Are Woodburners costly and serious polluters?

[Howard]

At this time of year, on a very still morning or evening, there is a strong smell of smoke hanging over our village. Despite the low density of houses the smoke is apparent. Mainly from wood burners.

Looking at the internet there are suggestions that wood burning stoves are a major source of pollution.

The Guardian published the results of research into stove pollution.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... scientists.

“Research published in the last year has shown wood burning in homes is the single biggest source of small particle air pollution in the UK, producing three times more than road traffic, despite just 8% of the population using wood burners.
Even new wood burning stoves meeting the “ecodesign” standard still emit 750 times more tiny particle pollution than a modern HGV truck. Wood burners also triple the level of harmful pollution inside homes and should be sold with a health warning, according to scientists.”

If you prefer the Daily Mail, they carried the story as well but a few months later they reported an updated study which was less critical.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... ar-UK.html

“the new report, which comes after a survey of 50,000 homes provided updated information on the use of wood stoves, said the burners are still a growing problem for clear air.
Particulates are the group of pollutants that are so tiny they can 'enter the bloodstream, lodging in the heart, brain and other organs', and causing serious impacts to health, according to Defra.”

Looking at advice from Ideal Home:

“Opting for a wood burning stove requires careful thought. You need to consider the rules, and be prepared to run your appliance safely and correctly to ensure you minimise your carbon emissions as much as possible.”

New stoves require the chimney to be swept every year and the stove serviced. And only dry wood should be used."

These articles can be criticised as the views of journalists. But if someone is using an old stove which doesn’t meet the new standards they are polluting the air around them.

The cost of installing a new stove according to Ideal Home article is not cheap! Installing a chimney liner and hearth and a modern stove which meets the new standards suggests a budget of £5,000 might be appropriate.

https://www.idealhome.co.uk/property-ad ... ove-309417

Times have changed and maybe it’s now much better to install an ASHP than a wood burner?

I admit to being an early adopter. Our ASHP has a 2.5 kW output. It’s whisper quiet inside and out and very cheap to run to complement background gas central heating. It cost £2,300 to install the inverter outside and wall units in two rooms.

It will warm the air in a freezing cold room in minutes and is economical as a top up in a warmish room. Apart from that caused by the generation of electricity it doesn’t emit any pollution. And it acts as an aircon in the summer.

Our gas price has gone up so much that we’ll be using the ASHP much more.

It will be interesting to monitor our electricity usage this winter. Will it cost as much to run as a woodburner?

regards

Howard

[ReformedCharacter]

Woodburners aren't clean but I'm sure they produce much more pollution than necessary because many do not use properly dry wood. Our chimney sweep tells me of people who like to put on a large damp piece of wood on the fire last thing at night to cool it down and keep it going until the next day. Or mix damp wood with coal etc.

RC

[richlist]

As with most things in life, the cost of running a wood burner varies depending on your circumstances.
If like me you have access to free wood, are able to cut it into logs, have somewhere to store it for a couple of years and dont pay over the top for an annual chimney sweep/service then I'd say the log burner wins on costs every time.......and you can't beat a log fire for ambience.

Having said that, I'd add that I'm a big fan of ASHP's and we already have one installed in our place in Spain that, like yours, works brilliantly. It's so good I'm determined to have ASAP's installed in my place here in the UK.

[UncleEbenezer]

“Research published in the last year has shown wood burning in homes is the single biggest source of small particle air pollution in the UK, producing three times more than road traffic, despite just 8% of the population using wood burners.
Even new wood burning stoves meeting the “ecodesign” standard still emit 750 times more tiny particle pollution than a modern HGV truck. Wood burners also triple the level of harmful pollution inside homes and should be sold with a health warning, according to scientists.”

It's worse than that.

Whereas we spend relatively short periods exposed to the worst of road traffic pollution, if you live down(prevailing)wind of a woodburner, you have it in your house for hours on end throughout the season. And that can cover a wide area. You'd need a lot of smokers in the house to rival a woodburner a quarter of a mile southwest of you.

