I'm really sorry, but we just need to stop doing this. Your wood-burning hygge leads directly to people's deaths - other people's and perhaps your own. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Replies
We opened up our fireplace and burned wood one winter. If you like living in an ashtray and having carpets ruined by flying embers, then it may be for you. Never again.
apr 18, 2025, 8:20 am • 1 0 • view
Lots of wood burners near me, Air quality really bad some days and affects my asthma
apr 18, 2025, 8:20 am • 31 0 • view
Same here. The smell of woodsmoke on a cold day is overwhelming here.
apr 18, 2025, 10:39 am • 9 0 • view
Tried talking to my parents about their wood burning stove but they won't listen.
apr 18, 2025, 12:49 pm • 6 0 • view
@sainsburys.bsky.social still sells firewood & garden waste burners in its stores in Zone 2 London. Actively working to make us all sick.
apr 18, 2025, 10:26 am • 5 0 • view
It's the only form of fuel where you have some control over what you pay so not surprised it is popular. Abolish standing charges and make gas and electric affordable for ordinary people.
apr 18, 2025, 8:35 am • 13 0 • view
Woke up this morning to my house filled with smoke from prescribed burning.
apr 18, 2025, 2:43 pm • 6 0 • view
So rural PPL with access to free wood should refrain from burning it because burning it in urban areas is a problem? It is a really common blind spot with (mostly urban) environmentalists, failure to understand rural communities with concomitant stereotyping of the PPL who live & work there.
apr 18, 2025, 9:38 am • 5 0 • view
Yes, urban areas are a problem, if the clean air act doesn't cover it, then changes should be made. I Have seen 'oven dried' firewood for sale, I fell about laughing at the time, but, seriously, it is a disaster...
apr 18, 2025, 9:41 am • 3 0 • view
It is a huge problem in rural Wales not just in urban areas!
apr 18, 2025, 12:01 pm • 0 0 • view
I live in a small village (pop 880), and it's an absolute menace here. Now, you were saying something about stereotyping ... ?
apr 18, 2025, 10:22 am • 2 0 • view
Still waiting for an explanation of this 'stereotyping' I have been accused of, to say that something is common among a certain subset of PPL isn't stereotyping, it is a perfectly reasonable observation, especially given that the evidence is there in large quantities. At best this is 'tone policing'
apr 19, 2025, 2:01 pm • 0 0 • view
Well, if we're going to base our discussion on apocryphal accounts of how we experience pollution, I'll counter with 'I'll bet it isn't as bad as the wealthy areas of the small city (pop 134,000) where I live'...
apr 18, 2025, 10:37 am • 1 0 • view
...Don't you live somewhere in mid Wales? do Powys & Ceredigion suffer from high levels of particulate pollution from wood burning? I would suggest not, though the chicken factories will be a serious issue I'm sure...
apr 18, 2025, 10:38 am • 0 0 • view
The point is that your stereotyping was inaccurate and wrong, which was pretty rich in a post about stereotyping.
apr 18, 2025, 10:40 am • 3 0 • view
In the meantime perhaps you could explain to me where & in what way I was 'stereotyping' whom, preferably with quotes...
apr 18, 2025, 3:15 pm • 0 0 • view
Hopefully i will come back to this 'debate' later when I have time to give it my full attention.
apr 18, 2025, 11:11 am • 0 0 • view
Same here, George. I lived in a small town on the Kent/Surrey border for 20 years. Population 5,000. Nearly all our neighbours burned wood in their fireplaces. Asthma and other chronic lung problems impacted many of us, often making it impossible to open the windows, or sit in the garden.
apr 21, 2025, 4:43 am • 1 0 • view
Suburbia...
apr 21, 2025, 9:54 am • 0 0 • view
Welcome to Frome! 😬
apr 19, 2025, 3:38 pm • 1 0 • view
How fascinating. I clicked on this stream expecting lots of red faced rage- "How dare you tell me not to burn wood in my own castle" stuff, but au contraire- an outpouring of common sense. Now I'm going to jump this on you for year2 level reading: www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i... It is quite long
apr 20, 2025, 6:31 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm just glad stone age peoples had gas on tap, otherwise we'd never have made it this far. #Progress
apr 18, 2025, 10:33 am • 0 0 • view
Just because stone age people didn't have gas doesn't mean they were not affected by wood burning. There's a reason life expectancy has increased since the stone age. Wood smoke has always been harmful. www.dsawsp.org/blog/wood-sm...
apr 18, 2025, 10:59 am • 3 0 • view
I believe people should be forced to have gas when private energy company execs (& others) have their private jets/yachts and sport cars made illegal. Until that day comes, poorer people shouldn't be coerced in to paying for rich people's excessive lifestyle (a lifestyle that is far more impactful)
apr 18, 2025, 1:18 pm • 1 0 • view
apr 18, 2025, 1:19 pm • 1 0 • view
You can not know that correlation.
