... to be (slightly) freaking out about my woodburner?

[HappyAlley]

The Guardian is going really big on this (although we all know they have a track record of ignoring other vital concerns) & other news outlets have been reporting on this for a while. It does seem obvious that burning fuel inside a house is, in fact, very bad for you. I have a four-year-old & we've had a woodburner for 5 years, since we bought this (draughty, Victorian) house. Used a fair bit to cut down on energy bills. Two - four times a week in coldest winter; sometimes all day on weekends etc. I try not to open it loads but DP won't bloody listen; he's got that man-disease of constantly tending/fiddling with the fire for no fucking purpose whatsoever.

Your wood burner isn't going to kill you. Especially if your house is draughty; that means you've got a lot of air flow moving through.

Humans have been using fire as a heat source since literally the dawn of man. If it's worrying you though then deinstall it.

The air movement through your draughty house will reduce the impact of the particles.

Maybe ban your DH from touching it?

I’d feel the same. I really want one in our v old draughty house, it’s made for fire, but every time I get tempted and try to research options, I come upon compelling evidence that it’s not great for wee ones or asthma, both of which we have in the home.

I'm afraid they've been banned in other countries for years. I don't think it'll be long before they banned here too, even the fancy ones. Yes, of course humans have been using fire to hear for centuries. Those centuries ago humans were mostly dead by 50 because of (among other things), poor air quality.

Please do some proper research.

"Humans have been using fire as a heat source since literally the dawn of man."

Human life expectancy in the UK only climbed above 50 in the early 1900s.

Most cavepeople probably died long before the soot particles in their lungs had a chance to kill them. And even if it did, they weren't well known for keeping accurate records on cause of death.

As for wood burners, anything that pushes small particles into the air in an enclosed space is not a good idea to breathe in.

If I had small kids I would not want a woodburner.

Try to leave it shut as much as possible and only use well seasoned logs and you'll be fine.

Yes @Lockheart but human beings have been doing things since the dawn of time that have since been proved to be very very bad for them. & as PP pointed out, hunter-gatherers didn't exactly have long life expectancies. Nor did anyone up until relatively recently, historically speaking.

The 'average' life expectancy in the past is dragged down by excessively high infant mortality. The key is to survive childhood.

Agree. I always use well-seasoned logs, & I also have some fancy compressed brick-type things that burn for 8 hours (allegedly) so you don't have to open the door.

I think not using it when DD is around is a good step. She runs mega-hot anyway...

It's too late for me (have another health condition; not asthma though!) but its DD I'm worried about mainly.

@tigertaletelling what countries have they been banned in? I understood that old style stoves have been banned in Denmark but I'm not aware of any outright ban?

Making toast, frying bacon and other cooking related things all cause these particles.

I wouldn't worry too much about an eco-log burner with kiln-dried wood, in a well-ventilated house.

Trouble is, you can usually find research that most of the nice things in life are bad for you. I really like snuggling up on the sofa with cosy lighting, a nice book, a glass of wine, and the fire (open fire, in our house). But there is solid research that this delightful evening will give me haemorrhoids, a bad back, strained eyes, heart disease, and asthma. I have made an informed decision, and I choose the book!

Inform yourself about the risks inherent to pretty much every enjoyable activity, and choose which activities are important enough to your enjoyment of life for you to accept the risks.

Good point. Our oven needs cleaning. And in fact, replacing. Plumes of smoke...

Use well seasoned, dry logs, keep the door shut as much as possible (ban DH's fire fuckery!), keep your wood burner well-maintained. I grew up in a house with a huge open fire in the hall and wood burners in almost every room downstairs. They were lit all day every day in the winter. I'm 30 now - no asthma, no breathing issues. I appreciate I'm a sample of one, so not representative, but people have been using fires to warm their homes for a long time since we started documenting causes of death, and plenty of those people who heated their homes primarily with fires before central heating became more commonplace are still around today and enjoying perfectly decent health.

