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Rise in UK wood-burners likely to be creating ‘pollution hotspots’ in affluent areas
Public enemy number ?
Not really stove bashing. More just the truth?
"sharp rise in wood burning in urban areas" - key here is urban areas. We are not talking about someone trying to heat their croft, but someone who probably has mains gas but likes looking at the flames in their stove.
We live at the top of a hill in a small town full of old stone houses with wood burners. (We have one too, it's the only way to get downstairs above 14 degrees in winter.) Walk home on a cold night, or even open a window, and it bloody stinks. No way it's good breathing that in.
yeah, if you don't have mains gas, or can't afford it or whatever actual legitimate reason, then fair enough, but if you're just burning wood in a populated area because you can then that's a bit **** ish IMO. Obviously people on here operate theirs scrupulously and they only burn super-clean, not so sure about everybody else tho 🤔Not really stove bashing. More just the truth?
Justifiably so IMO.
Obviously everyone on here maintains theirs scrupulously and they burn super-clean, not so sure about the others tho
Still pumps out loads of carcinogenic PM10s...
Burning stuff in your own house is just like burning petrol in your car. It is better environmentally to use more sustainable energy to heat your home or fuel your car. No debate to be had.
Burning stuff in your own house is just like burning petrol in your car.
Only it's far worse in terms of PM10 pollution....
Burning stuff in your own house is just like burning petrol in your car.
No, not at all.
The pertrol in your car is highly refined and volatile. So it's a gas when exa t'y the right amount enters your combination chamber where its compressed greatly, so when it burns i'r does so very cleanly. It's carefully monitored in real time and there's loads of pollution regulation technology. And it gets checked at least once a year to make sure it's working.
In your wood burner you are burning completely unrefined fuel at low pressure and random temperatures across the burn which means that loads of chemicals and particles end up in the atmosphere. When was the last time you saw a car smoke like a chimney?
When was the last time you saw a car smoke like a chimney?
@pictonroad 's Decatted VW campervan rollin' coal through the Sussex countryside, that's when!!!
DrP
Isn't their some additional legislation coming in to stop the use where it's not 'needed' as a form of heating ? Certainly my neighbour doesn't need one, but the stainless flu looks a mess, and it kicks out a load of smoke - burns building timber on it).
I support the use where needed, not as a fashion accessory. Unfortunately, I suspect burning wood will be cheaper than gas.
Sounds like a good thing to me! Now the poor no longer have to suffer worse air pollution than the middle classes....
I thought this was a very odd passage though? It kind of considers 'traffic' to be an amorphous blob with no people in it - like those drivers who complain about being 'stuck in traffic'. And it also assumes that no-one's in their houses at 6pm. Which is a bit of a reach....
That contrasts with patterns of pollution from traffic, which tend to be worst at busy times of day and fall off in the evening when people are more likely to be at home.
“People burn wood on cold winter nights when their neighbours are at home,” Fuller said. “Air pollution can settle over an area, meaning that more people can be exposed than those that experience traffic pollution from busy roads.”
I have a wood burner, but like many I don't actually need it as we have gas heating.
It's very nice and cosy to have and the wood I pay though the nose for is kiln dried and low moisture. Despite, the recent evidence is pretty overwhelming against the use of a wood burner in a semi-urban area.
I'm wondering if there's anything on the horizon that would replace burning wood and mean you could keep and still use a wood burner if you have one - i.e some kind of low emission saw-dust compressed mega log? (or flux capacitor sticks)
I’m wondering if there’s anything on the horizon that would replace burning wood and mean you could keep and still use a wood burner if you have one – i.e some kind of low emission saw-dust compressed mega log?
You can't achieve / maintain a high enough temp to ensure you won't pump out soot over the whole burn cycle.
There soot scrubbers that are available in Europe. I've never been able to find their proper name, but they go at the top of the chimney and use the fact that soot particles are statically charged to stick them to an opposite polarity plate, which they then drop off of into a box that's periodically emptied when the chimney is swept.
Thing on BBC News yesterday about electric wallpaper, sounds very interesting, but I'd be concerned about any leaks in the house and the impact it could have on that - basically the walls of your house get heated via electrical elements and the bits inside the rooms then heat up.
As much as it is using electricity it sounded cleaner than burning wood and I suspect it will be an excellent addition for those following trends and fashions - but it did involve removing the gas central heating supply completely, so isn't a quick, easy or 'cheap' fix. I'm not saying things should be cheap but if they can't be afforded then people won't purchase them.
Nothing about burning wet wood or keeping your flue + stove clean. They're the main culprits for pollution
Isn’t their some additional legislation coming in to stop the use where it’s not ‘needed’ as a form of heating ?
There already is, in most places other than the countryside, called the Clean Air act.
When was the last time you saw a car smoke like a chimney?
Yesterday.
And you noticed it because it was out of the ordinary.. So yeah.
I'm in the middle of nowhere so feel my situation is slightly different, but it does feel like the mounting evidence (or rather the widespread knowledge of the evidence) for wood as a domestic heat source in an urban environment (and by urban I guess we are talking village and bigger, but geography plays a part too) being not the way to go is pretty compelling.