apr 18, 2025, 11:55 am • 0 0 • view
Scientists do. www.dsawsp.org/resources/wo...
apr 18, 2025, 12:21 pm • 0 0 • view
Again, and again, they are not talking about rocket furnaces.
apr 18, 2025, 12:22 pm • 0 0 • view
I know people who have an asthmatic kid and they still use a wood burning stove. They can afford to replace it, they just don't. They don't want to hear any argument against wood fires. People love to stick their heads in the sand.
apr 18, 2025, 9:20 am • 20 1 • view
If there's one thing more comforting and ubiquitous than the glow of a warm stove on a cold night, it's the security of your head deep in the sand.
apr 18, 2025, 11:15 am • 8 0 • view
I'm sorry, but I definitely fall into the poor category. Having a multifuel stove is an absolute necessity.
apr 18, 2025, 8:47 am • 4 0 • view
I have burned peat in the past, which was all cut and dried by myself. It is not only an excellent fuel, but the collection of it is incredibly culturally important where I'm from.
apr 18, 2025, 8:59 am • 2 0 • view
I think it's fair to say that hand cut peat was not the focus of interventions in Ireland. From what I've seen, people who hand cut turf were angry at how the lobbyists were using the tradition for commercial gain.
apr 18, 2025, 3:18 pm • 0 0 • view
I thought it was illegal, but is "cultural importance" worth depleting the planet of a massive carbon store and releasing it to the atmosphere?
apr 18, 2025, 10:34 am • 5 0 • view
What, do you think, is the probability that Seumas alone is depleting the planet of a massive carbon store, or that a massive number of Seumases are collectively doing so. I sometimes despair of the ability of the English Middle Class to fixate on theory and ignore practical reality.
apr 18, 2025, 10:45 am • 2 0 • view
Virtually nil, but that isn't the point. Any contribution is significant and can't just be written off as negligible. We have to end it.
apr 18, 2025, 10:49 am • 2 0 • view
It absolutely is the point. Mains gas does not exist in the Scottish Highlands, therefore not an option. We produce the vast majority of wind energy here yet electricity prices are the highest in the entire UK. The number of folk burning peat is in the low thousands, maybe even hundreds now.
apr 18, 2025, 11:05 am • 1 0 • view
So where do you think priorities should be? Ripping away an indigenous activity, one of the few remaining left that can bring whats left of our communities together, at negligible environmental cost, or uh, maybe, stop pricing fucking electricity based on what it costs to burn fossil fuels.
apr 18, 2025, 11:08 am • 1 0 • view
The practice of tying renewables selling price to the gas generation price, invidious in any circumstances, is especially galling for Scotland, which is a leader in generating the damn stuff.
apr 18, 2025, 11:14 am • 1 0 • view
This is where the concept of priorities is useful. UK has A LOT of lost environmental ground to make up. Educating and agitating on domestic heat pumps and solar would be more productive than scolding folks who have already invested in woodburners. Pushing commercial renewables is even better.
apr 18, 2025, 10:55 am • 4 0 • view
There are billions of 'Seumas' at the moment.
apr 18, 2025, 11:48 am • 0 0 • view
No, there really aren't. If you don't want to understand the argument, that's fine, but then just walk on by, please. 👍🏻
apr 18, 2025, 11:56 am • 0 0 • view
It's always annoying when someone takes the time to point out your failed logic... but sadly for you people will continue to do just that.
apr 18, 2025, 12:05 pm • 0 0 • view
We are now past the amount of time I am willing to spend on an anonymous poster who thinks there are billions of Scottish and Irish rural families burning hand-harvested peat. 🙄 Run along now and find someone who can "soar to your own level", as it were. 😀
apr 18, 2025, 12:14 pm • 0 0 • view
Climate change doesn't recognise your borders, that's all juast in your head. And anyone who is not seeking to be 'anonymous' online will be played for the fool. I ain't goin' nowhere, mate. You don't get to decide that, poor pet.
apr 18, 2025, 12:20 pm • 1 0 • view
I am pretty young (40s) and otherwise healthy, but have bronchiectasis. Likely cause is growing up in a house heated by a woodburner. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Every cold is an ordeal.
apr 18, 2025, 8:29 am • 35 1 • view
Don't you have filters? We do, and the ovens get checked regularly. Unfiltered ovens are as bad as lorries, agreed.
apr 18, 2025, 8:55 am • 0 0 • view
@canarycairns.bsky.social Maybe you should weigh in on this one.
apr 18, 2025, 11:24 am • 1 0 • view
Totally agree. There are much safer and responsible ways to burn but the “I can do whatever I want” crowd can’t be bothered to consider how their pollution affects others
jul 23, 2025, 12:51 pm • 0 0 • view
The omnipresent "Skandi-Chic" has many downsides.
