HIGHLIGHTING DANGER OF WOODBURNERS

[GlassHouseBlue]

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) -
essentially tiny particles of soot - is one
of the most dangerous air pollutants.
Breathing it in is linked to lung cancer,
heart damage, strokes, impaired cognition
and mental health problems, and can
exacerbate conditions such as asthma,
COPD and pulmonary fibrosis. Children
and elderly people are most vulnerable

You re showing how out of touch you are.

A friend of mine rents a 2 bed property with all electric heating, her electricity bill was over £300 a month, she cannot afford this, so goes cold but due to the standing charge, even cutting back isn't such a cost saving.

Meanwhile Greg Jackson is well on his way to being a billionaire!!!

Ofgem have today upped the price yet again, with further tensions in Ukraine, prices will continue to increase.

As i said, which you ignored, the issue isn't woodburners its astronomical energy prices, despite the UK producing over 50% of its electricity via renewables.

Fix that and people wont be so inclined to use woodburners but they wont do that & they'll continue to blame stoves, the Govt hates them because they cannot tax wood, thats the real reason to try and restrict them with these scare stories.

Perhaps she needs some advice on how best to use her heating? 300 pcm is a lot, even for all electric.

Stoves come in different designs and qualities! Modern ones are designed to be far less polluting than open fires and older wood burners. I used to have an open fire, we burned smokeless coal instead (clean air area)

Ah bless

You are out of touch!

Ah bless, I'm not.
I live in an all electric house, with limited insulation (we have all we can get), in one of the coldest regions of the UK.
As I said, maybe she needs to look at how she uses them.

I bought a log burner and an air quality monitor.

When I have the burner on the PM2.5 and overall AQI jumps by around 1% - 3% - about the same as when I run the hoover around

Compare that to when I'm cooking, making toast, etc - the PM2.5 and AQI jump through the roof to the maximum on the air quality monitor.

If you want a burner, buy a good quality, clear skies 5 burner and only burn wood that has less than 20% moisture content.

The difference in pollution levels between a modern burner and an open fire is vast.

I'd be more worried about cooking!

Have you measured the air quality outside your house? Whilst modern wood burners might be better for air quality in the house when you go out in the evening now the air often smells strongly of wood smoke. So I'd be interested to know whether the air that comes out of the chimney from modern wood burners is any cleaner ? I assume not as you can't change the chemical reactions from fire. It's just modern wood burners are better at the smoke going up the chimney instead of into your house?
So people with asthma etc may really struggle going outside when there are lots of wood burners on.

I live on a busy road 4 miles away from one of the largest incinerators in northern Europe. The log burner is the least of my worries.

Big difference between you (who I agree needs an alternative source of heating) and my downstairs neighbour who lives in a flat in central London and has a log burner because it looks pretty. Whilst polluting the air all around for the rest of us.

It’s not environmentally sound. Not everything we do can be, but if you live in a city it’s antisocial to burn wood every day (and likely illegal unless you have an exempt model, but the council doesn’t police it).

I am literally sitting here risking my life! Stove on, coffee and toast. It's a wonder I'm still breathing. The fumes from the toaster, aka toast smell, must be a factor in my deterioration 🤔

And I'm off to drive my car in 30 minutes, as I desperately try to cling to what remains of my life. I promise I won't idle it though 😊
Past childbearing age so no Alaskan foetus to poison either.

So the baseline appears to be 6 or 7% in the UK. Not huge but still not great starting odds.

Of these, the vast vast majority are due to smoking. I'd like to see the lifetime lung cancer risk for just non-smokers.

My main question is, is using waste wood from forestry (up to 50% of a tree gets lost in sawmills, IIRC) better converted into pellets for home / district heating or being incinerated in a waste plant?

Great question.

Have you measured the air quality outside your house? Whilst modern wood burners might be better for air quality in the house when you go out in the evening now the air often smells strongly of wood smoke. So I'd be interested to know whether the air that comes out of the chimney from modern wood burners is any cleaner ? I assume not as you can't change the chemical reactions from fire.

