My neighbours hate my wood burner.

[HollyBerryTree]

We are in a cul de sac of detached bungalows.
My wood burner was fitted last Autumn and at the moment we are using it a lot and we love it.

But the neighbours says it creating dust which lands on their cars.

Is this a possibility?

To the best of my knowledge it's all properly fitted, it came from a reputable local company. If it's dropping dust on my car I wouldn't notice. I've got an old Fiesta that's on its last legs. I work full time. The neighbours work at home and polish their lovely cars a lot.

Can you get filters?
Maybe it's just because it's been super windy?
Does your wood burner make dust?

@Zebracat

My friend, not in the U.K. has just been diagnosed with Copd after 3 years of living in a house with a wood burner as the only source of heat. I love them, but I wouldn’t have one. It really isn’t about virtue signalling, they cause serious respiratory problems.

They do.

I think they are being silly about the cars, the roads make cars filthy in the winter anyway. I'd stop using it March onwards as the days are longer and people will be starting to dry washing outside though.

I thought I loved them, and intended to get one when we moved to this house, put it off due to cost, and am now really glad we didn't get one, due to health risks. You can get really nice-looking faux-log-burner gas fires, which we will probably eventually replace our gas fire with.

Accusing people of hysteria when it's now pretty widely known how bad they are for health and environment is frankly ridiculous.

I cycle with DS to his work & back.
There's a rural house we pass each way that without fail has a very smoky bonfire every evening.
Mostly straw & horse muck. I think.
That is my very regular pM2.5-10 dose, 6x/week.

In the time of Covid when single use plastic products are all the rage again, funny to pick on wood burners as an environmental enemy.

Isn’t it how you burn the wood the issue in the same way it is with bonfires and BBQs - a hot fast fire produces a lot less smoke than a slowing burning fire?

All of our neighbours have wood burners. All of them.
We don’t.
Unfortunately we have a proper chimney for a gas fire, and everyday the smoke comes down our chimney.

They seem to have their wood burners on all of the time, one neighbour burns everything in house seemingly, black terrible smoke.

Sometimes you can’t sit in the sitting room, because of the smell, and breathing it in, as it must come down our cold chimney, because we don’t use our gas fire

In the summer we burn leaves and excess cardboard in a garden burner, each time, I feel that I’m getting my own back, the same with BBQ’s. Although we have a relatively large garden, and are the furthest away from neighbours as we can be.

I’ll be happy when wood burners are banned.

Our leaves will then find their way to the dustbin.

I love the smell of wood smoke ( ducks for cover!)

@GalesThisMorning

I will probably get rounded on and bombarded with facts and figures but... no. I'm not bothered about the health implications of my wood burning stove. Or not enough to get rid. It's a modern, well installed burner. The wood is kin dried and properly stored. Beyond that I can't get too worked up about it. We have been heating our homes with wood forever.

Me, too.

I don't light mine very often, but it's been professionally installed and I only ever use well seasoned wood.

No one has ever complained!

And, as for 'stink'- do people mean wood-smoke?

I like the smell! It's evocative; to my mum, it was east Africa; for me, northern India; for DH, rural South America!

Have one, means I burn less oil. Burns bone dry home grown 3 year old wood and nothing else. Chimney clear. Invisible smoke outside and nothing inside.

Not used for the last few days as weather is warmer. Extra jumpers and more oil used if needed. We all pollute by our very existence.

I don’t have a problem with single use plastic, I just put it in the wood burner and problem solved 👍.

My cat also comes in smelling of smoke , he thinks I don’t smell it , but I suspect he’s on about 10 a day judging by the number of times he pops out 😂

@Chumleymouse

I don’t have a problem with single use plastic, I just put it in the wood burner and problem solved 👍.

My cat also comes in smelling of smoke , he thinks I don’t smell it , but I suspect he’s on about 10 a day judging by the number of times he pops out 😂

😂

It’s probs because you’re in a bungalow OP. the chimney is much lower than on a normal house.