The stove as a vanity product is an interesting one - yes, it's definitely a thing. There is something emotionally warming about a fire that is compelling beyond just the heat. But it does also provide a point heat source. By that I mean it's less demoralizing to have a very cool house if one room is nice and toasty. And wood burners as a secondary heat source are good as providing that cheaply. Smart heating systems, intelligently setup, can provide that too - but gas boilers and badly designed pipe runs are not too efficient at running like that - see the huge number of wfh threads during the pandemic with people trying to work out if its more cost effective to run the central heating heating just one room or putting an eclectic fire on.
Obviously the elephant in the room are poorly insulated houses. But even then air source heat pump heated houses are not cheap to run. We have friends who moved into a brand new (admittedly quite large) house built to a very high spec with air source heat pumped heating and their bills are crazy high. As in crazy crazy high. And the house is still very definitely at a jumpers required temperature. A little log burner in the corner would have helped no end.
Future is not looking too full of easy solutions.
Air source heat pumps are very easy to install (and run) very badly, and there are plenty of stories of this. The designer, the installer and the user need to know what they are doing. Properly done, air source heat pumps should be at least as cheap as gas.
You should get your friends to call someone from Heat Geek.
"Properly done, air source heat pumps should be as cheap as gas."
Funny you should say that. We had the owner of a firm in that specialises in heat pump (ground and air) to look at our house with a view to going that way when we do the place up. Friend of a friend so he was quite honest. He was not so sure about that - said (because of the cost) he wasn't keen on being involved in any installation projects that didn't also involve a significant insulation upgrade at the same time - because of the price differential in running costs to the conventional systems coming out. We are on LPG and pre Ukraine (lpg and natural gas actually crossed over in price a while back) the calculations are more favourable as LPG is so traditionally expensive.
But agreed - setting up properly and then living in a air source heat pump house takes a bit of tweaking.
Further to convert's statement about air sourced heat pumps being wonderfully inefficient in the UK; you also should consider that locally sourced wood - be it your own copse / local supplier will be the most sustainable and renewable form of heating one is able to install in your own home.
Combine this with how perilously close we've came to black outs this winter, spiralling energy costs having a stove to provide back up heating is a very desirable thing indeed.
I don't have a stove and it would be tricky to install in my house without routing the chimney up through the master bedroom. If it were easier I would certainly be looking to have one installed.
Moot point as we haven’t been able to buy hardwood logs for ages 🙁
First they came for the wood stovers, then they came for the tofu eaters...
Yeah the insulation is part of the 'design' I was talking about.
You need fatter pipes to carry the water around, so that heat is not lost in the pipes. These should be lagged ideally. And you also need bigger radiators, because the water will be cooler as heat pumps can't make the water as hot as a gas boiler. This is why installations can be cheap but can also be hugely expensive depending on what's already there.
The house you mentioned earlier may be new, but that doesn't mean it was designed or installed properly. Ours certainly wasn't, from new. I would be in touch with the builders too, as you don't want to be saddled with huge bills and it's quite likely that the house was sold as being energy efficient so it's not what was promised.
Now that I have had some experience with the plumbing in my house I am rather tempted to have a crack at upgrading ours and fitting a heat pump, or at least changing things in readiness.
And you noticed it because it was out of the ordinary.. So yeah.
I noticed it as it stunk and couldn’t miss it but yes bit as common site as they once were.
"Yeah the insulation is part of the ‘design’ I was talking about."
Not so much the pipe insulation and bore increase of the pipes (I think that's a given) - more the walls, loft and windows insulation. He's not keen to be involved in an upgrade to heat pump unless these were done on projects too. Kind of common sense really that you'd want to be doing that as well, but more a commentary/admission that you needed to get these things in order or in a like-for-like setup your costs would go up untenably when you switched from gas to air sourced heat pump. This is northern Scotland however, where I guess the lower temperatures magnifies matters somewhat.
p.s. thinking about friend's house - its very 'exec' with acres of glass. Not too many rooms you could 'windmill' in privacy. Even if your glass is top notch, I wonder if that's a factor. But north of £600pm leccy bills would sting my bank balance, even there was no gas bill to worry about.
Oil is unattainable in France as a fuel source. Prohibitively expensive.
My folks had a heatpump forced upon them and it's pretty grim. Thankfully it's rarely cold cold where they are.
They have onsite wood production and 3 wood stoves to supplement the heatpump (business use) ..... Heatpumps the size of a car and it's still crap.
Their thermodynamic tanks are good though.
The whole lot would make oil seem cheap though if it wasn't for 8kw of solar production.
Im on off mains gas/on oil and while I'll be removing my hot water off the oil shortly I'm in no rush to have heatpump fitted.
Yeah but it's posh smog...
Humans harnessed fire 2 million years ago. We evolved with it. People who didn't like it won't have made as many new people as those who did like it. There's a reason wood smoke smells nice, fires look great etc.
