Woodburner - health risks

[SecretOfChange]

Just came across this article: amp.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/18/wood-burners-triple-harmful-indoor-air-pollution-study-finds

What do you make of it? Real issue? Paranoia? Has anyone heard anything like this before and from other sources? Thanks.

But you are trying to compare and say it’s possible - it isn’t it really really isn’t. The ideas are good. The technology just isn’t up to the conditions and space afforded to it. Then there is the sheer cost of it - very very few people can afford a boat over £250k.
You have no idea the amount of people who say they are living totally ecologically sound on a boat when actually they aren’t.

Nothing that uses fossil fuels is “good” for the environment. But my log burner isn’t for decoration, it’s for heat. It’s hard work cutting logs, splitting them, moving them somewhere dry for a couple years, then moving them somewhere easy-to-get-to when they’re ready to burn. I like having the stove, but don’t light it for its aesthetic effect. I also like the whole process of managing a small patch of woodland. I see that as more sustainable than our oil central heating.

I agree that smoke and particulates they release cannot be good for health. I see them as yet another unhealthy thing I willingly expose myself to - like red wine, bacon, red meat, sugar, additives, etc etc. The impact to others is tiny - I live rurally so the only people who are unwillingly exposed are people driving past (typically in deisel 4wd!), so they’d have tiny exposure levels.

Her boat was no where near 250k....it's an older boat, probably 20years plus ? Why did you assume it was an expensive shiny boat when it isn't ? Her living is as close to low impact as it possibly can be with a fully electric engine. Appreciate it still has a multi fuel burner but I've stated that all along. You said every boater has to have a back up diesel or petrol engine...that isn't the case here, one engine, fully electric and solar powered.

How does solar power heat a full bath in winter when there is hardly any sunlight , it’s not a trick question , I’m intrigued to know ?
I mean on a small boat

@chumleymouse. To be fair I'm intrigued to know as well. She has a wooden slipper style bath on board and uses it. She is able to run her fridge from the solar power. I'm going to message her and ask but don't want to breach her confidentiality as im sure you can understand. Just had a quick look at her FB and she states her boat is full solar powered for 10months of the year.

I grew up in a house relying on open coal fires. I now have a woodburner which we use to delay the date when we turn the central heating on. It has come into its own when the boiler broke down and when the power failed, switching the central heating off. I love it, we don't rely on anyone in an emergency.

I really can't get too concerned about this. I don't drink or smoke, cook from scratch, have cut down our meat consumption, everyone in the house has a BMI below 23, we all exercise regularly, I've cut my car mileage. But who wants to cuddle in front of a radiator

Comes down to relative v absolute risk. Very poorly understood and relative risk is usually used.

Take smoking for example, yes relative risk high compared to non smokers. Yes most people dying from lung cancer have been smokers. Yes smoking number 1 risk factor for lung cancer. BUT most smokers don't get lung cancer...even though that sounds counter-intuitive.

Same argument applies to wood burners. Not saying they shouldn't/should be banned because they affect a population. Agnostic on that. But it's important to understand how the stats are presented to understand the issue of how risky they are to the individual.

Relative v absolute risk, comes up again and again....

Read/follow David Speigelhalter he is great at explaining all this.

We got an air source heat pump in the summer so got rid of our nasty polluting oil boiler so using a log burner then felt a bit counterproductive, so last month my DH convinced me to get rid of the log burner, which was old, too high output for the cottage (used to be used with a back boiler) and, as we found out on removal, a miracle not to have given us carbon monoxide poisoning as it was bodged into place!!

We now have a 55inch TV in its place, and I can have an instant no mess fire thanks to youtube.

@Changi

I’ve flown over the U.K. on a brilliantly clear and sunny, cold winter’s day, and the thousands of little plumes of smoke rising up towards us as we flew over was quite eye-opening. I used to think of them as pretty harmless, but that single flight was a bit of a rude awakening as to just HOW much smoke all those thousands of tiny fires were producing.

