If you use a wood burning stove - what would change your mind?

[letmeeatinpeace]

I live in a densely populated area in London, and the smoke from wood burners seems to be getting worse each year (it's coming into our home).

I'm intrigued to hear from people who use wood burners whether there's anything that would possibly change your mind to stop using them?

I would really love to persuade our smoke-producing neighbours to be more considerate and switch them off, or at least switch to something smokeless, so any tips on how to go about it in a positive way would be much appreciated.

I don't actually know which property it's coming from - it's probably several.

Would dropping leaflets with useful info about smokeless fuel, and proper stove usage be appreciated..? I'm pretty desperate..! (I'm borderline asthmatic, and really worry about my dc's exposure)

Also, is smokeless fuel genuinely smokeless?

(I will also go down the route of contacting my council, if needed, but I just don't imagine they'd do much specially as we don't know where it's coming from)

Nope. 100 for wood or 400 for gas...

I love the smell of woodburners when I’m walking around the village, seems I’m not alone you can even purchase the scent.

Lower gas prices. We heat our very draughty cold Victorian house with two wood burners because it’s way more affordable than turning on the heating. But we have the chimney swept ever year and the burner checked/serviced. We burn wood. All our neighbours have them too and I’ve never noticed smoke outside the house visually or smelled it either.

If electricity and gas supply was a certainty and it was just for show/comfort then I would happily get a 'fake' real fire - some are really good now - I do understand the desire for a focal point to sit around on a winters night. But for us it is not.

I don't understand why people are saying woodburners make the room/house smell - they shouldn't unless you leave the door open surely? Mine don't make the house smell at all and definitely no smoke in the room unless something has gone wrong/chimney blocked. But as I have said - they are a necessary backup for heating and cooking when the ground source heat pump and solar fails or the frequent power cuts we get here.

As for neighbours - lots of open coal fires still in our village - the house we rented whilst renovating ours had one. And a lot of people with oil tanks. The sandstone buildings are still sandstone coloured too -unlike what they were in many northern towns before it became fashionable to sandblast the black off them in the 80s. So I doubt there has ever been significant air pollution here.

Oh ffs - just burnt a big hole in the front of my favourite jumper and camisole not paying attention whilst carrying candles into the rooms because the bloody power's gone off again - it's snowing. What an idiot!

Incidentally, I have read some worrying warnings recently about how bad candles are in your house for air quality. Haven't lit one since except for emergency lighting.

I had one in my last house. It was a cold house so saved money and meant it was much warmer than it would have been otherwise. Not london but not far from London. My dad had a lung disease and would have struggled had a neighbour had one. I probably wouldn’t get another, lugging logs in on a freezing cold day isn’t much fun but loved that roaring fire

@Mytholmroyd Hope it didn't burn your skin!

Unscented candles are much less damaging to the lungs, tea lights in a jam jar are a bit safer to walk around with than open candles.

We keep a few cheap battery camping lanterns and head torches around just in case of power cuts. Had an outage earlier and the head torch came in handy whilst feeding the cat. Our boiler doesn't work in power cuts so I put the log burner on, again using the head torch.

Snuggled up with the cat in front of the fire now with a glass of red with both of us being hypnotised by the flames. Bliss.

@TheNoonBell - no my padded bra saved me! 😂

yes we do have battery lamps and head torches as well but the candles were in easy reach so I could go get the lamps - they are in glass jars not candlesticks but I just leant over one I was carrying to put the other in the fireplace. Daft thing to do!

Yes our heating pump boiler is no good if the electricity goes off. Good to know it is the scent that is the problem - I need to check that in future

Enjoy your wine and watching the flames! ☺️

It isn't having a direct impact on their health so no, I don't care.

My old house needs fires. We've upgraded the radiators as much as possible but the gas central heating just doesn't do it when it's really cold.

I was thinking of the actual new carbon cost of manufacturing concrete, render, mortar, more building materials, more steel, more plastic , more diesel (for the demolition vehicles) and what do we do with the millions of tons of non recyclable waste from the demolition?

lots of open coal fires still in our village

Yes we have one too and I use it in preference to our woodburner ( the house has 3 working fireplaces). It gives off far more heat. We only light it at weekends though as we’re down to the last half bunker of coal and I’m trying to make it last as long as possible

I’m looking forward to lighting it tonight

I think stoves and open fires contribute just the minuscule amount to total world air pollution.