apr 18, 2025, 11:24 am • 3 0 • view
Overgeneralization! Yes, you can cause air pollution by woodburning, but using proper equipment the effect is minimal. In Helsinki Finland PM2.5 excursions at worst are comparable by spring pollen peak and air quality is way better than e.g. In UK. One must burn wood and not waste though.
apr 18, 2025, 10:35 am • 11 1 • view
This 100%. My parents having a house in a mountain community. They burn waste wood from the logging industry that dries all summer. I have never once smelled smoke despite every house in the town burning wood for heating. It's because we know how to manage the fires to burn efficiently.
apr 18, 2025, 3:57 pm • 2 0 • view
Absolute rubbish. Wood smoke affects immediate neighbours and is such a selfish thing to do!!
apr 18, 2025, 11:49 am • 1 0 • view
PM2.5 is just one pollutant out of many. Studies show that modern wood burning stove produce double the amount of ultrafine particles that older stoves. And UFPs are more toxic, and reach more parts of the body. youtu.be/QmxI9HV5yJU
apr 18, 2025, 10:55 am • 3 0 • view
👀
apr 18, 2025, 12:11 pm • 1 0 • view
And muirburn, farmwaste burn Horsewaste burn?
apr 18, 2025, 12:43 pm • 0 0 • view
Maybe we could persuade people to at least use coal instead. It's more efficient and cleaner than wood, which is basically the worst thing around for heating. Or better yet install gas fires.
apr 18, 2025, 9:15 am • 0 0 • view
HOW do they not legally require filters in the flue? how do they not breach smokeless-fuel regulations? how are such appliances not require Govt approval before production/sales???
apr 18, 2025, 12:24 pm • 5 0 • view
Yeah,but cars eh?
apr 18, 2025, 8:49 am • 2 0 • view
Let's talk about those who still burn their trash for heat in Poland 😷
apr 18, 2025, 8:55 am • 4 0 • view
Lots of people in Britain are putting waste in their fires as well.
apr 18, 2025, 11:27 am • 1 0 • view
The answer, surely, is to extend the clean-air zones from the city centres with a financial assistance to change.
apr 18, 2025, 1:59 pm • 4 0 • view
what do you think of rocket heaters as described in this article? thelastfarm.substack.com/p/why-we-sho...
apr 18, 2025, 10:35 am • 5 0 • view
Still cause health harming emissions, and are still not carbon neutral. The scientific evidence shows this. bsky.app/profile/glob...
apr 18, 2025, 10:38 am • 5 1 • view
did you read the article? it's in agreement that traditional wood burning is horrible for the environment but the rocket heater is far more effecient and mostly releases steam and a tiny amount of CO2
apr 18, 2025, 10:41 am • 1 0 • view
The graph shows it's not a tiny amount. You can make wood burning carbon neutral by removing the co2 absorbed by the wood. I don't class that as carbon neutral. Wood burning is definitely not CLIMATE neutral. I urge you to watch Dr Moomaw here. www.actionforcleanair.org.uk/evidence-res...
apr 18, 2025, 10:49 am • 2 1 • view
it produces that much for the first hour when you turn it on, you only need to use it once a day or every other day and it uses 80-90% wood that it basically vaporizes at very high temperatures. this is completely different thing from normal or "bio" wood stoves, and far lower tech than gas or
apr 18, 2025, 6:21 pm • 0 0 • view
electric which means less co2 in production, in fracking, etc. i think it's really interesting tech that's little discussed and i think it's totally incorrect to equate it to wood stoves or fireplaces. how does its one hour of co2 output compare to the output from gas or electric?
apr 18, 2025, 6:21 pm • 0 0 • view
Gas definitely less. If you use renewable energy with a heat pump it will be very very low, because heat pumps are at least 300% efficient. Wood burning is definitely less that 100% efficient.
apr 18, 2025, 6:26 pm • 0 0 • view
The ignorance that thinks electric is 'neutral'.
apr 18, 2025, 11:57 am • 1 0 • view
Except I never said that. Electric is definitely not neutral. You are just making up stuff to make yourself think you know what you are talking about. That's called a strawman argument.
apr 18, 2025, 5:48 pm • 0 0 • view
The article also says: "There are two main problems with this: 1) It takes decades for full-size trees to regrow, and the CO2 released by their combustion heats the planet in the meantime, 2) The entire supply chain is powered by fossil fuels, so you have to count those inputs, too."
