Negative health impact of wood burners
Discussion
Wood burning in homes produces three times as much small particle pollution as does road traffic and in urban areas (Athens anyway) it creates nearly half of the urban air pollution cancer risk.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/1...
They also cause health issues inside the house of those with a wood burner
Dr Nick Hopkinson, medical director at Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation, said both indoor and outdoor pollution caused by wood burning stoves caused serious health issues, from breathing problems to an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer.
“To protect yourself and others around you, especially children who are particularly vulnerable as their lungs are smaller and still developing, avoid buying a wood-burning stove or using an open fire if you have another source of fuel to cook and heat your home with.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/0...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/1...
They also cause health issues inside the house of those with a wood burner
Dr Nick Hopkinson, medical director at Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation, said both indoor and outdoor pollution caused by wood burning stoves caused serious health issues, from breathing problems to an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer.
“To protect yourself and others around you, especially children who are particularly vulnerable as their lungs are smaller and still developing, avoid buying a wood-burning stove or using an open fire if you have another source of fuel to cook and heat your home with.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/0...
If I had my tinfoil hat on I'd say the backlash against woodburners is actually because its a means of heating that the government isn't getting tax from. Most providers of logs (in my experience at least) work on a cash in hand on delivery basis. Governments don't tend to like that as they aren't getting a slice. They'd rather we paid for the gas or electric, which they are hiking the prices of.
PeteinSQ said:
Wood burning in homes produces three times as much small particle pollution as does road traffic and in urban areas (Athens anyway) it creates nearly half of the urban air pollution cancer risk.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/1...
They also cause health issues inside the house of those with a wood burner
Dr Nick Hopkinson, medical director at Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation, said both indoor and outdoor pollution caused by wood burning stoves caused serious health issues, from breathing problems to an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer.
“To protect yourself and others around you, especially children who are particularly vulnerable as their lungs are smaller and still developing, avoid buying a wood-burning stove or using an open fire if you have another source of fuel to cook and heat your home with.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/0...
What a fhttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/1...
They also cause health issues inside the house of those with a wood burner
Dr Nick Hopkinson, medical director at Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation, said both indoor and outdoor pollution caused by wood burning stoves caused serious health issues, from breathing problems to an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer.
“To protect yourself and others around you, especially children who are particularly vulnerable as their lungs are smaller and still developing, avoid buying a wood-burning stove or using an open fire if you have another source of fuel to cook and heat your home with.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/0...
king surprise! Wood burner bad - stty expensive cold heat pumps good ( and we can control your fuel source)Why not go for the low hanging fruit and ban sugar to stop all the fat b
ds making their children get early type 2 diabetes.Talk about fiddling while Rome burns
I get the particulates in an urban area but I'm struggling to believe the suggestion of health impacts inside the house. If the fire's drawing properly you should have better ventilation though the house as it's extracting air out of the chimney. Maybe the issue is with modern homes that don't have enough ventilation so the fire doesn't draw properly?
I was brought in a house with a wood/coal fired Rayburn in the kitchen doing the hot water, big (3' long logs) Jotul logburner in the hall to heat the whole house, and open fire in the living room. Doesn't seem to have done us any harm.
I was brought in a house with a wood/coal fired Rayburn in the kitchen doing the hot water, big (3' long logs) Jotul logburner in the hall to heat the whole house, and open fire in the living room. Doesn't seem to have done us any harm.
RizzoTheRat said:
I get the particulates in an urban area but I'm struggling to believe the suggestion of health impacts inside the house. If the fire's drawing properly you should have better ventilation though the house as it's extracting air out of the chimney. Maybe the issue is with modern homes that don't have enough ventilation so the fire doesn't draw properly?
I was brought in a house with a wood/coal fired Rayburn in the kitchen doing the hot water, big (3' long logs) Jotul logburner in the hall to heat the whole house, and open fire in the living room. Doesn't seem to have done us any harm.
Aren’t you a rat though?!I was brought in a house with a wood/coal fired Rayburn in the kitchen doing the hot water, big (3' long logs) Jotul logburner in the hall to heat the whole house, and open fire in the living room. Doesn't seem to have done us any harm.
We recently fitted a gas fired stove after considering a wood burning one for many years.
We're very happy with it, more convenient, efficient, cleaner, cheaper to run. It obviously doesn't give the full effect of burning wood, but it is 90% there and has surprised many visitors when we said it's running on gas.
The main driver for me was articles like this seem to have been building over the last few years. I can see them being banned in the not too distant future, rightly or wrongly.
We're very happy with it, more convenient, efficient, cleaner, cheaper to run. It obviously doesn't give the full effect of burning wood, but it is 90% there and has surprised many visitors when we said it's running on gas.
The main driver for me was articles like this seem to have been building over the last few years. I can see them being banned in the not too distant future, rightly or wrongly.
