To say don't use a wood burner if you have children in the house?

[MojoMoon]

AIBU to say anyone using a wood burning stove with children in the house when it is for cosy vibes and other forms of heating are available should be viewed the same way as someone smoking with children in the room or the car?

Particulate pollution has been linked to miscarriage, low birth weight, respiratory problems and a higher risk of developing dementia.

Why do wood burning defenders respond so vigorously to studies like this? Is it because they have spent money on a wood burning stove and don't want to accept that they should remove it? Is it because they have a feeling of guilt about having been using it with children for years and worry about the damage already done? Or do they simply not believe particulates to be dangerous despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary.

Study:

Children living in homes with wood burners could be exposed to over three times more particulate pollution than those in non-wood-burning homes. The results come from a study that looked at air pollution experienced by primary schoolchildren in Wales.

Fifty-three children from two primary schools in Anglesey (Ynys Môn) were given backpacks equipped with air pollution sensors. They took the packs home and carried them during their journeys to and from school.
Dr Hanbin Zhang, from the University of Exeter and part of the study team, said: “One thing that stood out was the home environment. This was the largest contributor to children’s daily particle pollution exposure – more than school or commuting. This was mainly due to indoor sources such as wood burning and indoor smoking.”

Short peaks in particle pollution were linked to home cooking and secondhand tobacco smoke. Home heating with a fire or stove was linked to longer exposures. In some cases, these persisted overnight in children’s bedrooms as fires remained lit or smouldering with poor ventilation.
Prof Zhiwen Luo from Cardiff University, who led the study said: “During home hours, the average particle pollution in non-smoking homes with wood burners was about 13 micrograms per cubic metre compared with 3.5 micrograms per cubic metre in non-smoking homes without wood burners.
“The study is small, but the contrast was consistent and supports the conclusion that wood burning can substantially increase indoor particle pollution.”
One school was in Holyhead, and the other was in a rural area. We often think of towns and cities are being the most polluted places, but on average, researchers found urban children experienced less particle pollution, compared with those at the rural school.
The study took place in winter, and researchers attributed these differences to contrasts in wood burning. This took place in 21% of homes for the urban schoolchildren and 53% in the rural school.

Cooking added to the measured air pollution, especially when the backpacks were left close to the kitchen in the children’s homes. Short pollution peaks were also measured when children walked past bakeries and restaurants on the high street.

Particle pollution inside the schools was much lower than during travel and at home.

Children who walked to and from school experienced less pollution compared with children who were driven. Parental smoking while driving produced the highest concentrations measured in the study.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/06/children-living-homes-wood-burners-exposed-pollution?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301479725042677?via%3Dihub

Because they provide a reliable and ever available source of domestic heat, plus a way to cook food, when the power goes down, which is does regularly in many rural areas.

or

Because they provide an affordable alternative to gas or electric central heating, which for many has become an unaffordable luxury.

You are claiming just having a burner in the house is dangerous?

And this is based on a study of 53 people?

“Natural gas is nowhere near as bad as wood.“
But the ‘study’, didn’t identify the particulates? Just assumed !!
I said nothing about cigarette smoking…… tho now you’ve brought it up, my previous sentence applies again?!
Even medieval folk would have at the very least warmed their ‘homes’ & cooked via burning wood. Any wood & rubbish too I expect!

Anyone competent stacks their logs in a shed or at least undercover, where they dry over at least 12 months, and preferably two years. By that time, they are well below the required moisture level.

Anyone who leaves their logs in the rain, is not competent to have a log burner. Common sense is required with any appliance.

Some of the posters on here remind me of Educating Rita when Susan and the Professor dismiss all the people who are giving up smoking as being bloody cowards. Susan had given up by the end of the film after she had become 'educated'.

I'm not suggesting anyone is storing logs in the rain. Wood will stay in equilibrium with it's environment so if there is humidity in the air, the wood will take on more moisture and no longer be as dry.

They are, we store our seasoned wood outside and we have moisture meters to test it. We rotate the wood so that we use the inside stacks first which are dry and protected and under the porch and then move round to the outer stacks to put them under the porch as the wood goes down. We dont burn it if it has a high moisture reading

I have a severe lung disease and I’m sensitive to smoke, car fumes, vape fumes, deodorants etc, people closest to me know how much those things affect me and know I’m not being the things others call me when I start coughing when exposed to those things, “attention seeking” “drama llama” “hypochondriac”.

I learnt to suppress the cough which I’m not supposed to do but honestly, I can’t take the filthy looks when I cough a lot and I have to be able to live in the world and exist outside my house too.

A few of my neighbours have had wood burners installed over the last five years, it’s a built up area of terraced streets with no gardens and other than the smell it hasn’t been a noticeable issue, this winter though.

Theres been days that I’ve gone to leave the house to get on the car and a chemical smokey smell has had me in pain and coughing up blood. The smell reminded me of when my uncle burnt doors and window frames on his allotment, I thought maybe it was me being sensitive because of my lung issues but my husband and daughter also felt discomfort, other neighbours posted on Facebook about it and got a load of backlash from people in the area who have wood burners, everyone insisted they only burn seasoned wood and asked the op if they also complain about other pollutants, they got asked if they drive a car, go on holiday, buy from Amazon.

