Wood smoke making kids ill

[Sallybun]

I live in a smoke free zone in a popular tourist city. Over the past year the popularity of wood burning stoves has gone insane. So much so that our entire house is now filled with acrid wood smoke every evening. My throat stings it’s so intense and both my children have had constant coughs.

Not so much an AIBU but what can be done about it? The council don’t regulate it and neither do my neighbours - otherwise they wouldn’t have got wood burners in the first place! They burn from 4pm through to 10pm ish and we can’t seal up our windows as we need some air to breathe! Feeling desperate.

*the council doesn’t regulate it and my neighbours don’t care (that was meant to say)

I dont believe your house is being affected by other people’s wood smoke stoves..:

There must be something seriously wrong if smoke is entering your house in this way.
is it coming down your own chimney?
is there a neighbour with a leaking flue, or illegally low on their roof?

I have severe lung issues and smoke makes me feel like my lungs are burning even if it’s just mild, all the houses round here were has central heating but over the last few years wood burners have become popular and it absolutely does impact my chest.

Certain family members used to not believe me and would say there’s no way I can smell the smoke inside my house. Saying that though, they also didn’t believe I was sick for years and thought my throat clearing was me being passive aggressive, it’s only now that I cough up blood frequently they believe me. My husband now can smell the smoke inside the house but that’s only because a lot more neighbours have them, he also told me I was imagining it when only one or two neighbours had them.

There’s not really anything you can do about it but wanted to say I believe you and believe that it affects the health.

edited to add, my house isn’t filled with actual smoke, the smell of it comes inside though. That’s what I thought op meant.

It sounds like your neighbours can't manage their fires well.

we can’t seal up our windows as we need some air to breathe!

Well, you do need to keep your windows closed and locked. Your house will still have a bit of air exchange, you're not going to suffocate keeping your windows closed. Here in the winter, a lot of people do seal up their homes with plastic sealed over windows.

We get a lot of high particulate days and we've had some high smoke days from far off fires. I use HEPA air purifiers. They make a big difference. You can buy filters specifically for smoke removal but I found the regular ones did fine. Just buy the right size for the room.

YANBU. It’s really selfish behaviour. I get that they’re lovely and cosy but the impact on air pollution is terrible.

I would complain to the council constantly until something happens.

As a PP said, the best solution is probably a HEPA filter.

If they are using damp wood it can smoke a lot, only one of my neighbours appears to have one and if he uses damp wood which is not often the smell is bad and it does get in if the windows are open.

We live on the upper part of a hill and the smoke comes up the hill and into our house. It’s fairly steep so the adjacent neighbour’s chimney is very close to my children’s bedroom windows.

They burn all sorts of rubbish wood, not the seasoned stuff they’re meant to because no one regulates it. A few of the neighbours have had building work done and I’ve seen them taking builder’s offcuts off the skips to burn.

I think we’re going to have to buy an air filter, it just makes me sad that it’s us having to pay out for other people’s selfishness.

Sounds like they burn anything. That’s really bad. I know someone that does that inc wood with paint on

"I think we’re going to have to buy an air filter, it just makes me sad that it’s us having to pay out for other people’s selfishness."
Yet you expect others to pay for treated wood instead of the offcuts they're getting for free..?

We have a similar problem but also with the neighbour's pot smoke. They sit outside every night in their shelter, whatever the weather. The only time I can't smell it is when the wind blows it away from us.

I open our windows to air the house every morning but they're closed by midday. I can't understand how it gets in but it does.

Can you close your windows in the evenings? It's a pain in the summer when they should be open, but until the law catches up, it's the only solution.

Three people in our street have wood burners and buy their wood from a man the next street over who goes out into woodland with a chainsaw. That makes it so much worse. The century-old oaks behind us are disappearing just because some people want cheap wood.

We live in a designated smoke free zone so they’re only meant to burn seasoned wood. It’s illegal for them to burn wet builder’s wood off a skip because of where we live, but no one regulates it.

Builder's offcuts will often have been treated with preservatives that are poisonous when you burn them. Not something people want to breathe. It is selfish to create poisonous smoke to save yourself a few pennies.

However I think OP should talk to the neighbours because they might not realise their smoke gets into her house.

Sounds like they are burning low-quality wood. We have a wood burner burning seasoned hardwood and there’s very little smoke

I’ll preface this by saying I live very rurally and get free wood. But I cook and run the central heating and hot water on a wood fires stove and then have another one in the living room. I’ve recently got an air filter. A stove belched some smoke out when refuelling earlier and the filter then read PM2.5 of 550. It came down very quickly.
often when I’m outside especially first thing in the morning they are giving off smoke and it can be smelt outside. They are polluting and should really only be used in rural areas. If you’re in a smoke free zone I would keep complaining to the council until they do something.

Op, do you complain to everyone about vehicle exhaust fumes, or aeroplane fumes, or the fumes produced when gas boilers are on?
For someone’s chimney to be on a level with a bedroom window the houses would have to have been built by being attached by the front or back wall, or be within an arm span of each other and sited on a near vertical slope. It must be a bugger walking up the hill every day!

I recommend you get a couple of good quality, high capacity air purifiers, perhaps one for the ground floor and one for upstairs.

The Levoit 600S, available from Amazon, is recommended by Which? as a Best Buy.

I've no idea where you are but in London you are supposed to follow the rules set by the local Council and all sorts of fire regulations.

I bet the wood burning polluters are the same ones banging on about plastic tat and land fill. Yet there they are with their cosy log burners filling the air with smoke.

Four houses here have woodburners and the only time you smell it is outside when they're first lit. Other than that there's nothing and certainly not in the house. The flue had to be positioned high enough so as not to cause an issue, your neighbours need to get that checked.

You haven't understood. Offcuts are random pieces of wood, eg they might be painted over with stuff like creosote or bitumen which are noxious when burned - as my parents have experienced a neighbour doing. This problem seems way more extensive than I realised...

Oh do educate yourself. Wood burners produce more PM2 pollution than traffic for starters.

I doubt aeroplane fumes are making OP's children cough and eyes water either.

I bet you have a wood burner and live in a built up area.

They should be banned. People burn all sorts of shit with no regard for anyone else. I like fresh air in my house, not the smell of burning plastic and whatever crap Joe Public wants to use as fuel.

Buy an air purifier