apr 18, 2025, 10:51 am • 2 0 • view
yes, the author is stating that to critique the current biomass industry to then argue in the next section for the need to switch to coppice agroforestry instead; you, me, and the author are in agreement that current wood burning practices are dreadful
apr 18, 2025, 6:14 pm • 1 0 • view
The OP, is talking about health harming pollution, not CO2. There's so many issues with that rocket stove article. "is entirely non-toxic" "simple wood and rocket stoves demonstrated the highest median BC emission factors, ranging from 0.051 to 0.14 g MJ−1" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
apr 18, 2025, 6:22 pm • 0 0 • view
ok so that paper is talking about rocket stoves, which are hundreds of years old, and not rocket mass heaters, a different thing designed by an ecological designer in the 90's. this article goes much more into the history and design than the previous one: www.cransbury.com/post/rocket-...
apr 18, 2025, 7:18 pm • 2 0 • view
Ok. Sorry about that. I don't see how it can only be steam and CO2 emitted. It doesn't make logical sense. All combustion creates NOx. Just because there's no smoke doesn't mean no pollution. Benzene, formaldehyde are invisible. The article is still claiming carbon neutral. IMO it's not. 1/3
apr 18, 2025, 7:54 pm • 0 0 • view
More efficient burning just creates smaller particles. I'm sure I've seen a study stating this, but can't find it. Here's a study showing that modern stoves emit double the amount of ultrafine particles than older stoves. UFPs are more toxic. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 2/3
apr 18, 2025, 7:54 pm • 1 1 • view
i'll read it over thanks!
apr 18, 2025, 6:24 pm • 1 0 • view
This person is saying absolutely nothing about rocket furnaces, which use a fraction of the wood. Don't respond to things you don't know about as if you know what you're talking about.
apr 18, 2025, 12:02 pm • 2 0 • view
Do rocket furnaces burn wood? Yes. Do rocket furnaces emit CO2? Yes. If you understood the video I posted you would know it's about burning wood. Rocket stoves do that. You need to take your own advice as you are the one that knows nothing.
apr 18, 2025, 12:15 pm • 2 0 • view
I understand the video you posted, what is clear is that you didn't even look at the article you responded to.
apr 18, 2025, 12:18 pm • 1 0 • view
Then how did I quote from it? bsky.app/profile/chro...
apr 18, 2025, 1:03 pm • 2 0 • view
Luckily there appear to be no woodburning stoves in Scotland. Interesting how UK only includes England & Wales.
apr 18, 2025, 10:08 am • 3 0 • view
I wonder what happened to smokeless zones? Nobody cared enough?
apr 18, 2025, 10:07 am • 14 0 • view
They are completely meaningless now because of the "Ecodesign" greenwashing by the stove industry. The Clean Air Act is no longer fit for purpose as it only considers visible smoke not the invisible toxic fumes created by these appliances. The Deregulation Act 2015 caused this ridiculous situation.
apr 18, 2025, 12:14 pm • 20 1 • view
Good post.
apr 18, 2025, 12:24 pm • 6 0 • view
There is a wood burning stove on a road near my house that is in near constant use in winter, you can see visibile smoke from the chimney. It is in a clean air zone. I flagged it for enforcement as literally everyday my asthma was being triggered. It qualifies as an eco design and is exempt.
apr 19, 2025, 6:58 am • 6 0 • view
All EVs on that road? What's triggering your asthma is just that one wood burner in your neighbor's house? Wow! Powerful stuff
apr 19, 2025, 1:39 pm • 0 0 • view
There are 3 of us just on this thread!
apr 19, 2025, 4:52 pm • 1 0 • view
Yes my asthma is triggered by my neighbours’ wood burning! It isn’t unusual as you are implying! In winter because we live by a river the smoke settles in an inversion layer!
apr 19, 2025, 4:51 pm • 3 0 • view
Given its not a main road and therefore cars spend relatively little time being driven on it, yes one wood burner can dominate the air pollution situation.
apr 19, 2025, 1:45 pm • 1 0 • view
Most people are unaware of how polluting Ecodesign stoves are- look at the specification (PM – 40,000µg/m³) or NAEI data 2023. Approximately 817,000 Ecodesign stoves in the UK create 1.66ktonnes of PM2.5 compared to 1.16ktonnes for 35.69 million car exhausts. We had PM2.5 over 250µg/m³ in our home.
apr 19, 2025, 2:00 pm • 2 0 • view
We have protections from road vehicles (25µg/m³ max at the side of a busy road) but nothing to stop extremely high levels of pollution from these stoves. We regularly have PM2.5 >100µg/m³ over a wide area from all the Ecodesign stoves in the area (worst place in UK for air pollution but low traffic)
apr 19, 2025, 2:00 pm • 1 0 • view
And yes, family members have ended up in hospital from asthma attacks and a heart attack (separate incidents from different stoves). We were all struggling to breathe. Council say its not a statutory nuisance or prejudicial to health so refuse to take action. We will be forced out of our home.
apr 19, 2025, 2:04 pm • 3 0 • view
I've never been to your area, so I can't judge the situation there. I grew up in a house with a wood burner as only source of heat, in my village at that time, almost every house was the same as mine. Nobody I knew suffered asthma
apr 19, 2025, 2:12 pm • 1 0 • view
Well unfortunately many people do now. Most likely because air pollution is worse not helped by the increase in burning wood.