Oh dear, how terrible! Just think, all that smoke added to the exhaust fumes from the plane you were sitting in.

🤣🤣🤣

So what does she do for the two moths of the year she can’t use solar ? Diesel, petrol, gas or mains electric hook up - non of which are solar...

@Bargebill19 I'll enquire as I don't know the answer to that

A wide beam boat as she has - second hand will be way over the £100k mark. Even at that age. It’s likely she is on the Thames which always accrues additional mark up. There are 100 year old Dutch (wide beam) boats that sell for over £250k. Don’t be fooled by age! The added equipment will also push up the price.
I would love to know how she gets enough rainwater in the summers we have to even fill a bath, let alone washing machine, drinking and general usage. We haven’t even been able to keep a water butt full on the allotment.
Fridges - if small and 12 or 24 volt and minus a freezer, they can be run from solar most of the time. Power consumption for fridges is remarkably small. A small solar panel will keep them happy.
I know a lot of people who say they are fully solar on the water - but funnily still have to run their engine or generator for hot water/washing machine/hoover/top up their batteries due to lack of sun every three days.
Or say they live aboard, yet go home or too friends for winter. Or outsource the heavy power hungry items - such as using wood burners for heat (no electric required) and use laundromats and gyms for washing and showering. Or just plain use a landline with solar as an additional. Yet they claim to be fully dependent on solar.....

She's not on the Thames, but has cruised it back in the summer. What has convinced you otherwise ? The last time I visited She was on the K and A.
She is a full time live aboard having given up bricks and mortar some years ago. The boat was way under your price guesstimate but carry on guessing :-)

Because there is very little cruising a wide beam can actually do.

Just for context, her boat is 66ft long, has 9 x 300watt solar panels, weighs 56 tons and holds 3000ltrs of harvested rainwater which is filtered and gravity fed.

Oh it cruises just fine, slower than a diesel but less noisy and more eco :-)

So the size of a small house. And everything a narrowboat isn’t. So non of the equipment is at all suitable for narrowboats, or will even work on one. As a I’ve been saying all along.

@Bluntness100

How folks have survived in so many parts of the world till ripe old ages with only open fires in their homes beats me,,,,😂

This. My 82 year old mum has a solid fuel stove in her living room my 80+ year old friend has hers going all winter as it's the only source of heating hot water in her Victorian house.

@Bargebill19 but still eco friendly nonetheless which is the point I was trying to make. You were insistent that it wasn't possible to run a boat on electric, that she was moored on the Thames, thst she must have a back up fossil fuel engine and her boat cost a 1/4 of a million - none of which are true. Wishing it were true does not make it so.

Of course it is possible to run a boat solely on electricity, you just need an adequate source of electricity. In the UK, without shore power or a generator, that isn't feasible year-round with an acceptable level of comfort on a narrowboat, even a long one covered in solar panels.

That is why your friend still relies on a solid fuel stove to heat the boat... and some undeclared means to keep the batteries charged in the winter months.

Well if she’s classed as eco friendly, with a multi fuel stove for heating , then that’s that , I’m eco friendly too 🙌🏼 I’m off the fell some trees ..........

@Ferrylights

You are insisting she’s eco friendly 100percent and can be run all year. she isn’t.
She is on the Thames at least part of the year - you admitted that.
You said it’s possible to run a a narrowboat completely on solar by using an incomparable and not 100 percentage solar run example to probe the point.

You are saying she hasn’t spent a lot of money - to have the kit she supposedly has she must have done. No one gives it away for free. The alternative is she’s lying, (and quite possibly for very good reasons.) or has bought a boat that’s about to become a colander.
Perhaps stop spouting stuff you evidently know nothing about.

Being cold promotes death.

I love eco threads , I think the average person would like to be a bit more eco friendly, but if it involves cost or inconvenience most don’t bother.

@chumleymouse much better than all those nasty diesel fumes polluting the waterways... go for it :-) I'll lend you my chainsaw