Modern wood burners have ratings to show the difference in eco-friendliness. This is measured by their rate of emission of particulate, exactly what we’re discussing here. An ‘eco elite’ rating means a stove has less than a third of the particulate emissions than one that is ‘eco design’. These designations were created by the EU and yes, improved designs mean they burn hotter (thus more of the bits that used to become ash and soot are now burnt up) and therefore produce fewer particulates. An open fire can produce 300 times the particulates of an eco stove. Modern stoves burn so cleanly that the ash only needs emptied every couple of months, a huge improvement on the coal fire I grew up with where you had to clean out the ash every day.

That may be right, but I think the point is that for smokers and non-smokers alike, exposure to woodsmoke increases your risk by a meaningful amount. However I’m definitely not a scientist and am happy to admit it if I’ve misunderstood the report and am wrong (in contrast with many others on here…)

The vast, vast majority of lung cancers are caused by smoking - if you don't smoke or work in a high-risk job, the chances of you developing lung cancer are generally pretty small. So yes, a 40% increase in risk sounds really scary, but when your chances were less than 1% to begin with, it's nowhere near as bad as it first sounds, if that makes sense.

I know people like to cite improvements in modern stoves but the levels of pm 2.5 are still well above who recommendations for fine particulate pollution .( source :https://eeb.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Where-theres-fire-theres-smoke_domestic-heating-study_2021.pdf)

To add, there's also a balance to be had - if the options are "use a woodburner to heat your home" or "no heating and sit in a damp, mouldy house" then obviously the former is the better option, even if it does come with risks.

If you're just using it for the "aesthetic" but can easily afford to put the heating on, then you could argue that it's an unnecessary risk.

We have a woodburner as we live rurally and get powercuts in winter and it's been an absolute lifesaver in the past, but on a day-to-day basis we don't use it as it's (IMO) a hassle and I'd rather use the heating or put the electric blanket on, but I appreciate we're fortunate to be able to make that choice financially.

The president of COP is a climate denier and CEO of one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world.

Enough said.

I find it hard to get wound up about 1m UK woodburners, which are on a scale of being more to less polluting, and are likely only used for a portion of the year.

Let’s focus on the proportionally minuscule problem whilst Rome burns.

Only if you're buying it. There's loads of free wood if you look for it.

I have a two bed, am all electric and my bill is £175 a month. Have only had the heating on starting this week for 1 hour in the evening. So whilst it's a bit much, it's not much if you take on board keeping the heating on for longer, earlier etc. The energy prices are ridiculous and if I had the right to get a wood burner I'd do it like a shot.

This country needs to have a real conversation around energy prices and their sustainability. Current prices are not sustainable and we need more nuclear. I can see people going back to how it was in the 70s, buying a gas cylinder or a wood burner for one room only and no heating elsewhere in the house. No use blaming joe public for trying to keep themselves healthy, warm and well in the short term rather than freeze through poverty. I am sick of governments and the wealthy putting the total responsibility and blame for everything going wrong with the environment on the plebs.

That may be right, but I think the point is that for smokers and non-smokers alike, exposure to woodsmoke increases your risk by a meaningful amount.

If the lifetime risk of lung cancer is extremely low for non-smokers then that 70% won't be a very meaningful amount though.

@DysonSphere the average cost of a modern wood burner plus installation is apparently around £3000….. it’s not the poor who are buying them! Those of us who can afford cleaner options should be making those choices, not expecting those in fuel poverty to make them ( as will be coming down the line as the govt expects us all to move to non gas boilers or heat pumps as of the 2030’s!)

https://urbanhealth.org.uk/insights/reports/wood-burning-is-more-expensive-than-central-heating

The lifetime risk of lung cancer is 7% and 8% of these cases are estimated to be caused by air pollution.

www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/statistics-by-cancer-type/lung-cancer/risk-factors

An interesting comparison is breast cancer and hrt with a 10% lifetime risk for women with just 0.38% of these cases estimated to be caused by HRT.