Craig W said:
If I had my tinfoil hat on I'd say the backlash against woodburners is actually because its a means of heating that the government isn't getting tax from. Most providers of logs (in my experience at least) work on a cash in hand on delivery basis. Governments don't tend to like that as they aren't getting a slice. They'd rather we paid for the gas or electric, which they are hiking the prices of.
KobayashiMaru86 said:
It could well do but relatives have had wood burners and coal for years and lived well into their 90's. The real reason is if they can't tax it they want it banned.
Riiiight.The real reason is just as said: burning stuff is incredibly polluting. Particulates are highly damaging to lungs, and when everybody's doing it, it becomes a serious public health issue. I am way too young to have experienced a pea-souper, but they didn't pass the clean air act for fun, or for tax. They legislated because people were dying and getting ill in massive numbers.
Don't get me wrong - I have an open fire at home and love burning stuff as often as I can. But I'm well aware of the downsides and that, in urban areas at least, we are likely to see a total ban within my lifetime.
PeteinSQ said:
We have a wood burning stove in the living room, and we've just had a load of logs delivered. I have to say this does make me worry slightly, especially with young children in the house. Should I be scrapping my log burner and just using the gas central heating?
Definitely.for a small charge I'll come round and take the evil things off your hands.
Would love a nice cosy burner!
PeteinSQ said:
Wood burning in homes produces three times as much small particle pollution as does road traffic and in urban areas (Athens anyway) it creates nearly half of the urban air pollution cancer risk.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/1...
They also cause health issues inside the house of those with a wood burner
Dr Nick Hopkinson, medical director at Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation, said both indoor and outdoor pollution caused by wood burning stoves caused serious health issues, from breathing problems to an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer.
“To protect yourself and others around you, especially children who are particularly vulnerable as their lungs are smaller and still developing, avoid buying a wood-burning stove or using an open fire if you have another source of fuel to cook and heat your home with.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/0...
It was always bizarre to me the constant focus on cars re urban air pollution while ignoring wood burners. I suspect because wood burners are beloved by the middle class. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/1...
They also cause health issues inside the house of those with a wood burner
Dr Nick Hopkinson, medical director at Asthma UK and British Lung Foundation, said both indoor and outdoor pollution caused by wood burning stoves caused serious health issues, from breathing problems to an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer.
“To protect yourself and others around you, especially children who are particularly vulnerable as their lungs are smaller and still developing, avoid buying a wood-burning stove or using an open fire if you have another source of fuel to cook and heat your home with.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/0...
It is an important study.
It helps people make an informed choice.
Those that do not want to, need not install one. Those that want to can install one with a knowledge of the risks and are recommended to ensure adequate ventilation.
Thank you to the authors for bringing about greater awareness so that people can make their own decisions in their own lives.
It helps people make an informed choice.
Those that do not want to, need not install one. Those that want to can install one with a knowledge of the risks and are recommended to ensure adequate ventilation.
Thank you to the authors for bringing about greater awareness so that people can make their own decisions in their own lives.
deckster said:
Riiiight.
The real reason is just as said: burning stuff is incredibly polluting. Particulates are highly damaging to lungs, and when everybody's doing it, it becomes a serious public health issue. I am way too young to have experienced a pea-souper, but they didn't pass the clean air act for fun, or for tax. They legislated because people were dying and getting ill in massive numbers.
Don't get me wrong - I have an open fire at home and love burning stuff as often as I can. But I'm well aware of the downsides and that, in urban areas at least, we are likely to see a total ban within my lifetime.
What percentage of houses have, and actually use a wood burner or an open fire? The real reason is just as said: burning stuff is incredibly polluting. Particulates are highly damaging to lungs, and when everybody's doing it, it becomes a serious public health issue. I am way too young to have experienced a pea-souper, but they didn't pass the clean air act for fun, or for tax. They legislated because people were dying and getting ill in massive numbers.
Don't get me wrong - I have an open fire at home and love burning stuff as often as I can. But I'm well aware of the downsides and that, in urban areas at least, we are likely to see a total ban within my lifetime.
As far as I can see the estimates are 10-12% of the population have and use wood burners or open fires in the house. Of that 10-12% it is estimated that 12% of that use is classed as high use.
So out of the ±27million homes in the UK thats about 400k that use burnable materials as a primary means of heating, cooking etc. The likelihood of the majority of them being in rural areas is high.
And to quote "Domestic wood consumption represents a sizeable contribution to renewable energy’s share of overall energy use and in the 2014 edition of The Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES 2014)1; its use in 2013 was 600 thousand tonnes of oil equivalent (ktoe), representing 35 per cent of
renewable heat and 5.4 per cent of total renewable energy."
So wood is renewable energy source, but not taxable... therefor bad?
Especially since independant reviews of the data have more questions than answers on how they've come up with the 38% figure. Most realistic figures are at about 15% of the PM2.5 pollutant contribution.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/governmen...
https://www.hetas.co.uk/understanding-the-impact-o...
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