I wouldn't use a wood burner in an urban area, but I live rurally. Very little in the way of air pollution, and the wood burner supplements our oil heating. There are plenty of children growing up in hugely polluted cities but you don't see anything like the hand wringing about that as you do about wood burners - personally I'd be much more concerned about that.

I'd be much more worried about the fumes on busy roads. I think if you use them sensibly they are fairly harmless, also if you read the actual research the studies aren't entirely accurate anyway.

Those will be the hugely polluted cities polluted by ... you guessed it ... woodburning !

www.london.gov.uk/programmes-and-strategies/environment-and-climate-change/pollution-and-air-quality/guidance-wood-burning-london

Some extracts from this report :

"Children growing up exposed to PM2.5 are more likely to have reduced lung function and can develop asthma. Current evidence suggests there is no safe level of PM2.5."

"Domestic wood burning has become the single biggest source of small particle air pollution in the UK, exceeding that of road traffic."

"A recent report from the European Environment Bureau showed that even Euro-certified 'Eco-stoves' produce 750 times more PM2.5 per unit of energy produced than a modern HGV."

I know of bans being phased in for areas of Montreal, Western Australia, the Australian Capital Territory but no doubt there are others.

I can understand if you buy a house with one already but wouldn’t recommend actually installing one.

Solar, pump etc. with looking into if you (understandably) don’t want to be helping Shell’s profits!

As @GasPanic says.

And it’s not just respiratory concerns in children, but developmental problems linked to these particles.

Have a quick Google, it’s really upsetting.

Well I'm away to light mine!

Every house in this village has had an open fire and the vast majority still do as there's no gas here. I'm not sure there's a massively lower life expectancy, in fact last time I checked this region was pretty high up.

It pisses me off immensely when I see reports of 'middle class status symbol '. Granted, I don't know why you'd bother if you have gas central heating but for those of us without such options they are an essential part of life.

I'll trust that I'm well enough ventilated by the north sea outside and that the risks of living in a cold damp house are probably equal to this.

I'm massively torn. I've seen the research @GasPanic cites & it's hugely troubling. I don't live in an isolated rural area; nor in a big city, but somewhere inbetween. A small-ish town where woodburners & fires are popular, as I also live by the North Sea, like @Calmdown14 -- you can smell woodsmoke outside often. The house is undoubtably damp (the town flooded in the 50s) & the dangers of letting that run riot (black mould forms in the harder-to-heat rooms downstairs; the bathroom & kitchen, if I don't stay in top of it.) are probably on an equal par to wood burning. I can't afford to run the gas central heating at a level and length to combat this.

Heat your homes in whatever way is safe, affordable and practical for you. A properly maintained log burner is perfectly safe. So too are properly maintained combi boilers, storage heaters, oil radiators etc.

If they are in the countryside and you are old then much less of an issue.

To me anyway.

But in cities where you don't actually need them because mains gas is available - no way should they be allowed.

We've spend years curbing traffic emissions only to wreck the air quality again with wood burning.

About ten years ago friends who were concerned about climate change removed their gas boiler and replaced it with one that burnt wood pellets as wood isn’t a fossil fuel. Now we are being told burning wood is bad for the environment as well. I’m slightly concerned that this might be a case of diverting our attention away from the harm done by fossil fuels. Modern wood burners are supposed to reduce emissions and must be better than open fires, so why all the hate? Is it because it’s easier to ban wood burning stoves than it is to tell people to drive less/ fly less/ consume less/ have fewer kids?

I’m similarly sceptical about newspaper articles pushing Veganism as the answer to climate change. If we just got rid of farm animals we’d be fine.

Just get an airpurifer. We have a Blueair. Ours kicks in when we have the stove open to light it. Interestingly it kicks when we are cooking even though it is in a different room. The VOC levels are higher with cooking.

No it really isn't safe! You cannot just declare something "perfectly safe" just because you believe it to be!