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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

#91

Post by noja »

ashtonkem wrote: post #54
irq wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, too, have a neighbor with a wood burner (used during the cold months only fortunately) that easily adds 75 to 100 to the outdoor AQI (using Purple Air). My indoor air quality is unaffected due to central air filtering. Given the health impact, these burners should be seized and replaced with almost anything else, with full financial assistance. (Why? It's cheaper to replace these burners than it is to suffer the l…

I’m a huge fan of providing incentives for people to upgrade, but I would fight tooth and nail against seizing inefficient burners. Opening up the door for the government to randomly deprive citizens of their property is an awful door to open, and it will be abused eventually, no matter how just the cause feels today.

What do you think about noise pollution?

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

#92

Post by noja »

LatteLazy wrote: post #10

Anyone know how this compares to other daily hazards (living on a main road, being overweight etc)? Edit Looks like you can get a hepa filter for £70 that will fix the issue for the most part. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08G8JHGWH/ref=cm_sw_r_wa_apa_fa... And gas stoves (and so presumably fires?) are also a problem. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/05/gas-stov... Thank god we mastered central heating…

> Looks like you can get a hepa filter for £70 that will fix the issue for the most part.

That's not a fix.

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

#93

Post by 7952 »

Fradow wrote: post #38
MattGaiser wrote: post #18

I am surprised to learn that burning wood for heat/cooking is something done outside Amish type communities at any significant level in the developed world.

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...

My mum grew up in one of those old farm houses that were heated by open fires. It was always freezing cold in the winter in most of the house. The whole place was later fitted with oil fired heating. My grandmother could never understand why we wanted to build a fire when we visited. The people installing wood burners are a new generation that grew up in centrally heated homes and see it as romantic.

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

#94

Post by gvurrdon »

Fradow wrote: post #38
MattGaiser wrote: post #18

I am surprised to learn that burning wood for heat/cooking is something done outside Amish type communities at any significant level in the developed world.

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...

The street on which I live is probably about 900 years old. The houses have been rebuild many times, but there is still wood in some houses here that's been dated to the 1530s. My own house only dates to c. 1870-80, though it's made of recycled stone and wood, presumably from the house known from records to have been on the same site in 1620. Apparently, there was considerable demolition and new builds/rebuilding in the town in the 1870s. All the houses in the street have chimneys, and there's a ready supply of wood locally, either gathered from the countryside or purchased from one of the many suppliers. Unsurprisingly, fires/stoves are frequently used for heating, and there's usually a smell of smoke outside in winter. My house originally had three flues; one for the kitchen range (now blocked off and the range replaced with a sink), one in the master bedroom (blocked off with the fireplace merely decorative) and one in the main living room (fitted with a modern stove).

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

#95

Post by aaomidi »

ashtonkem wrote: post #83
aaomidi wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Only if you're driving it on a public road. Again, laws around how property is used are fine. There are all kinds of ways you can misuse your property that will result in it being taken from you; in general all of us are fine with that. It's legal to drink, and it's legal to drive, but if you drink and drive you might lose property or your freedom, probably both. What's not fine is the government saying "you purchase…

> Only if you're driving it on a public road.

This actually depends on the jurisdiction. In many of them not having an active registration/inspection is grounds to having your vehicle seized. Even if it's only used on private roads.

> What's not fine is the government saying "you purchased this legally and in good faith, but it's not legal anymore and we're going to need to take that". This feels like a good idea when it's something with obvious negative externalities, but it is a wildly dangerous power to give the government. Especially since this power will almost certainly be delegated to the executive branch by the legislature, giving random un-elected appointees the ability to expropriate property without even a hint of deliberation.

Sure, except if compensation isn't offered.

The government currently does this all the time, it's actually how many "public" offices fund themselves.

Where is the outrage of this happening right now? We've already crossed that line.

> You generally can't punish people for something that was legal at the time that they did it.

We also do this currently. It's called not having clear laws and having to argue in court and creating new precedent.

And "punish" only works if you're not offered compensation. If the government says "hey as your representatives we're going to ban xyz for this health reason, and provide compensation for buying them back from you" then it's fine.

Again I'm not saying the government should waste resources going and finding wood burning systems and seizing them. However the government can ban the operation of it.

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

#96

Post by Normille »

7952 wrote: post #93
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...

My mum grew up in one of those old farm houses that were heated by open fires. It was always freezing cold in the winter in most of the house. The whole place was later fitted with oil fired heating. My grandmother could never understand why we wanted to build a fire when we visited. The people installing wood burners are a new generation that grew up in centrally heated homes and see it as romantic.

I hate central heating!

My natural body temperature preference is to be too cold rather than too hot[0]. And people always have central heating on far too high for my comfort. When I'm in a building with central heating, I feel my face starting to flush and sweat prickling out on my back. It's horrible and makes me feel really uncomfortable. And because it's "central" heating, I have no option but to suffer.

With an open fire, on the other hand, everyone can regulate the temperature around them to their own comfort level : Too cold? Move closer to the fire. Too warm? Move further away. Central heating is the fascism of domestic temperature control!

[0] I realise I'm probably a rarity in this. I never have the heating on at all in my own home, even in winter. If I get a bit cold, I just stick a jersey on.

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

#97

Post by ashtonkem »

noja wrote: post #91
ashtonkem wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a huge fan of providing incentives for people to upgrade, but I would fight tooth and nail against seizing inefficient burners. Opening up the door for the government to randomly deprive citizens of their property is an awful door to open, and it will be abused eventually, no matter how just the cause feels today.