apr 19, 2025, 4:49 pm • 2 0 • view
Asthma wasn't recognised as an illness until the 70s, and was significantly under diagnosed for a long time (and probably still is) - so forgive me but it's rather like insisting no one had autism on the 70s, no its not weird at all that Uncle Dave never married and had 3,000 model trains.
apr 19, 2025, 2:24 pm • 4 0 • view
1 wood burner is so much more polluting than 1 petrol/diesel car. 2.7 million open fires and stoves in the UK. Over 40 million vehicles. Look at the PM2.5 pollution which is one pollutant out of many. This is UK gov data from the NAEI for 2022.
apr 19, 2025, 5:00 pm • 5 1 • view
To do anything about it would require brining a private nuisance action, with basically no guarantee of success and risk of significant costs.
apr 19, 2025, 6:59 am • 4 0 • view
Local authorities have a duty to protect us from anything that is a statutory nuisance or prejudicial to health, but they never do – just expect us to take action ourselves. Most don’t have enough faith in the British justice system to attempt this as the risk of a wood burning judge is too great.
apr 19, 2025, 11:06 am • 4 0 • view
Why do people want to live like medieval peasants in the 21st century?
apr 18, 2025, 10:37 am • 3 0 • view
If you have one- keep it for a 'rainy' day, a really freezing day or if you lose power. If you're hooked on Hyge then fire it up once a week- something to look forward. Same actually mostly applies to vehicle use, although can't comment not having one. Use can so easilly become dependence 💉
apr 20, 2025, 6:18 pm • 0 0 • view
Love my wood stove 🔥
apr 18, 2025, 4:54 pm • 0 0 • view
It's not that long since we were told that wood burners were the right thing to have because they didn't burn fossil fuels so their CO2 emissions were less important than gas. It's so hard to do the right thing sometimes!
apr 18, 2025, 10:38 am • 9 0 • view
If its middle class people burning stuff cos it looks nice, then I'm against it If it's poor people keeping warm, that's another matter
apr 18, 2025, 8:23 am • 26 0 • view
Looking at the maps and data, it’s the white middle class people living in the posher outer suburbs and rural areas. Poor people don’t get a look in. storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/9231...
apr 18, 2025, 8:50 am • 20 3 • view
Ban them!
apr 18, 2025, 8:51 am • 3 0 • view
Carbon neutral
apr 18, 2025, 9:53 am • 0 0 • view
yes. but caused lung disease Smoking tobacco is carbon neutral
apr 18, 2025, 10:36 am • 0 0 • view
Not EVERYTHING is about carbon neutrality.
apr 18, 2025, 10:43 am • 1 0 • view
Smoking tobacco is carbon neutral
apr 18, 2025, 10:45 am • 1 0 • view
Nooo they are not!!!! 🤣 Wood burning emits more CO2 per unit of heat that oil or gas. youtu.be/5sF7jUtEwZY
apr 18, 2025, 10:31 am • 2 0 • view
it depends, if it's a rocket heater as described in this article than it's super effecient, but most people aren't using those when they talk about wood burning lol thelastfarm.substack.com/p/why-we-sho...
apr 18, 2025, 10:34 am • 0 0 • view
Nope. Still doesn't make it carbon neutral. This isn't about efficiency. It's about CO2 being released when you burn wood.
apr 18, 2025, 10:37 am • 1 0 • view
And its bad for health!
apr 18, 2025, 10:40 am • 1 0 • view
That CO2 is recaptured by more wood. Do you understand the carbon cycle?
apr 18, 2025, 10:39 am • 0 0 • view
We do... we need to be burning much less carbon.. the more CO2 we put in the atmosphere the more the climate warms up We are producing more CO2 year on year than ever before
apr 18, 2025, 10:42 am • 3 0 • view
The point here is that wood is considered a renewable source of energy. It grows back.
apr 18, 2025, 10:33 am • 0 0 • view
It *can* grow back. Just because it can, doesn't mean everyone waits 20 years until the tree grows back to burn any more wood.
apr 18, 2025, 10:34 am • 4 0 • view
It’s the carbon cycle. The time to grow more wood is considered acceptable within the time frame of the carbon cycle to make it effectively carbon neutral.
apr 18, 2025, 10:41 am • 0 0 • view
Considered acceptable by who?
apr 18, 2025, 10:42 am • 0 0 • view
Not scientists that's for sure. www.actionforcleanair.org.uk/evidence-res...
apr 18, 2025, 10:49 am • 2 0 • view
That would be true if there wasn't 9b people on the planet...
apr 18, 2025, 11:44 am • 0 0 • view
It’s true in terms of climate response to CO2. Cycling of a few decades is sufficient to render the process as carbon neutral.