And while we're on the subject of noxious pollution, why wasn't incense banned alongside tobacco? Not a problem on the same scale as woodburners, but serious if it's being burned indoors.

“Opting for a wood burning stove requires careful thought. You need to consider the rules, and be prepared to run your appliance safely and correctly to ensure you minimise your carbon emissions as much as possible.”

Now that's conflating an entirely different serious issue. Carbon emissions from woodburning are in the same ballpark as fossil fuels. It's the lungs, not the planet, that are disproportionately affected.

[funduffer]

At this time of year, on a very still morning or evening, there is a strong smell of smoke hanging over our village. Despite the low density of houses the smoke is apparent. Mainly from wood burners.

Looking at the internet there are suggestions that wood burning stoves are a major source of pollution.

The Guardian published the results of research into stove pollution.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... scientists.

“Research published in the last year has shown wood burning in homes is the single biggest source of small particle air pollution in the UK, producing three times more than road traffic, despite just 8% of the population using wood burners.
Even new wood burning stoves meeting the “ecodesign” standard still emit 750 times more tiny particle pollution than a modern HGV truck. Wood burners also triple the level of harmful pollution inside homes and should be sold with a health warning, according to scientists.”

If you prefer the Daily Mail, they carried the story as well but a few months later they reported an updated study which was less critical.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... ar-UK.html

“the new report, which comes after a survey of 50,000 homes provided updated information on the use of wood stoves, said the burners are still a growing problem for clear air.
Particulates are the group of pollutants that are so tiny they can 'enter the bloodstream, lodging in the heart, brain and other organs', and causing serious impacts to health, according to Defra.”

Looking at advice from Ideal Home:

“Opting for a wood burning stove requires careful thought. You need to consider the rules, and be prepared to run your appliance safely and correctly to ensure you minimise your carbon emissions as much as possible.”

New stoves require the chimney to be swept every year and the stove serviced. And only dry wood should be used."

These articles can be criticised as the views of journalists. But if someone is using an old stove which doesn’t meet the new standards they are polluting the air around them.

The cost of installing a new stove according to Ideal Home article is not cheap! Installing a chimney liner and hearth and a modern stove which meets the new standards suggests a budget of £5,000 might be appropriate.

https://www.idealhome.co.uk/property-ad ... ove-309417

Times have changed and maybe it’s now much better to install an ASHP than a wood burner?

I admit to being an early adopter. Our ASHP has a 2.5 kW output. It’s whisper quiet inside and out and very cheap to run to complement background gas central heating. It cost £2,300 to install the inverter outside and wall units in two rooms.

It will warm the air in a freezing cold room in minutes and is economical as a top up in a warmish room. Apart from that caused by the generation of electricity it doesn’t emit any pollution. And it acts as an aircon in the summer.

Our gas price has gone up so much that we’ll be using the ASHP much more.

It will be interesting to monitor our electricity usage this winter. Will it cost as much to run as a woodburner?

regards

Howard

Hi Howard. I too have rejected a wood burner and am planning to fit 2 ASHP/air con unit just like you have done. One in the living room and one in the bedroom.

One question: did you get one ASHP to serve both aircon units, or does each have IT’s own ASHP?

I am still awaiting a quote for both these options, but the price you paid sounds like good value to me.

FD

[Dod101]

So these ASHPs are only heating one room or two at most? That seems like a halfway house and I wonder how they will work out in practice in a really cold winter. The great advantage of a woodburner, or at least my woodburner, is that it heats much more than just the sittingroom. If I leave the doors open, it heats the hall and two corridors leading from it as well, in fact most of the house except the bedrooms, such that I can switch off my central heating. That is a big saving. Mind you I do not heat the bedrooms anyway except if the weather is particularly cold.

I inherited my woodburner when I bought this house, so the cost of installation is irrelevant to me. Maintenance costs? I get the chimney swept once a year for £50 and the chimney sweep also checks over the stove. Kiln dried wood is not cheap and there is no doubt it is dusty inside the house and probably contributes to pollution outside. So far I have not noticed Howard's smoke hanging in the air.

Dod

[DrFfybes]

We have a woodburner - it was in when we bought the house, and TBH I'm pretty ambivalent about it.

