New rules on moisture content come into effect today

[Stubby]

7 minutes ago, Witterings said:

 

^^^ That I didn't know ... won't part of those readings depend on what stove you're using as well, are people with older stoves obliged to update to newer cleaner stoves?

Any stove will smoke on start up . Once mine is up to temp you cant see any smoke .

 

[Steven P]

In a block of flats you'd have to know also which chimney is which to see whose fire is smoking.

 

As it stands I don't think t can be widely enforced. Its the sellers who have to comply but once delivered and after maybe a week they would all shrug their shoulders and say "it rained, the sample of logs we tested for that delivery all met the standards". Guess this would be enforced by customs and excise and if they turned up at a yard the seller would simply say "that pile isn't ready to go out yet", you'd have to test the logs as they left the yard or at the delivery address, and then likely only to happen if there were a few complaints put in against a specific log supplier.

 

Interesting thought though a forecourt or DIY warehouse. renowned for their wetter logs (also supermarkets) would buy their wood at the required 20%, storage would let that rise, however would they then pass the responsibility back to the producer? Almost guaranteed that the local supplier would be enough under 20% to be OK but the large warehouses want to save every penny, buy it in when it is exactly 20%, not a drop less, not a penny more spent on the kiln heating.

[Martin du Preez]

So can i just keep selling my wood at 15/16% moisture in 1.2 cubic metre quantities as i please and as i always have done or do i need to sign up to some BS scheme? i have no interest is selling unseasoned green or wet firewood 

[gdh]

37 minutes ago, Martin du Preez said:

So can i just keep selling my wood at 15/16% moisture in 1.2 cubic metre quantities as i please and as i always have done or do i need to sign up to some BS scheme? i have no interest is selling unseasoned green or wet firewood 

If you're in England and are selling less than 2 cube at a time you have to sign up. You have another year if you sell less than 600 cube total.

[Witterings]

2 hours ago, Martin du Preez said:

So can i just keep selling my wood at 15/16% moisture in 1.2 cubic metre quantities as i please and as i always have done or do i need to sign up to some BS scheme? i have no interest is selling unseasoned green or wet firewood 

 

I'm sure in due course you'll have to sign up and then pay an annual fee .... it's otherwise known as stealth tax.

[Big J]

I do not envy any of you having to sign up to this shitshow bureaucratic nonsense. Firewood is already overpriced to the point of being unaffordable as a source of primary heating. I don't mean that as a slight to any producer - we have poor quality trees, in small, difficult to manage blocks, a crappy transport infrastructure, difficult climate for drying and idiot customers. I don't know how any of you manage to make a business out of it without working yourself into an early grave, and I doff my hat to you. 

 

Regardless, this whole Woodsure scheme isn't going to have any effect on particulate matter in the air at all. Domestic firewood users burn so little timber in the scheme of things that even if the scheme were to work, it's hardly going to make a difference. 

 

We just finished burning off brash on a site we recently clearfelled. I hate burning brash, but on this site we had no choice. Far too soft to send a mulcher in and impossible to windrow due to the aforementioned boggy ground. So we made up 11 large stacks. It'd take me a lifetime of fulltime burning to get through the volume of timber we burned off. But it's entirely legal and something I'd not rush to repeat. 

 

I do have one firewood customer who is in the process of being reamed by Woodsure as we speak. They seem keen to get started penalising producers.

[Bob_z_l]

12 hours ago, gdh said:

If you're in England and are selling less than 2 cube at a time you have to sign up. You have another year if you sell less than 600 cube total.

I've re-read the article. I must have misunderstood. 
If I sell dry wood sub 20% then I comply. It only says wet wood and coal in less than 2m loads are unlawful.

 

 

 

[Stere]

Quote

Domestic firewood users burn so little timber in the scheme of things that even if the scheme were to work, it's hardly going to make a difference. 

Not sure thats true

 

Wood burning at home now biggest cause of UK particle pollution | Air pollution | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Fires used by just 8% of population but cause triple the particle pollution of traffic, data shows

 

[Paul in the woods]

1 hour ago, Stere said:

Not sure thats true

 

Wood burning at home now biggest cause of UK particle pollution | Air pollution | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Fires used by just 8% of population but cause triple the particle pollution of traffic, data shows

 

The problem with that story and the government report is that it doesn't say how it has concluded "Most emissions from this source come from burning wood in closed stoves and open fires". How, for example, does it distinguish between home heating and bonfires? Or wild fires. Or farms burning plastic etc.

[openspaceman]

21 minutes ago, Paul in the woods said:

The problem with that story and the government report is that it doesn't say how it has concluded "Most emissions from this source come from burning wood in closed stoves and open fires". How, for example, does it distinguish between home heating and bonfires? Or wild fires. Or farms burning plastic etc.

Well HETAS (the owner of woodsure??) published a weak rebuttal and this page

 

Government overestimating emissions from domestic wood-burning, says industry body - Air Quality News

AIRQUALITYNEWS.COM

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A report commissioned by industry body HETAS claims that particulate matter emissions attributed to domestic...

ends not supporting them.

 

I guess the only way to get a figure on this is to find some 24 hour emissions data for different times of year.

 

What we can say is that particulate pollution from other sources has declined for various reasons including catalytic converters and DPFs on vehicles  so with no changes in wood burning the percentage contribution was bound to rise.