apr 18, 2025, 2:33 pm • 0 0 • view
For instance, I grew up in a rural part of Northumberland. We had mains gas. I live in a small town in the Highlands that has almost double that community's population, and yet the gas stops miles down the road...
apr 18, 2025, 9:21 am • 0 0 • view
And before anyone asks, I don't have a wood burner. I just don't like the way the debate on wood burners is trying to paint users as all doing it as a lifestyle choice. In some areas, it's not so much a choice as a virtual necessity for some.
apr 18, 2025, 9:25 am • 0 0 • view
The problem here though, is that the data covers only England and Wales. Framing a policy for the whole of the UK based only on data for those two countries is inherently flawed because, unlike those countries, places like Scotland have vast areas with no mains gas.
apr 18, 2025, 9:20 am • 1 0 • view
The point is is bad for health and most people use them for ornament
apr 18, 2025, 10:37 am • 0 0 • view
Fuck. I had no idea it was such a big problem. Great share - thanks.
apr 18, 2025, 10:05 am • 6 0 • view
100%, the mental compartmentalising that allows people to pretend this is ok astonishes me.
apr 18, 2025, 8:47 am • 6 0 • view
And bonfires in gardens!
apr 18, 2025, 6:07 pm • 1 0 • view
I agree. Every cold spell my bedroom fills with the smell of woodsmoke. I find it unpleasant sad an irritant to my throat.
apr 18, 2025, 10:37 am • 3 0 • view
And yet every property programme blithely offers up a wood-burning stove as a desirable feature. A bit of responsibility in media wouldn't go amiss. (Present company obviously ahead of the pack.)
apr 18, 2025, 11:20 am • 14 0 • view
I'm sick of it. Literally and figuratively. I can't have a window open a crack in winter (or even when it isn't that cold) without it stinking of smoke. I'm over fifty and don't even need heating all the time in my poorly-insulated house.
apr 18, 2025, 2:51 pm • 4 0 • view
Didn’t the Picts, Celts and other peoples of the islands do this for millennia?
apr 18, 2025, 9:05 am • 0 0 • view
Did they live in densely populated areas?
apr 18, 2025, 11:26 am • 1 0 • view
Oh dear, you’re mistaking me for someone who thinks in strictly black and white😂
apr 18, 2025, 11:56 am • 0 0 • view
We loved our wood burner but took it out when we renovated and haven't put it back because our rescue dog chose the empty fireplace as her safe space. We can live without it
apr 18, 2025, 4:53 pm • 4 0 • view
Working links - Another study highlighting problematic expansion of #woodburning. Worth mentioning the limits of smoke control areas to help address the problem - tinyurl.com/2js24r5j - & ongoing trials to raise awareness of stove emissions & curb use - tinyurl.com/2js24r5j #airpollution #airquality
apr 18, 2025, 11:46 am • 8 0 • view
I am apparently incapable of uploading links to BlueSky. Article above outlining the fundamental problems with smoke control areas works, but the links to a pilot system allowing stove users to voluntarily avoid burning here - link.springer.com/article/10.1... #airquality #airpollution #woodburning
apr 18, 2025, 12:56 pm • 4 0 • view
If energy prices were more reasonable people wouldn’t turn to wood stoves as a cheaper alternative
apr 18, 2025, 8:34 am • 8 0 • view
Thanks for speaking out about it - it is such an uphill struggle to get anything done on this!
apr 22, 2025, 8:00 am • 7 1 • view
Indonesian hygge is achieved by burning garbage. Mmmm. Delicious
apr 18, 2025, 8:41 am • 0 0 • view
I looked at Zero Emission Boilers (ZEBs) but only good for small/medium conventional houses with insulation. If renewables bring price of electricity down, ZEB with linked, modern storage heaters, using off-peak electricity and/or pv, might be the eventually answer for old, non-standard houses.
apr 18, 2025, 3:03 pm • 1 0 • view
For me it's cheaper. I buy my wood from my farmer neighbour's hedging offcuts. Nature improved. We are warm. Leave the offcuts in a pile and they'll eventually decompose and release methane.
apr 18, 2025, 8:52 am • 4 0 • view
For many, yes, but in a cold rural area you're telling me I must spend £30k on HSP conversion which means I also have to rip out my incompatible hot water solar panels and Rayburn. Even then the HSP people aren't sure it will work well. No thanks. Please accept that some properties aren't suitable.
apr 18, 2025, 8:49 am • 7 0 • view
It is much nicer though.
apr 18, 2025, 10:33 am • 0 0 • view
Suffering from lung cancer and cardiovascular disease isn't nicer!
apr 18, 2025, 10:58 am • 2 0 • view
I mean, cv disease is going to happen anyway, have you seen the diets of the people here?