My cat also comes in smelling of smoke , he thinks I don’t smell it , but I suspect he’s on about 10 a day judging by the number of times he pops out 😂

We have a woodburner.
I’d love to have gas central heating but I live in a hamlet. Using electricity would bankrupt me and it would cost about €20000 to install oil heating which is being phased out anyway.
So I use what I have to for warmth.
We’re very careful though, we buy well seasoned wood and use a moisture meter. We also let the fire roar to get going. And if I can see the smoke I know the fire is not burning hot enough.
However in winter our surfaces are covered in dust caused by the woodburner.

Oh ffs. You can't ban fucking BBQs!!!

Our neighbours a few doors down have one and I absolutely LOATHE it. Even with our windows firmly clamped shut our daughter’s room is filled with the smell. And they mostly use it in summer - when everyone has their windows open. We live in a clean air zone in London and it’s against the council rules to use one so we asked them once to stop using it so frequently ( every night honestly in 28 degree weather!) and then another time we dropped the flyer under their door that the council provided showing it was prohibited and why. They still persisted so I’m sorry to say I did report them ( we had a newborn for god sake and should be able to eg not have her breathing it in / dry our washing indoors without it stinking) - council sent them a letter then they finally stopped but also winter started. Next complaint they get fined £250 I believe.

I just cannot understand how people in built up areas can ignore the environmental impacts. In the country sure, fill your boots but think of your neighbours.

You have to make sure all the wood is completely dry otherwise it is a health hazard.

Ps just reading some of the other messages to be clear our problem is with a garden wood burner and they burn anything including painted wood etc

As has already been made very clear, these are a public health menace and long term exposure is linked to all sorts of nasties like cancer, stroke, COPD, dementia, miscarriage and diabetes.

Many councils are now starting to issue ‘no burn’ alerts on Twitter and Facebook asking residents not to use them when there are peaks of bad air quality often compounded by atmospheric conditions.

If you want to give consideration to the level of pollution you see creating you can check this real time map of air quality sendors across the U.K. if the hexagons are generally red or orange then you should not add to the pollution by lighting your fire.

Scroll in / out to find your location in the U.K.

bristol.maps.sensor.community/#7/51.226/-1.994

@Thesunrising that's really interesting. My area (in a national park) doesn't have a hexagon, the nearest one to my area is green, but most homes here have a wood burner or open fire.

So the wood burners on their own arent causing too much of a problem, according to that map

@galesthismorning the hexagons really only pick up readings from the immediate vicinity to the monitor. So a green one half a mile away won’t pick up anything being burnt in your neighbourhood. However when the whole of the U.K. map is showing orange/red that’s usually a sign of atmospheric inversion where a layer of cold air high up is trapping g warmer air below or incidences of agricultural pollution being blown over from Europe or sand over from Africa. So - a good day not to add to the overall poor air quality by lighting a fire.

Loving this thread. The hysteria. They stink! Yout house stinks if you don’t open the window? The animals stink! Everyone stinks! Stop using it . Won’t someone think of the stink! 😂😂😂

I’ve two wood burners. We love them. But then we are self sufficient in wood, and live relatively rurally with a very large garden. They are also Defra approved. And we burn seasoned wood.

Nothing nicer than sitting with a glass of wine on a winters evening, cuddled up with the fire going.

Op, just make sure the stove is Defra approved, wood is properly seasoned and the stove is installed properly by hetas. Then enjoy.

I see. The map does seem to show that air quality is better in rural area where more people heat their homes with stoves, than in cities though.

Indeed. Rural areas are less densely populated and less built up. So fewer other sources of pollution like road traffic too. The city centre neighbourhood I live in is tightly packed Victorian terraces with several burners on each street. The cumulative impact in cities like Bristol is devastating for air quality.

That makes sense. I do have to admit that as much as I like my wood burner, and rely on it to heat my home, it seems an odd choice for people living in a city. I can't imagine it's easy to store wood for example. It's only cost effective when you buy it by the ton, which must be hard in a city centre.