I will be honest, it is badly fitted. The hearth was dumped on top of the carpet, it is in a small room we don't use much next to MrsF's office, and despite our best efforts doesn't draw well, and was neglected when we moved in.

It does warm that end of the house OK, but takes about an hour to get going, and then tends to go out as MrsF gets engrossed in work and forgets to top it up. In its defence the first winter we used wood that was here - later on I got a tester and found it works a lot better with kiln dried wood, but even wood at 15% does not burn well.

In the lounge we have a 'coal effect' gas fire. Set on low it just keeps the room comfortable, unless it gets very cold outside then it needs running harder. We are getting some work done including an extension to the lounge and some insulation to that end of the house (we will remove the plasterworks and stud in and insulate the walls), and MrsF wants to replace the gas fire with a modern log burner.

Two of my neices have these, and they seem to work well and provide a lot of heat. One lives near London, has a well insulated open plan house with gas heating and basically uses it to heat the conservatory as they leave the doors open to it, and the smoke mixes with their close neighbours and on misty nights fills the road with smog. The other lives on top of a Welsh hill with oil heating, runs it in the centre of the house all day to provide core heat and the smoke wafts away over the hills.

And here's the rub, for many wood burners have become a 'must have' decorative accessory, like a hot tub, whirlpool bath, powered reclining sofa, and they've probably got a Nutribullet in the back of a cupboard, and a garage full of outdoor Xmas decorations because they were all the rage a few years ago.

But for others they are an essential - an established way of heatiing a rural property designed with this in mind and placed and used accordingly.

However, they certainly are popular - around these parts there is currently a 4 week wait to get the chimney swept and about 10 week wait to get an installer.

Paul

[Dod101]

We have a woodburner - it was in when we bought the house, and TBH I'm pretty ambivalent about it.

I will be honest, it is badly fitted. The hearth was dumped on top of the carpet, it is in a small room we don't use much next to MrsF's office, and despite our best efforts doesn't draw well, and was neglected when we moved in.

It does warm that end of the house OK, but takes about an hour to get going, and then tends to go out as MrsF gets engrossed in work and forgets to top it up. In its defence the first winter we used wood that was here - later on I got a tester and found it works a lot better with kiln dried wood, but even wood at 15% does not burn well.

But for others they are an essential - an established way of heatiing a rural property designed with this in mind and placed and used accordingly.

However, they certainly are popular - around these parts there is currently a 4 week wait to get the chimney swept and about 10 week wait to get an installer.

Paul

Were I you I would get your woodburner overhauled by a competent installer. It is simply a waste of space and money if it is not working properly. It should burn well with wood at a maximum of 20%, using hardwood of course, oak less well than ash, but longer burning. If it is not drawing well, it might I guess be due to the location of your house and the surrounding land, and again a competent installer can tell you, but they are designed to work with airflows which open and close as required. Mine might not be essential in that I have a good central heating system but in my semi rural location I would prefer not to be without it. And get the chimney swept in early summer, not now! In May/June I can get my chimney swept at a week's notice. Now? it would be at least a month's.

Dod

[daveh]

I have a wood burner and it is my only source of heat and hot water (apart from the kettle and an electric shower). It is carbon neutral for the environment. The wood is sourced locally, cut chopped and seasoned by myself. So, the only CO2 released is that pulled out of the atmosphere by the trees and most of it was going back into the atmosphere as the majority of the wood I burn is from windfalls* or other dead standing trees that had to come down for safety reasons so would have been released as the trees rotted. Only problem with mine is that as it is connected to the hot water tank and central heating I can't easily run it without power to run the central heating pump. To run it without power I'd have to run of hot water after a while or the hot water tank would overheat.

Pollution wise I try and burn the wood hot and only burn when well-seasoned (at less than 20% moisture content), which minimises the amount of pollution.

Chimney was swept last week - sweep came the day after I called him. Did say he was very busy fitting new woodburners recently.

* last winter's storms have produced a very large supply, though most has been softwood. Some standing dead came down which is already under 20% moisture so requires little or no seasoning. The other main source has been elm as here in Scotland we are now losing a lot of our Wych Elm to dutch elm disease.