Hey ho. We had a good run
The rest of my team at work are in Helsinki / Espoo. Every one of them live in houses with heatpumps that double as Air Con. Funny that they work perfectly there but not in France. 😀
Before declaring them to work perfectly I'd be interested to know what their fuel usage in kWh is for perfect working.
The devils in the details- anything can look like its working if you don't have to pay the bills ..
i have 2 multi fuel stoves and burn logs on a nice bed of coal.....very toasty..
Absolutely just ban trendy wood burners for houses that have gas at least. Sick of smelling that shit every time I walk out the door. If you live in the sticks and have no other option then fine.
Every one of them live in houses with heatpumps that double as Air Con. Funny that they work perfectly there but not in France.
Interestingly I recently read about how temps close to zero are the worst for heat pumps. -10 is better than +2. All due to humidity and frosting on heat exchangers.
So actually, it is reasonable that the heat pumps are working better there
From what I understand the big difference is the quality of the housing stock rather than anything else.
The rest of my team at work are in Helsinki / Espoo. Every one of them live in houses with heatpumps that double as Air Con. Funny that they work perfectly there but not in France. 😀
From what I understand the big difference is the quality of the housing stock rather than anything else.
Exactly. Finland isn’t generally known for its balmy year-round temperatures - well-insulated buildings are a given.
I have stayed in a house in Orkney that had a heat pump - worked fine.
If a heat pump system is not heating the house then something is wrong. Badly designed or specced? Poor insulation?
Ah but the difference with Orkney is they take this shit seriously and will happily knock down and rebuild if they get a better house out of it, we just throw a bit of rock wool at any old shite and declare job done.
As said the quality of the insulation and draught proofing is key, we knew this 12 years ago the first time I studied it, blame the marketers/salesmen rather than the engineers.
there's a proven link between smoke pollution induced lung inflammation and stress and anxiety.
the 'bashing in guardian' rhetoric is why serious issues are easily woke-washed.
When was the last time you saw a car smoke like a chimney?
It's fine if people can afford the electricity to run a heat pump let alone to convert to one. Until then people are burning pallets/anything they can to keep warm.
It’s fine if people can afford the electricity to run
Oh yes lots of people reassuring us that they work fine they stayed with someone and didn't pay the bill.
Anyone that was a guest of my parents would also think that everything worked fine.
Back in the real world the bills go up cause it's cold and the heatings on more and then up again because the COP drops quite significantly. It's like a bonus multiplier.
As above it seems to be worse when it hovers around zero (which is pretty much their winter temp much like here) due to humidity the heatpump does defrost quite a bit. It improves quite a bit when on the odd day they get when it's really cold
We have a heat pump. I reckon my electricity bill will average around £250 a month over the year. Heating is on constant set at 18 degrees C. It’s a modern house so well insulated with underfloor heating. I set the controller down to 16.5 when I go to bed the temperature generally falls 1 degree overnight so shows me we are not losing that much if we don’t open the front door or windows. We have thermal curtains on all the windows all drawn at sunset.
The heating system did struggle in the really cold snaps -10 degrees c. However when I closed all the trickle vents in the house it worked much better. we are a little bit north of the centre of Scotland.
Our old house was a 100 year old stone building with plaster and lath walls almost zero insulation. The gas central heating boiler ran full tilt 24 hours a day during cold snaps. Even then only certain rooms were warm (the insulated ones).
Gas per unit is way cheaper than electricity but I’m sure we used 5 times as much. So in my experience it’s all about how insulated your house is. Heat pumps are great but if I had fitted one to our old house it would never have warmed up.
Just talking from my experience, I live rurally, renting in a 130+ year old house. Landlord has put in minimal insulation, no double glazing etc. We don't use oil, we have a biomass heating system that's more expensive than oil to run (again landlord installed) the wood burner is the best, most efficient and cheapest method of heating the house currently.
However as mentioned previously, installation of a wood burner in towns and city's, into houses that are well insulated and modern is pure vanity, much in the same way a Chelsea Tractor is..
We have two AC style heat pumps in the downstairs of our house. I've been very impressed with them; even though upstairs is still on gas they've knocked a massive chunk off our gas bill - much more than the extra electricity cost has been - and I much prefer them quietly whirring away to all the racket that the boiler, pipes, radiators and the outrageously noisy condensate pump make. I'd love to put them upstairs as well but that's more rooms so it's a much bigger job.
Our house is a 1980s boring brick cube with an uninsulated floor, draughty dry lining and a garage conversion done by dodgy builders that has no cavity between the two brick courses, but the heat pumps have had no problem. The outdoor unit is a little noisier when it has to work hard but it's probably still quieter than the boiler flue.
A major disadvantage is that for some reason the outdoor units for AC-style heat pumps are all phenomenally ugly so a challenge for spring is to try to obscure it a bit without disrupting the air flow too much.
An added bonus is on days like today when it's jolly chilly outside but the solar PV is providing all the power.
Confused - do I turn on my oil fired central heating or use the wood stoves (fuelled exclusively with well seasoned hardwood from on-site)?