We have here the “ little people “ bickering over neighbours using wood burners while the real culprits …large industries spewing pollutants into the water and atmosphere, politicians and royalty flying around in their private jets, don’t get a mention.
(Give up your cars everyone and use a bike instead, while we use our helicopters !🙄)
How much pollution are the current wars producing ?

The rich and powerful want us to be distracted by the mundane so they can carry on unchallenged !

I doubt anyone disputes that it should be compulsory for all new buildings to be ultra insulated and energy efficient. I personally think all new builds should have solar panels, should be built with external shades to deal with the extremes in temperature we will be facing and should have trees in the garden which can’t be removed to provide shade and to offset some of the building impact. But that is completely different to knocking down and starting again. The environmental cost of that would be massive (and ridiculously expensive from a financial perspective)

@letmeeatinpeace

As you have seen from this thread, you aren't going to make any progress appealing to peoples better nature.

Ultimately they believe their right to burn "free" stuff outweighs your right to breathe clean air.

You are far better off writing letters to your local council and complaining to your MP. The more you everyone does this, the more likely that these things will eventually be banned. If not enough people do then they won't. Democracy in action.

Not having my fire on will directly impact my own health..... my lounge sits at 12c without it

I do burn in a modern defra approved stove. Only smokeless fuel and properly seasoned wood.

Could you get one of those air purifiers?

The air in this country is cleaner than at any point over the past 50 years.

OP hasnt said whether they have invested in an air monitor and what the readings show. I tell you what though, they'll soon realise tones of stuff they do in their own home will set it off

I'm not sure if anyone has said this but the problem of excessive smoke and smell comes from people burning wet and /or unsuitable wood. Properly dried wood burns at a high heat and produces little smoke.
We had a wood burner in our last house and the neighbours next burned all sorts of stuff and outside in the winter, the air made me cough.
In our current house we have an open fireplace which we've just started using with smokeless fuel and dried logs. No smoke or smell and our air pollution monitor shows minimal additional pollution in the room when the fire is lit.

The air in this country is cleaner than at any point over the past 50 years.

This is very true @bellac11

My father was a press/society photographer in the 50/60s - we lived in a northern wool town which was surrounded by hills. Every summer all the mills and factories shut down for the same two weeks and he used to go up to Castle Hill and take a photograph of the town for the newspaper because it was the only time it was clear enough to do so - at all other times it was covered in a pall of smoke. Fortunately, we lived up on a hill!

Its said over and over on these threads and no one listens

Also the people like that in the minority, I doubt many people pay thousands for installation, lovely new burner, lovely new flue to have it corroded by burning unsuitable items, you were unlucky with your neighbours by the sound of it

Also many/all of the reports the Guardian uses for its obsession are based on pollution from burning all types of wood on all types of devices, so doesnt really represent the reality

I don't currrently use a log burner, but do use wood on an open fire fairly regularly (maybe twice a week)
The only thing that would stop me using it is either not having it, or not having any wood.

You're confusing too issues here really.

The air I breathe is primarily impacted by my neighbours' burning habits and traffic emissions (I am urban with no industry in the vicinity).

Global emissions from industries are a separate, albeit important, matter.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64788470

https://eeb.org/library/where-theres-fire-theres-smoke-emissions-from-domestic-heating-with-wood/

The report from Denmark makes some pretty sobering reading if you are interested in the science.

Of course particulate matter is a form of pollution; what else do you think it is? Report.

No one is arguing that producing gas and electricity do not have massive global environmental impacts but the OP was specifically asking about the kind of local pollution produced by wood burners in built up areas which has significant impacts on health.

OP can report it all they like. Where is their evidence?

As I said I got myself an air monitor due to the constant hysteria on threads like this that I was poisioning myself and my family. Result is that theres no issue with the air inside my home bar for the odd event of frying, cleaning, scented candles etc

Whats OPs evidence (or anyone that comes on these threads and apparently cant make their way through their house and gardens at times for the thick smoke pouring into them from nearby log burners) that the log burner next door is polluting their inside air?

I love the smell of woodsmoke! I have just had a log-burner installed but I’m not in a hugely populated area. We love love love it. It’s so cosy and makes us less stressed, we spend hours curled up in the sofa fire-gazing. My two boys love it too, they collect the wood, log it up and build a fire each evening and then look after it. It’s so much better than crappy central heating which doesn’t warm us as much, doesn’t add anything nice to the room and costs a bomb to run.

I guess you’ll always get divided opinion on this but I wouldn’t part with mine. I can’t really understand why someone would NOT want one but there you go