Wood Burners

[kwackers]

And to fix it, we need to understand why it's happening! Trying to deal with it as if "it's a lifestyle fad" will ensure continuing failure.

That's because in urban areas it is a lifestyle fad. Take 5 minutes looking at adverts for woodburning stoves, they're not aimed at folk who need one, they're trendy, hi-tech stoves aimed at middle class folk who don't mind spending one or two grand on a posh wood burner.

The local area FB page for me is full of folk asking for recommendations for stoves and I'm not seeing anyone recommending anything cheap and cheerful.

As you say, if you want to fix it you have to understand it and so far it very much looking like a lifestyle choice to me...

[pwa]

I must confess that I like fires. I've liked them for more than fifty years. If I think about the best aspects of my childhood the list would include bikes, playing in our nearby brook, making dens and having bonfires. My kids in turn spent happy hours at their grandparents' place in Ireland making bonfires. And our log burner is more than a heating source. It is a focal point, a relaxation aid, like a glass of wine at the end of a hard day.

I'm not revealing this as justification, but as explanation. Calling it a "fad" makes it sound like a "bread maker" or exercise machines, that you buy in January, use for a month then forget about. It's not like that, for me. It is deeper, to do with childhood memory and subconscious associations. Burning gas just heats.

[pete75]

Clean enough for what, certainly not air pollution.
I have no figures to back it but I'd question oil boilers emit less pollution than gas. Going only by smell then I'd doubt it. We have residents in the village and some use LPG and some oil. I've yet to smell anything from the gas boilers but can tell instantly when the oil boiler is running. Maybe someone on here can find some data. Going only by smell, and bear in mind the nose is a very sensitive thing and can detect 3 parts per million, then it wouldn't seem like it.

Looking at Sedbuk figures oil boilers appear to be 1 or 2% more efficient than gas boilers. I don't know anything about the relative air pollution. The reason you may smell oil boilers more is because the fuel smells whereas gas doesn't really smell much if at all.
Make your mind up. On teh one hand you#re condemning woodburners and saying their use is a bad choice and in another post you're saying you've got one. Maybe you need to look up the phrase "walk the talk"

Have I touched a nerve?
In my original post I said that new installations should not be allowed due to air pollution. This was for urban environments not the countryside where lack of a gas supply means oil, wood or electricity is the choice.
It's not about efficiency alone, Diesel cars are more efficient but also more polluting. Hence your 1 or 2% greater efficiency doesn't address pollution.
I live in a very rural area, surrounded by trees so I burn wood but I'd not think of doing so if I move to a town. I'm not condemning woodburners, only their use in towns and cities where it's a lifestyle fad. Perhaps this wasn't clear from my earlier post.

Touched a nerve - don't flatter yourself.

[mjr]

And to fix it, we need to understand why it's happening! Trying to deal with it as if "it's a lifestyle fad" will ensure continuing failure.

That's because in urban areas it is a lifestyle fad. Take 5 minutes looking at adverts for woodburning stoves, they're not aimed at folk who need one, they're trendy, hi-tech stoves aimed at middle class folk who don't mind spending one or two grand on a posh wood burner.

If you judge it from most adverts, then motoring is also a lifestyle fad, isn't it? I'm sure there's probably better examples where ads don't mention reality.

I know a city dweller who is quite into high-tech and likes fires, but he's got one of those glass-walled spirit burners on the coffee table. I'm really not sure many would go through all the upheaval needed to put a woodburner in a home that didn't need it, but I await any data with interest.

The local area FB page for me is full of folk asking for recommendations for stoves and I'm not seeing anyone recommending anything cheap and cheerful.

I'm on a few local area FB pages for campaigning (it's my main reason for remaining on there) and I've never seen that, but then FB is pretty notorious for being a tar-baby that shows you what will annoy you, so that you interact with it more.

As you say, if you want to fix it you have to understand it and so far it very much looking like a lifestyle choice to me...

That's lovely, but is that your own confirmation bias with no objective evidence?

[kwackers]

If you judge it from most adverts, then motoring is also a lifestyle fad, isn't it? I'm sure there's probably better examples where ads don't mention reality.

Advertisers are pretty astute at recognising their target audience whether they be for high tech wood burning stoves, cars or dating sites.
I don't really see why you'd discount them as a source of which way the wind is blowing?

As for reality, no. Advertisers sell a fantasy after all you don't see many pictures of woodburners billowing pollution in them just as you don't see adverts for cars stuck in traffic jams.

I know a city dweller who is quite into high-tech and likes fires, but he's got one of those glass-walled spirit burners on the coffee table. I'm really not sure many would go through all the upheaval needed to put a woodburner in a home that didn't need it, but I await any data with interest.

Your point being that you don't think folk are going through the upheaval? Seriously? Again you think those advertisers just like paying money for adverts with no expectation of sales? You think all those shops dotted around that are suddenly advertising log burning fires sprang up despite there being no customers?

I'm on a few local area FB pages for campaigning (it's my main reason for remaining on there) and I've never seen that, but then FB is pretty notorious for being a tar-baby that shows you what will annoy you, so that you interact with it more.

Annoy me? These are low traffic pages from people that live within a mile or so of me. Are you suggesting FB is creating false posts??

That's lovely, but is that your own confirmation bias with no objective evidence?

I'm sure some of it is my confirmation bias, but backed up by observation and evidence that urban pollution is growing and some of that is driven by wood burners.

And despite all the waffle on here, woodburner's are vastly more polluting than pretty much any other form of heating. Sure perhaps there are fuels they can burn that do so fairly cleanly but the reality of it is your average wood burning urbanite puts anything they can get there hands on through them. How are you going to stop that?

