warm.

What has in or out of EU got to do with it?

France has always had a mainly nationalised nuclear power industry and is now fully nationalised, Norway is in SM and has a part nationalised oil/gas industry and taxes profits far higher than UK.

Germany has controlling shares in many industries to stop them being sold off to foreign buyers.

UK Govt chose to sell off and not support British industry, not just Tory either, its what we do :(

As i understand it, UK can't frack due to its dense population, the specific geology, the pollution element and Tory MPs don't want it.

All a bit off topic though.