apr 18, 2025, 12:12 pm • 0 0 • view
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whatabo...
apr 18, 2025, 1:01 pm • 2 0 • view
Urgh you’re so Twitter.
apr 18, 2025, 3:49 pm • 0 0 • view
You were first.
apr 18, 2025, 3:50 pm • 1 0 • view
Not really though, everything I’ve said is correct
apr 18, 2025, 6:23 pm • 0 0 • view
Yes your opinion is your correct opinion. If you struggled to breathe, and had to be hospitalised like this 12 year old, I think you would probably change your opinion about how nice it is. www.dsawsp.org/personal-sto...
apr 18, 2025, 6:29 pm • 2 0 • view
You’d save more lives by targeting food manufacturers.
apr 18, 2025, 6:45 pm • 0 0 • view
People can decide what they eat. People can't decide the air they breathe, when they have a neighbour that burns wood.
apr 18, 2025, 7:27 pm • 3 0 • view
People with wood burners need to install a particulate filter which will reduce harmful flue gas particles by 95%. Surely a better solution to an outright ban.
apr 18, 2025, 8:30 am • 10 0 • view
Even 5% is outrageously polluting when in close proximity to neighbours. "Ecodesign" stoves in the UK emit 1.8X the PM2.5 of ALL UK power stations but are only used by ~817,000 people. Power stations benefit everyone. Why are a tiny minority permitted to pollute so much?
apr 18, 2025, 9:29 am • 6 1 • view
5% is not outrageous at all and more expensive ESP filters reduce particulate matter and CO2 even further. Ecodesign stoves do not have ESP filters and and it is disingenuous to stack your figures against them. There are ways to make home fires safer for humans and the environment.
apr 18, 2025, 3:12 pm • 0 0 • view
Less than 3m people burn wood in the UK yet cause around the same PM2.5 pollution as 42 million road vehicles. Where is your evidence that filters reduce pollution to safe levels? Very likely they cause more UFP pollution.
apr 18, 2025, 3:21 pm • 1 0 • view
Electrostatic filters are not a legal requirement for log burners, though if they were and a 95% reduction was achieved, do you see how great the reduction of your figures would be? No power source comes without harmful by-products and it is in our interests to reduce their harm not eradicate it.
apr 18, 2025, 4:13 pm • 0 0 • view
Hourly emission rate per user would still be enough to cause health impacts for neighbours. Should not be encouraged until we have more evidence about the increased levels of UFPs that filtering causes which needs to be assessed in terms of particle count not mass. Much more difficult to measure.
apr 18, 2025, 4:54 pm • 1 0 • view
Exactly this. We would make more headway by saying all need a filtration. We could also put money into R&D to develop better filtration systems.
apr 18, 2025, 10:25 am • 2 0 • view
As if burning fossil coal is better..:
apr 18, 2025, 4:37 pm • 1 0 • view
Wood burning stoves seem so wholesome, it’s such a shame they are anything but. Such an inefficient release of CO2, too.
apr 18, 2025, 10:54 am • 7 0 • view
In Germany we call it #holzofengate! Bad air, and very reckless against neighbours and climate!
apr 18, 2025, 8:02 pm • 3 0 • view
I have asthma and live in a village. I can tell when folks are burning wood because it goes straight to my lungs. I do appreciate that for some it's the only form of heating they have and can't necessarily afford alternatives as there is a lot of scavengable wood, but I wish they'd stop.
apr 18, 2025, 10:33 am • 12 0 • view
Same here. A village and I have to keep all the doors and windows shut even in mild weather because of these idle wood-burning wine swillers.
apr 18, 2025, 2:55 pm • 6 0 • view
Some are wine swillers but some are actually poor. It still bugs me if not necessary though.
apr 18, 2025, 3:28 pm • 1 0 • view
Is it hygge or is it lack of funds for alternatives?
apr 18, 2025, 2:08 pm • 5 0 • view
My neighbours both sides have woodburners 😩
apr 18, 2025, 8:55 am • 3 0 • view
Rural France here, pellet burner as main source of heat - once up to temperature there is nothing visible leaving the chimney, very limited in particulates, yes CO & CO² produced, but from sustainable local wood sources. No mains gas here only alternative is electricity.
apr 18, 2025, 8:52 am • 2 0 • view
Same here. I was going to ask whether pellet burners fall in to the same category. We removed our woodburner and replaced it with the pellet burner 2 years ago. It's a marvellous source of heat.
apr 18, 2025, 2:14 pm • 0 0 • view
@realkachelmann.bsky.social 👁️
apr 18, 2025, 10:34 am • 0 0 • view
Running in our middle class suburban area on a cool evening, the smell of burning wood is absolutely choking.