[88V8]

We inherited a woodburner, a Villager.
POs had burned wood they kept under a tarp on the drive, or scrap wood... and it had been overheated to the point that the casing had distorted and it had air leaks that made it hard to regulate.

POs were intelligent people, but their intelligence did not extend to the woodburner.

Now we have two Clearview, we burn seasoned wood, kept in a proper ventilated woodstore. I use scrap from my DIY but only for kindling.

Both our woodburners have thermometers on the flue pipes so I can see the temperature and not run it too hard or too cool.
You can't tell the temperature by looking at the fire.
I bet if I did a poll on here no one would have a thermometer... they are about ten quid....

See here



As so often, it's not always the appliance that's at fault, rather the users....

V8

[Howard]

Hi Howard. I too have rejected a wood burner and am planning to fit 2 ASHP/air con unit just like you have done. One in the living room and one in the bedroom.

One question: did you get one ASHP to serve both aircon units, or does each have IT’s own ASHP?

I am still awaiting a quote for both these options, but the price you paid sounds like good value to me.

FD

Hi Funduffer,

Our ASHP is a split unit with one exterior inverter serving two internal wall units.

You can see my decision process in an earlier thread. Link is viewtopic.php?p=222449#p222449.

I was pleased that we got several quotes because they differed dramatically in price and feasibility.

The installers we used were very experienced and saved a lot of hassle and cost by insisting that the aircon could be plugged into an existing domestic 13 amp socket. It didn't need a separate industrial style connection.

Given their advice, out of interest, I've just turned one wall unit on and set the fan speed higher than I'd normally use and the temperature setting is 4 degrees higher than the current room temperature. Looking at our smart meter display, I can see that the unit gradually builds up to using 700 watts as it pre heats and then after two or three minutes the fan switches in. As I type this, the room temperature is slowly rising and I guess it will take around 5 minutes to add the 4 degrees. It's now using about 800 watts and I'm going to turn it off as the room is feeling hot! Obviously its thermostat would take over and turn the unit off or down to maintain a given temperature if I left it running.

Hope this is helpful.

Howard

PS You'll see the spec of the unit if you look at the thread link above. It's a Mitsubishi.

[DrFfybes]

I bet if I did a poll on here no one would have a thermometer... they are about ten quid....

V8

I do And one of those self powered fans that sits on top and wafts the hot air around a bit.

Were I you I would get your woodburner overhauled by a competent installer. It is simply a waste of space and money if it is not working properly. It should burn well with wood at a maximum of 20%,

We have, 2 different ones, the first one was a little scathing of the original installer and had seen his work before. The issue is the flue is into a chimney breast and up an old chimney. Apparently the diameter/length isn't quite right for the fire - the outlet is via a caged chminey pot with trees about 50 yards away on 3 sides and hills about 35 miles away on the other, which oddly is where the prevailing wind comes from.

We're getting some pointing/flashing/roofing done soon, so are planning on getting the flue looked at properly at the top then.

Paul.

[ReformedCharacter]

Both our woodburners have thermometers on the flue pipes so I can see the temperature and not run it too hard or too cool.
You can't tell the temperature by looking at the fire.
I bet if I did a poll on here no one would have a thermometer... they are about ten quid....

V8

I wouldn't use my stove without one, you're right you can't tell the temperature otherwise.

RC

[88V8]

So we have a triple thermometer score... wayhay !

Another thing sometimes overlooked by neophyte woodburner users, is that they need a good air supply. No good sealing the house up tight as a drum then expecting the woodburner or indeed an open fire, to draw well.

Fortunately we have sufficient dispersed air inlet around ancient windows & doors that we don't need air vents into the rooms.

A woodburner may be a bit polluting, I have to admit, but a real fire is a lovesome thing.

