wood burners

[Tree monkey 1682]

1 hour ago, Alan Smith said:

Not dirty wood, wet wood. Piles of freshly cut wood delivered to people who know no better trying to burn it because they are so unorganised they didn't get it delivered three years previously and stashed it away to dry in a shed and are too cheap to buy properly seasoned wood.

You cant tell me burning painted timber is going to be good!?

[Steven P]

44 minutes ago, Muddy42 said:

Its all about the fuel.
 

One of the dirtiest smoke clouds I have seen was when a neighbour decided to burn some green wood fresh wet from his garden. Yes it was still dirty after burning for an hour, yes it was a modern ecodesign efficient stove.

 

Little difference between that and a garden bonfire, and little difference to the heating of the house too.

[Mark Bolam]

The government can’t tax the firewood market sufficiently, that’s all there is to it.

[sime42]

That and just trying to grasp the easiest low hanging fruit, just to be seen to be doing something. I imagine wood burner smoke is a very small proportion of the total air pollution, compared to the millions of cars and lorries on the roads and aircraft in the skies. Maybe they think they can cancel out the effects of all the extra runways they're intent on building, dreamers. 

 

 

 

 

[Alan Smith]

1 hour ago, Tree monkey 1682 said:

You cant tell me burning painted timber is going to be good!?

Definitely not good, but your average suburban dweller with the designer wood stove is not burning painted scrap treated/painted wood are they?  It's the suburban/urban areas that the government are looking at with regard to wood smoke pollution. 

[openspaceman]

22 minutes ago, sime42 said:

That and just trying to grasp the easiest low hanging fruit, just to be seen to be doing something. I imagine wood burner smoke is a very small proportion of the total air pollution, compared to the millions of cars and lorries on the roads and aircraft in the skies. Maybe they think they can cancel out the effects of all the extra runways they're intent on building, dreamers. 

 

 

 

 

We have been here before; the existential threat is from climate change due to CO2 and other gases effect on the atmosphere. The perceived problem from wood burning is particulates which contain soot and  other products of incomplete combustion. Some of these , the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, are implicated in cancers, pulmonary and heart diseases.

 

The first is a global problem the second largely, a local one.

 

While large jet aircraft are a big contributor to the first problem I imagine they are fairly low on particulates nowadays.

 

Because the controls on industrial combustion and agriculture have drastically reduced their emission of particulates since the early 90s and controls on diesel particulate emission have been introduced over the last 15 years I imagine the transport emissions have similarly fallen.

 

That leaves other combustion as a source.

 

Woodburning stoves burning low moisture content wood are several times better than open fire and we seldom resort to burning arisings on site now. So I do believe  they are a significant contributor to PICs and particulates but its a proportion of a much smaller overall amount.

 

OTOH most of the wood burned would simply rot back to CO2 and water if it were not for the firewood market so it is a positive contributor to displacing fossil fuels with little net affect on atmospheric CO2.

 

Personally I feel the polyfluoroalkyl substances and the other microplastics we have in our bodies are likely more significant to heath.

[Johnsond]

43 minutes ago, sime42 said:

That and just trying to grasp the easiest low hanging fruit, just to be seen to be doing something. I imagine wood burner smoke is a very small proportion of the total air pollution, compared to the millions of cars and lorries on the roads and aircraft in the skies. Maybe they think they can cancel out the effects of all the extra runways they're intent on building, dreamers. 

 

 

 

 

The lowest hanging fruit is undoubtedly those still burning coal. 

SNP tried it in Scotland as I’m sure some on here are aware. 

 

 

Coal smoke is worse than wood smoke due to the variety of toxic pollutants it releases, including sulfur dioxide and heavy metals, while wood smoke is primarily composed of carbon dioxide and water vapor, which are less harmful. However, wood burning still releases fine particulate matter (PM2.5) that is damaging to health. It is crucial to burn responsibly by using dry, seasoned wood, as burning wet or unseasoned wood produces significantly more smoke and pollution. 

[Paul in the woods]

I'm not sure what the latest proposals are or if they will make much difference but...

 

We heat our house with a woodburner and it is loaded up and burnt hot. Glass hardly has no soot on it after weeks of use and having burnt 50% leylandii that only had a year seasoning last winter the chimney had hardly any soot in it.

 

I know a few people with woodburners that are only used to add ambiance and lit for a few hours of an evening and they soot up and smoke continuously regardless of what's used as the owners don't want heat but 'a look'.

 

I'm not sure if new laws would help much but look forward to the papers moaning about police raids on people who've posted a photo of their fires on social media. 

 

I hope they also go after the farmers who still burn their silage plastic or all the bonfires that people leave smoulder for hours on end.