You can’t raise issues without people getting defensive and bringing up other issues as some kind of gotcha. Im pretty sure which neighbour is using dodgy wood, last summer he had a pick up truck full of wooden door frames dropped off by a local tradesman and neighbour spent the following days chipping it up, it’s made me wonder if that’s what’s being burnt this winter by some people here.

I think this sums it up.
Yes they are filthy and unhealthy. People in towns with access to mains gas do not need them.
I live rurally and have had wood burners for 40 years. I hate them but they serve to heat my house and hot water when we have frequent power cuts. I have solar which helps but it couldn't heat a candle this time of year.
If I could have gas I'd dump it tomorrow.

Have a mess around with this caculator, putting in various hours for using a wood burning stove (including not using one at all) and see how much it varies!
Using a wood buring stove puts the results up massively.
Air Pollution Calculator

They are fine and I'm never giving mine up. It saves vast amounts on heating and means that should the power go out I will not freeze.

It's just the latest 'everyone, panic!' pronouncement.

Wood will stay in equilibrium with it's environment so if there is humidity in the air, the wood will take on more moisture and no longer be as dry. - Just how wet do you think the UK is? I know it's quite rainy, but it's not that bad.

I don't get why people see them as chic or desirable they are a return to a Victorian age of poor air quality and consequent deaths

Myth 2: Wood-Burning Stoves Emit as Much Pollution as 18 Diesel Cars

Another striking myth is that wood-burning stoves generate the same emissions as 18 diesel cars. This claim comes from an interpretation of test results by the Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG), but it is misleading.
The comparison is flawed because it measures car emissions at an efficient run rate of 21 mph while comparing them to a stove running at full capacity. This ignores the small particle emissions from car brakes and tyres, which often exceed exhaust emissions. Additionally, the dispersal point of emissions is different: car emissions occur at face level for children, whereas stove emissions disperse from the top of a chimney, significantly reducing human exposure.

Do we hate wood burning because it causes generalised pollution? Or do because it causes more pollution inside the home? Or both? Frankly I’m confused what the problem is…..

The particulates can be massively reduced by using filters. I have an electrostatic filter in the chimney which reduced emissions by 95% and I run a filter in the rooms with a log burner which reduces particulates to negligible levels indoors. I live in a large 17th century farmhouse and a log burner is a back up and also an adjunct when it’s really cold.

You may have a point OP but many people are tired and jaded with environmentalists yelling at us to stop things, and that we're all going to die.

There is a 2 way psychological effect here: people who yell and cry wolf eventually get ignored, and people will justify what they want to continue doing.

I have a wood burner. I love it. I light it when we're relaxing at the weekends and the ambience it creates in my home brings me joy.

Would I sacrifice this pleasure if I knew it was killing me? Probably, but given the list of things killing me seems to be endless and unavoidable I'm not inclined yet to assume this is the one thing I have to do.

I am open to clear evdienec whihchguides sensible decisons. But yelling at people that they might as well run 18 deisel cars in their living room, is just going to turn myself and others off.

But I also love scented candles so I'm probably a lost cause anyway.
Save Yourselves.

Yes same here

It occured to me while eating my lunch just now, yet another thing to worry about, oily fish and their heavy metals. Killing me

I'll put the burner on later and get it over and done with.

The current humidity is around 95%.

Ah, another of the mums for lungs posts again....

Someone pops up here every few months and wades in with an inflexible, dominating and inflexible view on woodburners and fires.

While I agree with OP's postings, the tone of the argument is really awful and does not help the cause in my view.

It's not that they are chic or middle class, it's that fire is beautiful and fascinating to humans. Always has been.
It's just middle class people can afford it and as we have central heating now too it's not a just chore anymore it's an additional mood enhancer. Like a beautiful painting. Or candlight. Or the sun.

It's become a beautiful luxury which enhances people's experience in their home.

Pretending it's just a fashion people have bene conned into is very silly.

It's one of my great pleasures in life: wine, in front of a fire and candlight.

Yes I love fire. All contained in a little box in the corner

Lots of people use wood/ coal heating in rural areas because they don’t have access to gas and it costs too much to install / run electric heating.

Plus power cuts are far more common in rural areas. We used to get power cuts a couple of times a year in the country as kids - days at a time occasionally. Having a back up for heating and cooking makes sense.

It is genuinely amazing just how many of these type of threads just so happen to contain a link to an article in The Guardian.

Funny, that.

Me too.

And is it middle class 'hobby fires' owners who are the real baddies because they don't need them and only have them for fun? (But they actually only light them very occasionally and presumably being fashionable and well off burn the best quality dry stuff)

Or are the worst of the worst people those who live rurally, off grid and in poverty and burn fires most days for long hours because they are there only heat source (and they may use free fuel which is not kiln dried?)

Because several posters seem to both hate group A but also concede that lighting the fire rarely for short periods of time and using quality logs is such a problem...while also having sympathy for group B and seemingly understanding that having not heating or hot water at all is not great for health either....