V8

[Howard]

So these ASHPs are only heating one room or two at most? That seems like a halfway house and I wonder how they will work out in practice in a really cold winter. The great advantage of a woodburner, or at least my woodburner, is that it heats much more than just the sittingroom. If I leave the doors open, it heats the hall and two corridors leading from it as well, in fact most of the house except the bedrooms, such that I can switch off my central heating. That is a big saving. Mind you I do not heat the bedrooms anyway except if the weather is particularly cold.

I inherited my woodburner when I bought this house, so the cost of installation is irrelevant to me. Maintenance costs? I get the chimney swept once a year for £50 and the chimney sweep also checks over the stove. Kiln dried wood is not cheap and there is no doubt it is dusty inside the house and probably contributes to pollution outside. So far I have not noticed Howard's smoke hanging in the air.

Dod

Dod

The ASHP appears to have the power of two or three electric fan heaters if the fan is set at full speed. The heat will blow round the whole house from just one wall unit if all the doors are left open.

I use it on its lowest setting as a boost if our room is a bit chilly rather than turning up the central heating. This uses very little electricity.

If we are out we let the house cool down and the central heating is off at night so the ASHP is excellent for bringing a room up to temperature from say 16 degrees to warm in a few minutes.

To be frank, as you will know from my previous posts I bought the unit to use it as an aircon. Then discovered how effective it is as a heater. Relative to electricity, the price of gas here has gone up faster, so this has enhanced its practicality. As you use oil for central heating, the comparison may not be so favourable. However, the pollution caused by an older wood burner may be an issue?

regards

Howard

[Dod101]

So these ASHPs are only heating one room or two at most? That seems like a halfway house and I wonder how they will work out in practice in a really cold winter. The great advantage of a woodburner, or at least my woodburner, is that it heats much more than just the sittingroom. If I leave the doors open, it heats the hall and two corridors leading from it as well, in fact most of the house except the bedrooms, such that I can switch off my central heating. That is a big saving. Mind you I do not heat the bedrooms anyway except if the weather is particularly cold.

I inherited my woodburner when I bought this house, so the cost of installation is irrelevant to me. Maintenance costs? I get the chimney swept once a year for £50 and the chimney sweep also checks over the stove. Kiln dried wood is not cheap and there is no doubt it is dusty inside the house and probably contributes to pollution outside. So far I have not noticed Howard's smoke hanging in the air.

Dod

Dod

The ASHP appears to have the power of two or three electric fan heaters if the fan is set at full speed. The heat will blow round the whole house from just one wall unit if all the doors are left open.

I use it on its lowest setting as a boost if our room is a bit chilly rather than turning up the central heating. This uses very little electricity.

If we are out we let the house cool down and the central heating is off at night so the ASHP is excellent for bringing a room up to temperature from say 16 degrees to warm in a few minutes.

To be frank, as you will know from my previous posts I bought the unit to use it as an aircon. Then discovered how effective it is as a heater. Relative to electricity, the price of gas here has gone up faster, so this has enhanced its practicality. As you use oil for central heating, the comparison may not be so favourable. However, the pollution caused by an older wood burner may be an issue?

regards

Howard

That is all very interesting thank you. I must do some investigations and see what the general advice is. Certainly my woodburner is undoubtedly polluting, whatever anyone says.

Dod

[Dod101]

So we have a triple thermometer score... wayhay !

Another thing sometimes overlooked by neophyte woodburner users, is that they need a good air supply. No good sealing the house up tight as a drum then expecting the woodburner or indeed an open fire, to draw well.

Fortunately we have sufficient dispersed air inlet around ancient windows & doors that we don't need air vents into the rooms.

A woodburner may be a bit polluting, I have to admit, but a real fire is a lovesome thing.

V8

Even in a modern well insulated house I have little air vents built in to the windows which can be open or closed. I leave mine open all the time because I believe that fresh air is necessary inside a house so my woodburner ought to get sufficient air and indeed does, for the air vents to work well.

Another aspect in favour of woodburners, at least for many of them anyway, and certainly mine, is that they are often built in to a brick or stone built inglenook and as they heat up they heat the stone and brick surround which acts as a giant radiator. If the woodburner is used daily as mine is in the winter, this never gets cold and helps keep the chill off even for the 12 hours or more when the fire is not actually lit.

Dod