Another neigbour getting a wood burner

[JoSFry]

Come on …. When will people wake up to the pollution these things cause!

We would freeze without ours as we can barely afford to use our oil fired central heating.
House not suitable for heat exchange and nobody local to service them. no mains gas.
So shoot me for the log burner......

I'm glad we have ours given what the government is advising re stockpiling in case of emergency. Will keep us warm and we can cook on it.

I live across the channel in a rural part of the country and I don't know anybody who doesn't have a wood burner. There's a few that use pellets, but everybody has them, including some very old folk (late 90's) who have been using them for a life time. Yes, you need to apply caution and commonsense, but it's a quintessential part of countryside living here. I have one too of course.

My Nan is pushing 100, lives in the UK and used an open fire in her house for decades.

Many people are in denial, but don't realise the damage that can be done to their own health long term.

I live in a rural area ,with no gas and rely in oil central heating which is extortionately priced and electricity prices high too. Im miles from my nearest neighbour. I do have a log burner that meets regulations and i use seasoned wood from my land and have it services and swept annually, I will have to use it this winter due to costs. I wouldnt have survived storm goretti without it as we had no power for 5 days.
i would like to know more about the risks though.

And many people rely on them and mitigate the risk with filters.

We don’t have an air purifier but I do sometimes use my air sensor I use for work. This was after 3 hours with the wood burner lit and we also had a 3 wick candle burning for the same time -

Overall air quality: 001 — green rating.
PM2.5 (fine particles): 4 µg/m³ — low.
PM1.0: 3 µg/m³ — low.
PM10: 4 µg/m³ — low.
Formaldehyde (HCHO): 0.001 - low.

I live rurally on a private lane, if you hang around my house long enough to get lung damage from my wood burner I'd be questioning what you were doing there in the first place. You can't apply a blanket rule just to suit city/town dwellers.

Open fires were still polluting the air and causing damage, they were worse than the wood burners available to buy now. smoking was also much more prevalent when open fires were bout, so chances were you were going to be affected anyway. Now smoking rates have decreased dramatically

That study linked above doesn’t say anything about what type of stove had been used, and it includes open fires and wood boilers! So basically, how many people in rural Sweden do you think are using a brand-new eco-friendly stove, and how many are using one installed decades ago? We can improve our conditions without leaping to banning things as the only option. We can - and do - legislate on type of stove that can be installed, but nobody has introduced anything to make people upgrade old ones. Nobody is arguing that breathing loads of smoke has no effect; we’re saying that modern stoves are not the same as old multi fuel stoves. It’s like looking at electric cars versus a 1950s diesel bus and insisting all cars are equally polluting.

Sounds strangely similar to the "my old gran smokes 100 woodbines a day and lived to 120" claims that people used to make about smoking.

So what do those people do (including myself) when the weather turns cold and can't afford to heat their houses?

Living in cold, damp unheated homes is also detrimental to one's health. Sometimes we don't have choices, it's heat via certain sources or suffer the effects of the cold. I know which one I would choose especially as a raynaud's sufferer.

I'm always irritated by people who make blithe assumptions that everyone can afford the healthiest option, but is just choosing not to take it.

Pretty much all the power we use causes pollution,what you are objecting to is it being generated near you rather than someone else.Do you have a car if so,people in glass houses and all that.

That’s good indoors but I guess it’s outdoors with young lungs and those with asthma or other breathing issues - not good.

Electric

This was me until I looked into it - very popular on our road. On a day like this you can walk up the road and smell. Them it’s a naice middle class area, high incomes but more densely populated due to good school and amenities so high house prices - people can drive their electric cars and get their wood burners.

You said you knew the research.

If all you've got is one non-conclusive study then either there doesn't appear to be much research or you were lying exaggerating your knowledge / the detrimental effects for emphasis.

I think they're really attractive but more from an aesthetic point of view than anything else. I have a living room chimney that is unused - used to have an ugly gas fire in it - and have been toying with the idea of getting a log burner. I just don't think I'd ever actually light it so it would be a pretty expensive ornament!

Smoking cigarettes accounts for 80-90% of lung cancer diagnoses.

It's a clear and well-demonstrated link which is high risk.

It cannot be compared in any statistically meaningful fashion to wood burners.

Love my wood burner and open fire, considering I’m getting an estimate of £450 a month for my old Victorian house for gas and electricity I wouldn’t be without one!

We had a 0.5 acre garden with an area of woodland that included absolutely ginormous trees at our last (rural, 400 year old, stone) house. When we purchased the property there was a fallen tree that was approx 60' lying across the land. It kept us in firewood for our two modern wood burners for several years once chopped/seasoned. So, it depends on the garden (and tree) size as - had we wanted to chop them down - there were plenty more where that one came from!

At our new (Georgian) cottage we have no central heating so are totally reliant on the wood burner we had fitted in 2024.

This has not been my experience at all. We found the air purifier figure would go up by hundreds as soon as the door was open, even if it had been off for a significant period of time. And this has happened every time, and everywhere I've stayed with a log burner.

So I'd suggest either a lot of log burners people have are old / not maintained and are releasing a lot of pollution into their homes or your air quality monitors aren't sensitive enough.

Out of interest what made you rip it out? They look nice even when not in use?

In our house thats our only source of heating and hot water. I love ours. We use smokeless coal and the chimney is swept every year (otherwise we're not covered on insurance) have to say i love sitting in front of the fire