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

Such ridiculous hyperbole

..... right now my children are outside collecting the wood (from the wood store full of home grown (but properly seasoned) wood in the garden) for me to burn in our stove tonight!

The irony.

(They also cut kindling with an axe)

(I can't watch call the midwife without a fire)

Make it make sense

Internal air monitors sound great.

Are the air monitors also outside the house so you can reassure the neighbours it has no impact on them?

And as for joy, smoking gives many smokers joy.

Nothing will change, OP, everyone with a wood burner has their own compelling reasons for using one.

OP, we dont have heating. Our wood burner IS our heating.

Not everyone is a townie.

Yes, humans have cooked over an open fire for thousands of years, and cooking over an open fire is what causes so many cases of lung cancer in women in Africa. It is not healthy, nor "natural" no matter how many thousands of years people have been doing it.
And yes, the particles are still in the house after the fire is out. They are in the dust and get into the air again when we walk around, sit down etc.

But there is quite a difference in terms of exposure isn't there? Between an African woman whose only way of cooking or heating across their entire life course is an open fire burning recently foraged wood (or indeed anything combustable they can find) and a middle class European using a modern log burner with door, chimney and seasoned quality logs occasionally? Things are dose dependent too?

It's like saying that people die from liver failure from paracetamol overdoses so you should never expose your body to paracetamol, or similarly inaccurate extrapolations.

Everything has nuance and our exposure and appetite for risk varies. Exaggeration, hyperbole and unfounded absolutely help no one.

Alanis?

It's actually quite difficult to monitor air quality effectively and I suspect most of the consumer grade internal monitors on sale are cheap rubbish that don't really work.

Or maybe they do work in the respect they give the answer that people want to have.

Wow,you couldn’t come up with a credible argument so just decided youd say air monitors are useless.

it doesn’t come across well.

I decided to get a monitor for air quality after reading all the pearl clutching on threads like this about how dangerous they were inside the house (and outside but obviously I cant test that) and how if the quality is monitored I would see what harm it was doing

I thought let me get one and check it out, perhaps Im wrong

I see no impact on the air quality with the burner, only when I have the gas hob on (which is quite far away from the monitor) or burning stuff sometimes like toast or candles

When Ive therefore said this on threads suddenly its 'oh well they dont work anyway in the home'

Yet Im sure if I said 'oh it showed terrible readings and I had to stop using my burner' everyone would think its very accurate and informative

Strange that.

It is the accumulated effect that is dangerous. In Britain, you also have exposure to the exhaust from cars, chemicals in toys, furniture, and clothing, mould in the houses, and then there is the high amount of multiprocessed food consumed in Britain. (In 2006 Britain had 40% of Europe's consumption of fast food.)

Because the accumulated effect is what damages the body, you cannot really use the official limitations to define when something is dangerous to you. If you live in a well-built house (with no mould) in a forest, don't smoke, grow your own food, and are hardly ever around cars, then the damage from burning wood in your fireplace will not affect you to the same degree as if you live in a damp flat in a city, smoke, and mainly eat multiprocessed food.

The fact is that Britain has the highest percentage of people with respiratory problems in Europe, and refusing to acknowledge the issues that cause this problem is only going to make the problem worse.

Lots of layers of problems, google results below

Britain’s high rate of respiratory issues despite lower smoking levels is primarily driven by significant health inequalities, high levels of deprivation, and exposure to environmental pollutants. While smoking remains a factor, historically high smoking rates, poor housing, pollution, and lack of investment in lung health, particularly in deprived areas, contribute to the burden.

• Health Inequalities and Deprivation: Respiratory diseases like COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) are heavily linked to socioeconomic deprivation. Residents in the most deprived areas are significantly more likely to die from lung conditions.
• Environmental Factors and Air Quality: Poor air quality is the largest environmental risk to public health in the UK. Long-term exposure to pollutants—often higher in deprived, urban areas—causes chronic respiratory conditions.
• Historical Smoking Trends: Although smoking rates are falling, the damage from historical smoking is long-lasting, with many currently suffering from diseases developed over decades.
• Housing and Workplace Exposure: Poor housing conditions, including damp and mould, and prolonged exposure to dust or fumes in certain industries contribute to chronic lung damage.
• Regional Disparities: Specific areas, particularly in the North East and in industrial cities like Liverpool and Manchester, show much higher rates of respiratory, emergency admissions, often correlating with higher smoking rates and lower income levels in those regions.

These factors combine to create a high prevalence of respiratory problems despite the national decline in tobacco use.