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Avoid using wood burning stoves if possible, warn health experts

theguardian.com

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Re: Avoid using wood burning stoves if possible, warn health experts

#101

Post by balfirevic »

throw0101a wrote: post #70
chrisseaton wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're also popular because * people have wood anyway so they might as well use it for something * it often suits the design of houses here which were historically built for a central stove burner like this * many people have wood-burning stoves for cooking that are extremely large and heavy permanent fixtures in their kitchen and cannot easily be removed or adapted and are designed to permanently be burning…

> people like the smell and aesthetic (note this article is in just about the most middle-class publication there is in the UK) The problem here and described in the article is that people are not using direct vent stoves/fireplaces. What is being talking about are units that vent out a chimney/flue, but take the air for combustion from the house itself. This is not what you want for health or efficiency reasons. Wha…

> Also a useful hint: if you're going to use one in a domicile where you live for long periods of time, it may be worth looking at soapstone designs, as they retain heat more (though warm up is longer)

Why would that matter? The amount of heat transferred to the living space is the same.

I can see the benefit of radiating some residual heat when not active (for example, through the night) but that seems to be offset by the delay you'd have when you start it up again.

Re: Avoid using wood burning stoves if possible, warn health experts

#102

Post by cjenken »

brnt wrote: post #85
cjenken wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an outdoor wood furnace. It's great at cutting down smoke as it has a re-burner section that keeps the temperature high enough that their is almost no smoke once it gets up to temperature. But there is a lot more maintenance with something like this. I have to have about 6 cords of wood to make it through winter (which mostly comes off my property) but that also means handling the fuel (bucking and then splitt…

No smoke, but what about particulate matter? I understand these efficient wood burners are major urban polluters even without the smoke. They sure don't seem to smell any less.

Once the temperature within the furnace gets to about 900F I can't even really smell it anymore and the exhaust looks clear as far as I can tell in daylight. This is the benefit of using a large and well built wood furnace. Also all of the wood I use is dry which not only reduces the amount of bad stuff that gets into the air it also increases the usable heat from the wood.

I also live in a very rural area on a 1 hectare lot surrounded by other 1 and 2 hectare lots. I would not want to run this in a typical suburb and I agree with most the other comments that wood burning really shouldn't be a thing in densely populated areas.

Unfortunately for me my only other real option is electricity which can be relatively intermittent where I am and also expensive. It would end up costing $700-$1000 extra during winter months. I'm heating two homes with it. A newer one with walls at an R40+ rating and an older one with walls at a recently upgraded from nothing to an R20 rating. The money I'm saving on electricity will be going into add more insulation into the older home for even better long term benefits.

Check out the below site if you'd like to learn a bit more about what the typical issues are and what's trying to be done to help reduce the problems. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/documents/strateg...

Re: Avoid using wood burning stoves if possible, warn health experts

#103

Post by GoToRO »

throw0101a wrote: post #70
chrisseaton wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're also popular because * people have wood anyway so they might as well use it for something * it often suits the design of houses here which were historically built for a central stove burner like this * many people have wood-burning stoves for cooking that are extremely large and heavy permanent fixtures in their kitchen and cannot easily be removed or adapted and are designed to permanently be burning…

> people like the smell and aesthetic (note this article is in just about the most middle-class publication there is in the UK) The problem here and described in the article is that people are not using direct vent stoves/fireplaces. What is being talking about are units that vent out a chimney/flue, but take the air for combustion from the house itself. This is not what you want for health or efficiency reasons. Wha…

‘This is not what you want for health’

Could you elaborate? Is it because then you have draft in the room?

Re: Avoid using wood burning stoves if possible, warn health experts

#105

Post by Brian_K_White »

aaomidi wrote: post #71
ashtonkem wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a clear and important distinction between restrictions on how property can be used, and the government literally seizing property. Trying to argue that those are one and the same is just silly. A better parallel would be fining based on emissions, which I would be fine with. But actually seizing private property? Hell no.

> But actually seizing private property? Hell no. Yeah like your car being seized due to not paying the yearly registration fee?

There is no such thing.

Re: Avoid using wood burning stoves if possible, warn health experts

#106

Post by Brian_K_White »

This really just feels like a salvo in a slow gradual fight between people who just don't personally like wood stoves and anyone else wo either likes them or doesn't really care.

I actually like the smell of my neighbors wood stove.

I don't even know who it is since I'm in a dense area. I don't own a wood stove myself so I'm not just protecting my own. I did grow up in houses with them. Everyone's house had them. (upstate ny)

I wish people would not abuse the concept of public good or shared space etc just to get their way about every single thing they personally don't prefer.