What do you think about noise pollution?

I'm ok with fining people for it. I'm not fine with wandering around and seizing personal property that could conceivably be used to produce noise pollution.

Generally speaking, we should only allow the government to intervene in personal freedoms when there is a compelling interest, and we should expect that the interventions are tailored to be as minimal as possible. A compelling reason existing is no excuse to give the government unlimited powers, for fairly obvious reasons.

For corporations, this obviously means complying with a robust regulatory framework; if I own a company that sells wood burning stoves, then I have to comply with EPA regulations around how many grams per hour of soot it may emit when properly maintained. In exchange for having to keep up with the changing regulations, the government should provide reasonable timelines and clarity around what is expected.

As a private citizen, this means accepting some limitations on how we use our private property. As a citizen I can legally purchase a car, own a firearm, and consume alcohol, but if I decide to use all three at once I will probably lose my right to have all three, plus I'll get locked in jail. Occasionally changing regulatory requirements will mean that certain pieces of equipment can't be operated anymore; if you had a car that had to use leaded fuel (not a substitute), then it would effectively be illegal to operate it going forward. What is not fine is for the government to say "your car needs leaded fuel, so we are going to seize it from you".

The government should not be in the business of seizing private property that may be used to violate the law, especially when it was purchased legally. We don't do pre-crime in this country, owning something that may be used to violate the law is not a crime punishable by loss of private property. We also have constitutional protections against ex post facto laws; you cannot punish a citizen for what they purchased back when it was legal. If it's necessary to put strict limits on pollution and fine users who exceed them, that is fine by me. I'd even be happy to pay a bit more in taxes to fund optional buybacks and incentives to help users buy newer and more efficient units. But proposing that the government go and seize private property that may be used to eventually break some new regulation is beyond the pale.

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

#98

Post by ashtonkem »

aaomidi wrote: post #95
ashtonkem wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you're driving it on a public road. Again, laws around how property is used are fine. There are all kinds of ways you can misuse your property that will result in it being taken from you; in general all of us are fine with that. It's legal to drink, and it's legal to drive, but if you drink and drive you might lose property or your freedom, probably both. What's not fine is the government saying "you purchase…

> Only if you're driving it on a public road. This actually depends on the jurisdiction. In many of them not having an active registration/inspection is grounds to having your vehicle seized. Even if it's only used on private roads. > What's not fine is the government saying "you purchased this legally and in good faith, but it's not legal anymore and we're going to need to take that". This feels like a good idea whe…

> This actually depends on the jurisdiction. In many of them not having an active registration/inspection is grounds to having your vehicle seized. Even if it's only used on private roads.

[Citation needed]

In all jurisdictions I've lived, you can put your vehicle into "planned non-operation" status, where it no longer requires registration.

> Where is the outrage of this happening right now? We've already crossed that line.

I find civil asset forfeiture outrageous. There you go. We've discussed it a lot here, and most of us hate it and see it as nothing more than legalized theft.

> And "punish" only works if you're not offered compensation. If the government says "hey as your representatives we're going to ban xyz for this health reason, and provide compensation for buying them back from you" then it's fine.

Compensation for a buy back is very different from compensation for seizure. From a policy perspective a buy back is probably a great idea, but let's not pretend that it's anywhere near the same legal ballpark as seizure, even with compensation.

> Again I'm not saying the government should waste resources going and finding wood burning systems and seizing them. However the government can ban the operation of it.

It's worth pointing out that banning ownership and banning operation are very different beasts. Leaded gasoline is illegal (well, for cars); if you have a car that for whatever reason needed leaded gasoline then operating it is illegal. But it's not illegal to own a car that requires leaded gasoline. The legal leap from "you can't run this because it will hurt people" to "you can't own a thing that was once legal and now isn't because you might use it and that would hurt people" is immense.

For the record, I'm fine in principle with banning inefficient fireplaces, although I think that such a ban would be effectively impossible to enforce. I think that optional buybacks for inefficient wood burners and incentives to upgrade to (increasingly tightly regulated) stoves is a good policy move. What I don't support is the leap from "this thing is bad, and therefore we should make it illegal for you to own". That is an immensely bad habit to get into, for the reasons I've mentioned above.

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

#99

Post by aaomidi »

7952 wrote: post #89
aaomidi wrote: post #52

Ugh, and here I was really liking the idea of wood burning. I really liked how little of a climate impact it has... :( Other forms of heating is just so expensive in cold places though.

I think the climate benefit is overstated. Trees take a long time to grow and we need to cut co2 now. Presumably you need to be planting substantially more trees than are felled to improve co2 in an acceptable time scale.

Eh, trees are the least of our concerns though.

Like, trees aren't gonna put the carbon back into the ground which is where our problem started (coal, oil).

I don't see trees as a solution or even as a delaying factor.

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

#100

Post by Uninen »

I remember reading Fireplace Delusion by Sam Harris [1] (it's about religion, but uses the fireplace as an analogy of harmful thing that people in some sense know that is harmful but still keep enjoying and using) a long time ago and have been thinking the harmfulness of burning wood ever since. It's weird how hard it is to take news like this in even though it's backed by actual science. I just like the smell and the type of the warmness that a wood stove (or a fireplace) creates and would use them instead of electric stove or heaters when given a chance.

I'm pretty sure people can't be cured of brain bugs like this after some age or some degree of conditioning (in the sense of "it's always been like this and I don't want to change"). Hopefully the next generation is raised better based on new data and will be smarter than us. (Or at least me.)

1: https://samharris.org/the-fireplace-delusion/

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