... 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.

The standing charge cap is £0.28 per day.

Assuming you could get a woodburner installed for £2k, which seems at the lower end of what costs are involved, it would take you (2000/0.28)/365=19.6 years to recover the cost of the standing charge.

Unfortunately the wood burning stove often turns into the "any stuff that I can find to put in it and burn" stove.

Get a number of these concentrated in one place and it's not nice.

This is why I think a city/town ban is necessary.

GasPanic our gas standing charge is £7.50 a month. So £90 per year.
We've had a quote for a defra accredited wood burner for £1000 so even without inflation 11 years and we break even. Taking inflation into account it'll be less. Wood is cheaper than gas so there's a saving there as well. We have family with woodland so can source and season our own if necessary.

A wood burner puts us in charge of how much we spend. The standing charge for us is currently a tax for being connected to the network.

We have a big very coldrural house and a couple of woodburners,
My advice;
get a log damp meter ( £20 amazon)
Test all logs , they must be below 20% moisture ideally 15%.
Light fast and fiercely with firelighters and don't let it smoulder away, particularly on lighting. Ensure door seals are good.
Open the door as little as possible, STOP DH show him evidence of particulates on health.

I invested in a freestanding filter which shows particulate matter and other pollutants. It was expensive and bulky but I saw it as essential.
It is incredible to see it ratchet up to danger level if you are not careful when lighting the fire, and to see it go to green when you run the fire correctly...It does teach you how to manage a woodburner well.
It also goes red when cooking!

Unfortunately the wood burning stove often turns into the "any stuff that I can find to put in it and burn" stove.

if you are going down this route of thought, then outdoor fires should be banned, along with the purchase and use of knives, guns, all painkillers, all automobiles, all sharp implements, glass bottles, all convenience foods/sweets/cake etc - basically anything any human can turn into something with the potential to harm another human.

Probably not unreasonable to have an outdoor fires requiring a licence in smoke free zones. In fact there are already rules concerning it :

www.gov.uk/garden-bonfires-rules

Fires are generally a public nuisance. You'd get arrested if you drove a car down the road continually pumping out black smoke, so why should you be allowed to do it in your own garden and pollute public air ? Completely unnecessary.

About other things, no, because those other things have much greater utility or less public danger. Burning fires outdoors generally has little utility beyond disposing of rubbish that the owner can't be bothered to by more socially considerate means. Simply whataboutism and poor argument. You don't decide not to ban asbestos because some people decide they want to smoke cigarettes.

I am in a City. We are already not allowed to have outdoor fires. Woodburners though seem common.

Including those pesky foam letters that kids play with in the bath.

Next door's cat swallowed one and almost died!!!!!!!!!

??? Might help if this had some kind of sense to it… but that seems to have gone out of the window on the wood burner front.
but if you want the whys and benefits of wood burners - they are cheap to use, they are a green and sustainable fuel source, they can be used in circumstances where other heating/cooking sources are unavailable (yes even in the uk). They are easy to use and maintain even by a competent diy person. They warm a home and keep it free from mould and damp, they stop people getting I’ll from diseases/illness associated with living in cold, damp, mouldy homes and able to eat hot food. Plus all the mental benefits of being fed and warm. They have far more benefits than just looking pretty.
When the scientists admit that their research data is flawed and therefore so are their reports and that a lot more detailed analysis and data collection needs to be done - then we should listen to them. After all why listen solely to their original findings but not to their subsequent findings and recommendations? Because it doesn’t make sensationalist headlines…

@DdraigGoch it's completely bonkers and should definitely be banned! Really, there is zero legitimate reason for anyone to burn anything solid within the ULEZ that I can think of. It's just selfish.

Would be so easy to stop it too (slow, but easy): make it impossible to get an EPC if there's a woodburner installed.

Sadly, I do think this ban also needs to extend to wood-fired pizza ovens; although barbecues are just as problematic, they at least are used for very few hours/year.

@WickedSerious exactly. 🤣

It was an 'X',the most dangerous letter of them all.

As in nearly an x-cat… (I’ll get my coat, if you kick the door shut behind me!)

Consider it shut.

Stay safe out there.

Meow!

Which countries?

You'd have to eat a shitload of toast for your toaster to be running as the same intensity and duration as a log burner.

Making toast takes about 3 minutes and most people do not do it more than once a day. No one puts a woodburner on for 3 minues a day.

Get a carbon monoxide alarm. You should have one anyway if you’ve got a log burner! We have 2 in the house.

You'd get arrested if you drove a car down the road continually pumping out black smoke,

Not in rural Norfolk. <shrug>

Are you all f#ing idiots? The air pollution that makes people ill is not inside your home it's outside. That's what chimneys are for, the smoke goes outside. If enough smoke accumulates and mixes with other even worse gases in cities where it can't dissipate fast it can cause health issues. If you research it car exhaust fumes are far more dangerous.

If you're cold light the fire. If you're worried about the earth dying then don't but I can assure you the human race wouldn't have survived long if they couldn't tolerate fires nearby.

I'm sorry but this had been known about for years, even before it became bizarrely fashionable to have them installed. It's most dangerous to children in the womb, ad the chemicals that enter your bloodstream freely as particulate matter in the air poison babies as they develop and cause neurological conditions. It also had a detrimental effect om the lungs of everyone living nearby. What a lot of people don't appreciate about lu ng damage is It's permanent, once small areas of your lungs become damaged they never recover and it spreads over time as more of the stench is breathed in.

They do have proper regulation you ignoramus. Shit loads of it. Mostly in cities because in rural areas it can often be only source for heat and hot water

YANBU @HappyAlley