You don't like wood smoke in winter? Go live in an HOA that doesn't allow them. It's a smell not a public health hazard.

Besides, oil and gas furnaces and coal and gas fired power plants are better? Really? Because that's what the alternatives are still. We're still a long way from having cheap plentiful electricity that doesn't come from a bad source.

If this article is really ultimately driven by what it claims about a health hazard from particulates, then why does it only propose removing all wood burners instead of say, developing some kind of catalytic converter or double-burner or other means of cleaning the exhaust?

I would be more interested in a study of actual health histories and stats of areas where stoves were common vs not, than in this measurement of particulates and a claim that they are bad.

Re: Avoid using wood burning stoves if possible, warn health experts

#107

Post by petertodd »

jeffbee wrote: post #84
petertodd wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you actually read the article you'll see that by "outperform" they're comparing the efficiency of a wood stove in converting biomass to useful heat, against the efficiency of a power plant and electric stove in converting fuel to useful heat. It's no surprise that a wood stove did better in that comparison. It's one conversion vs two. It's a perfectly reasonable comparison to make in many circumstances, eg in poor…

I did read the article and it is intentionally misleading. They count the loss of heat radiated away from the cooking vessel against the efficiency of an induction cooker, but don't mention (or perhaps don't know) that because of the nature of induction heating you can actually use insulated pots with them. You can wrap a pot in your sweater if you want, because there's no open flame.

You can use insulated pots with wood stoves as well. I've even personally seen these sold for camping in the past. I can't find any pre-made ones for sale right now online. But things like the Solo Stove Campfire would work just fine with an insulated pot: https://www.solostove.com/solo-stove-campfire/

Fireproof insulation exists after all. Even something as simple as wrapping a pot with crumbled aluminum foil works quite well: the aluminum traps air, an excellent insulator.

Re: Avoid using wood burning stoves if possible, warn health experts

#108

Post by girvo »

corty wrote: post #12
gruez wrote: post #6

>Wood burners have become increasingly popular in recent years [...] Almost 16% of people in the south-east of England use wood fuel, and 18% in Northern Ireland, according to 2016 government data, and about 175,000 wood burners are sold annually. If you're wondering why they're so popular, it's because wood counts as "renewable fuel", so it helps EU countries meet their renewable energy targets. https://news.ycombin…

Additionally, electricity, district heating, coal, gas and oil are getting more and more expensive due to carbon and renewable taxes. Renewables like photovoltaics and photothermics, along with heat pumps, are also increasing in price, because there is high demand on specialized workers for installation. The only thing that actually is getting cheaper is wood, a stove is comparatively cheap anyways (few hundred euros…

As someone who lives in South East Queensland, the idea of an 18 degree indoor temperature is absolutely wild to me haha. My aircon is set at 25 right now and even that’s a little cold

Re: Avoid using wood burning stoves if possible, warn health experts

#109

Post by lupinglade »

MattGaiser wrote: post #79
Fradow wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the Old Continent, there are a lot of old houses (I'm writing from a 400 year old one, older than the USA), about 10% being more than 100 year old [1], most of which comes with a central chimney (or several). While a lot of people have other heating/cooking systems, those chimney are still in use to some capacity. [1] http://www.iut.nu/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Housing-Statist...

This could be why I haven't heard of it. I live in an urban area, but have never heard much about wood burning as a significant heat source in any nearby rural area or any area where my relatives live. And in Canada, it is basically only the 200 year old places that do it. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-526-s/2013002/t002-en...

Huh? New homes are built with wood fireplaces. People enjoy it, even if it’s not the primary fuel source.

Re: Avoid using wood burning stoves if possible, warn health experts

#110

Post by lumberingjack »

There's an art to burning a wood stove in a modern home and not making a mess. Most people don't use the ash tray systems that come with these modern catalyzed wood stoves they don't know how to use them and they don't care even if they're taught because it's a slight inconvenience. I treat Ash in my wood burning stove as being a harmful carcinogen. There's also an art to starting a fire without getting a backdraft and getting smoke in your home. A few tips would be to make sure you're burning good quality wood that's been properly seasoned, seasoning firewood is also an art. When you need to empty the ash into the tray burn the fire at hotter than normal to deplete all of the carbon so all you have to deal with is small particles of Ash. Keep the fire going in place the depleted Ash in the tray to cool don't try to move hot ash it would just become a cloud in the air. Set your furnace to run the fan for several hours after you empty the tray. I'm not joking on this one I've been doing it for the last five years wear some sort of facial covering a mask a bandana whatever over your mouth.
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