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say.
Do we agree there's a problem.
If so what's your solution?

[roubaixtuesday]

That's lovely, but is that your own confirmation bias with no objective evidence?

Well, your own view that it's something else could equally be described as "confirmation bias", particularly as you provide no allternative suggestion as to why woodburner use is increasing with objective evidence to back it up.

Anyway, here's a Government survey which provides objective evidence to back up the view.

(1)About 30% of woodburner owners say they are for aesthetic reasons.
(2) There is only partial correlation of woodburner use to mains gas availability.

The relationship between gas grid connectivity and domestic wood fuel use is, however, not straight forward; although the South East has a smaller proportion of households not connected to the grid compared to the South West, it has a higher proportion using wood fuel; only 5 per cent of households in the South East (compared to 17 per cent in the South West) use wood fuel for all their heating therefore their wood fuel consumption is less likely to be a replacement for gas grid sourced fuel (table 1.5 in the summary tables).

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... urvey_.pdf

[dodger1]

Nobody's mentioned cost yet. I cut my own, store and burn when fully dry. I burn it hot and there is minimal soot in the chimney.
BUT, if I had to buy it, I'd think again.
Saw some for sale recently in B&M, Aldi (or Lidl), petrol stations - all at around £5 per small bag. I reckon that will increase, as more lifestyle burners are used and will have the result of reducing usage without yet more virtually unenforceable legislation. I guess I burn at least £10 worth per day on that basis.
The real problem is how much smoke is produced, usually due to incomplete combustion. I remember well the smell of the evening air in the winter when I was young - choking and sulpurous - from coal. Wood is very different.

[Bonefishblues]

Most of the hardwood being commercially supplied comes from overseas, typically the Baltic States like Lithuania.

[PDQ Mobile]

Most of the hardwood being commercially supplied comes from overseas, typically the Baltic States like Lithuania.

For firewood?
Such a nonsense, completely barmy.
Defeats any point I would say.

[Bonefishblues]

Most of the hardwood being commercially supplied comes from overseas, typically the Baltic States like Lithuania.

For firewood?
Such a nonsense, completely barmy.
Defeats any point I would say.

It might do. It'd need a smarter mind than mine to determine whether that was or wasn't the case. Fact is that the demand exceeds the UK's ability to supply.

[Mick F]

Nobody's mentioned cost yet. I cut my own, store and burn when fully dry. I burn it hot and there is minimal soot in the chimney.
BUT, if I had to buy it, I'd think again.
Saw some for sale recently in B&M, Aldi (or Lidl), petrol stations - all at around £5 per small bag.

Me too.
If we had to buy it, I don't know what we'd do.

Those small bags for a fiver wouldn't last the evening. That's maybe going on a tenner a day, for maybe nine months of the year ........ actually, it's rare that we go for whole week without it lit even in the summer.

Lets say a minimum of 250 days of use with the minimum of one sack at £5 per day is a massive £1250 a year and could be even double that!

[Ben@Forest]

Nobody's mentioned cost yet. I cut my own, store and burn when fully dry. I burn it hot and there is minimal soot in the chimney.
BUT, if I had to buy it, I'd think again.
Saw some for sale recently in B&M, Aldi (or Lidl), petrol stations - all at around £5 per small bag.

Me too.
If we had to buy it, I don't know what we'd do.

Those small bags for a fiver wouldn't last the evening. That's maybe going on a tenner a day, for maybe nine months of the year ........ actually, it's rare that we go for whole week without it lit even in the summer.

Surely both of you have seen firms that sell firewood in bulk? Often sold in dumpy bags nowadays but otherwise simply a truckload. Usually something between 0.7 and 1.5m3. It's how most regular users of firewood get their fuel.

Unless it's a really good deal it's probably still more expensive than any fossil fuel, but you aren't factoring in your time, tools and fuel. Work it out properly - say £100 a day (ignoring that a firm/contractor pays tax, NI, insurance, holidays etc) then add your tools and fuel and that'll be the price of your firewood.

Plus of course buying the timber in the first place costs. Timber contractors do buy woodlands for a timber supply or they buy standing timber from other owners. You should factor in what your woodland cost you.

And finally if you are only using it for firewood that will suit you but you are potentially losing greater monetary gains than if you grew better quality crops. If you had 12 fantastic mature wild cherry to sell it'd make you some much easier money than slogging away with a chainsaw.

[Mick F]

I don't slog away with a chainsaw at all. It's easy work providing your chainsaw is good quality and sharp.
I'm no lumberjack or tree surgeon, I just cut a tree down and log it up into lengths and let it mature.
Then, I cut it into fire-sized pieces, sometimes splitting them with my log splitter.
I tend to do all that so there's enough for the hearth, and that's it. Maybe once a week in the winter.

Any hard work is in transporting it in a barrow, but I don't spend more than half an hour with that.

[Graham]

I walked past a house with a pallet-full of firewood, sitting a the end of the drive ( sort of shrink-wrapped in plastic).
The owner merrily exclaimed that it was from Poland and cheaper than buying firewood locally.

. . . A double whammy ! . . . This is madness.

[pwa]

I walked past a house with a pallet-full of firewood, sitting a the end of the drive ( sort of shrink-wrapped in plastic).
The owner merrily exclaimed that it was from Poland and cheaper than buying firewood locally.

. . . A double whammy ! . . . This is madness.

I think my bought wood is cheap enough and we're only a couple of miles from the business where it originates as offcuts. In rural areas there are often reasonably priced sources nearby.