wood burners

[GarethM]

21 minutes ago, Muddy42 said:

 

I can never work out if you are agreeing or disagreeing or talking about something entirely different?

 

As I said 5 hours ago I would be very happy with existing back boiler stove system that was properly setup with many of the safety features above.

 

My understanding is there are two criticisms against back boiler stoves:

- efficiency and clean smoke.  current regs are pushing higher efficiency wood stoves that burn fast and hard. Introducing cold(er) water into a stove potentially cools it down which makes this hard to achieve. Personally I'm less concerned about efficiency and cleanliness because I have masses of dry wood and live in the sticks. If there isn't the right mixer value, more thinking is required.

- safety.  there is a risk that a system will either pressurize, boil if vented or run dry and pipes crack. Again I think all of this is possible to overcome with the right design and safety features. The bigger log central heating systems can dump water, pressure, shut the air right down and some can even extinguish the fire totally.

 

I think the current industry, building regs, stove installers and plumbers etc, are being overly safety conscious and just taking the path of least resistance to push everyone onto leccy.  

Mostly disagreeing with you.

 

Because you want everyone else to be mandated to be efficient, clean burning and ecological by wasting money on more pointless R&D to achieve something that's not possible, yet your happy to not be efficient, pollute and stay warm.

 

The fire is about as efficient as it'll ever be, there will never be much more to gain and you have to design for the absolute dumbest person running a glorified pressure cooker.

 

Backboilers aren't going to meet DEFRA regs

[Muddy42]

17 minutes ago, GarethM said:

Mostly disagreeing with you.

 

Because you want everyone else to be mandated to be efficient, clean burning and ecological by wasting money on more pointless R&D to achieve something that's not possible, yet your happy to not be efficient, pollute and stay warm.

 

The fire is about as efficient as it'll ever be, there will never be much more to gain and you have to design for the absolute dumbest person running a glorified pressure cooker.

 

Backboilers aren't going to meet DEFRA regs

 

???????   let's leave it here fella, you totally misunderstand me, I would rip up the all stove regs if I had my way.

[GarethM]

13 minutes ago, Muddy42 said:

???????   let's leave it here fella, you totally misunderstand me, I would rip up the all stove regs if I had my way.

That's a bit of a different argument, personally I would agree as my boiler is 3 times more expensive.

 

But with a world of fwits, DEFRA regulations are realistically the only way you'll stop idiots or at the very least financially forcing them to fit a certified fire as a starting point, firewood education has achieved nothing other than a busted flush.

 

Maybe change the regs to say, if the nearest two neighbour is more than 50m of you it's fine to use whatever you want.

[sime42]

2 hours ago, Steven P said:

 

Yes I think if the earth can turn leaves and dead fish into oil and coal (with time, heat and pressure) then surely it can do the same with plastics that are halfway there as they are.

 

 

Fungi - a thing on the TV last night, they can do something with some of them to make an equivalent to wood, takes about a month to grow the fungi, rather than 30 for trees, they are our friends, and not just for breakfast.

 

Lots of people are making lots of things out of Mycelium now. Furniture seems to be a favourite. I can understand that. Making electronics from mushrooms is a bit more of a stretch.

 

Growing Mycelium - Materials Assemble

MATERIALSASSEMBLE.COM

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Discover the world of mycelium design with Materials Assemble. Explore sustainable cultivation, natural interior panels, and...

 

 

‘Nature’s original engineers’: scientists explore the amazing potential of fungi | Fungi | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Unique properties of fungi have led to groundbreaking innovations in recent years, from nappies to electronics

 

 

 

 

[Rob_the_Sparky]

There is something political going on as technically all this "ban wood burners" doesn't make sense.  Why would you not control open fires but you would ban older but cleaner wood burners?  Why rather than trying to ban anything would you not look at reducing the particulate emissions?  It is not like there are no products out there that do that.  A very brief google get you: 

The ePURO, filter for wood burning stoves - Schiedel Chimney Systems Ltd.

SHOP.SCHIEDEL.COM

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The ePURO, filter for wood burning stoves - The fine dust filter for wood-burning appliances. Electrostatic fine dust separator for effectively reducing flue gas particles in wood-burning...

 

If you applied the same logic the diesel and petrol engine would have been banned may years ago rather than improving their design to reduce emissions!

Edited 2 hours ago by Rob_the_Sparky

[Steven P]

Can't ban open fires unless you are willing to spend, lets say £2k in every house that has one to remove it and the chimney (to prevent it being opened up again after), and redecorate (also to include those with wood burners fitted to prevent them being taken out and an open fire being used instead). Easier to control the sale of new burner... though they could of course encourage installing a more efficient stove instead of an open fire somehow.

 

The logic kind of applies to cars - not banning older less efficient vehicles but any new ones have to meet mre stringent minimum standards

[openspaceman]

21 minutes ago, Steven P said:

The logic kind of applies to cars - not banning older less efficient vehicles but any new ones have to meet mre stringent minimum standards

To an extent yes but a car that is post 1975 manufacture has to pass a visual smoke test.

 

In fact it is likely the burning of wood will be made more expensive. We already see that  the cost of a chimney lining is often more expensive than the stove, add to that a mandatory, annual chimney clean and inspection by a HETAS approved chimney sweep (and just like at an MOT he will refuse to sweep a stove-chimney combo that doesn't have certification). Next will be the requirement to fit an electrostatic filter, just like cars having catalytic converters, for a couple of thousand pounds. This will add to the electricity bill like an old incandescent light left on permanently. Apart from the cost I would have one.

 

Then it could be illegal to sell a house with non compliant chimneys or stoves, already the case in Denmark, cheaper to dump the stove and remove the chimney.

 

I expect HETAS requirements have already  caused people to get out of selling firewood.

 

The thing is before the internet air pollution in towns only measured SO2, NO2 and CO, then about 5 years later particulates came into the frame and were measured by how much they greyed filter paper, then came the laser particulates counters and PM10 were first mentioned but it was realised the hairs in nostrils trapped the bigger bits so it was PM2.5 that were targeted.

 

Now we have the situation where the advertising standards agency have (rightly) banned advertisements by stove manufacturers saying that modern stoves emit less particulates if burning dry wood, true but they didn't provide proof.

[Johnsond]

1 hour ago, Steven P said:

Can't ban open fires

Says who ??

The SNP have pulled off some proper ludicrous senseless bans up here including with wood burners as you know, they baled out of that after realising that the creature Harvey who pushed it was potentially gonna cost them dearly at the ballot box in rural areas. 
On a serious note why anyone is still burning imported coal on an open fire in this day and age is beyond me. There are loads of good multi fuel stoves that are far more efficient than an open fire, you are unfortunately not gonna get away from the fact that the emissions from domestic coal burning are not something that’s gonna rub in 2025. 
In the new property im moving to the first task will be to remove the existing multi fuel fire ( I absolutely refuse to buy imported coal) and fit a new Morso 6843 the same stove we’ve had for the last 14 years in our current property, brilliant  bit of kit and once hot you get virtually zero smoke. 
I don’t give a damn about a couple of grand, that will soon be recouped burning free milling waste or wind blown sourced logs.