apr 18, 2025, 6:10 pm • 7 0 • view
So does driving a car 🤡
apr 18, 2025, 9:24 am • 2 0 • view
George, please encourage those that have hygges to retrofit an electrostatic precipitator. This will sort the air pollution problem quickly. People will be more likely to do this than to rip out the hygge. An example of one company that sells units for this. stoake.co.uk/electrostati...
apr 18, 2025, 1:34 pm • 5 0 • view
Excellent! I have a small electrostatic charge machine to counter bad smells, but it also reduces the dust and dander from the dogs.
apr 18, 2025, 2:16 pm • 1 0 • view
So gas prices will be lowered and solar panels will be free
apr 18, 2025, 11:54 am • 1 0 • view
We could offset the carbon, grow a forest and fly with biofuels. Does an electric car compensate?
apr 18, 2025, 9:34 am • 1 0 • view
We would need multiple planets of bio-source to do that...
apr 18, 2025, 11:52 am • 0 0 • view
I feel much the same about fire pits, barbeque smoke and bonfires. All cause me to cough and cough and cough. I can't find a campsite these days that bans fires so I can no longer guarantee to be able to camp without being affected by smoke.
apr 18, 2025, 12:32 pm • 10 0 • view
Rocket furnaces excepted.
apr 18, 2025, 11:38 am • 0 0 • view
A few days ago it was stockpiling food because of imminent collapse. If food production collapses there will be chaos. What state will electricity and gas then be in? Those heat pumps won’t run on thin air. We’re either over the tipping or we’re not. If we truly are then keep your wood burner.
apr 18, 2025, 12:00 pm • 4 0 • view
Have recently tried switching to an electric combi boiler so can abandon burning anything for heat. It’s all about heat pumps and almost zero support for retrofit schemes. The ones that exist are obstructive and unhelpful. Most rural wood burners face a similar challenge.
apr 18, 2025, 8:31 am • 7 0 • view
Own wood source, season for 3 years, burn in stove, only thru winter. Have oil CH (used 3 hours a day), no gas, so wood is cheapest option. Add a layer of clothing, use leg blankets, to try & reduce use of any heating. House not suitable for solar or HP. Fixed income. No hygge, just need.
apr 18, 2025, 8:44 am • 22 0 • view
This. Our last house was very similar. Very rural, frequent power cuts. Used the woodburner to stay warm and boil the kettle and warm food.
apr 18, 2025, 8:45 am • 12 0 • view
Solar panels need to be cheaper to install. Public buildings etc should have them on roofs. No point castigating the population if they have to take up the huge amount of slack from commercial options. We use wood because we have the resource. Our pension would be impacted by having to use others.
apr 18, 2025, 8:52 am • 6 0 • view
Absolutely. Public buildings: govt recently made ££ available for schools and some other public buildings to install them. A massive step forward. Bring back the Feed In Tariffs, I say.
apr 18, 2025, 8:55 am • 4 0 • view
And so it should be! Retrofit, but ideally require installation when built. Small Industrial units and huge housing estates are growing like grass but not a sign of solar or wind power options.
apr 18, 2025, 12:52 pm • 1 0 • view
There was an estate built near our last house where every house had a heat pump and underfloor heating throughout. And another where every house had a charging point for EVs. But I don't understand the lack of investment in solar.
apr 18, 2025, 1:13 pm • 1 0 • view
Solar panels are useless - when you need them. On shorter, colder days, with low or no sun. 10x more productive in summer months when you don't need them.
apr 18, 2025, 8:09 pm • 1 0 • view
They're not. We had them on a previous house. They produced in the winter enough to cut out bills. In the summer you're still running appliances that use the power generated. And with the FiTs, they brought in income.
apr 18, 2025, 8:44 pm • 3 1 • view
Until the whole scale use of fossil fuels by transport: air, sea, rail and road, and (worldwide) industry, is tackled the miniscule level of wood particulates from home fires is, surely, negligible. It's easier/cheaper to penalise home owners, than tax/fine large producers of pollution.
apr 18, 2025, 12:46 pm • 4 0 • view
It may be, but it definitely has an impact on air quality, which affects the air folk breathe. Even in a rural area, I had to use my inhaler more as soon as people started lighting their fires or woodburners. But there's still a need for them in such areas.
apr 18, 2025, 1:16 pm • 2 0 • view
I'm not condoning the use of wood/coal/oil for household heating, where there's no economical alternative. The impact is both personal & environmental. Secondary glazing & loft insulation, an old property with solid walls & no cavity, we fight dampness, so warmth has a secondary purpose.
apr 18, 2025, 1:24 pm • 1 0 • view
I think woodburners are a necessary item in some homes, especially in rural areas. We'd have been lost without ours.
apr 18, 2025, 2:03 pm • 4 0 • view
Exactly! We all need to stop chastising regular, working class people. Our options are limited. And yes, we all need to do our part, but I for one cannot afford £25k for a heat pump and CH run throughout my electricity only home, with no boiler. Gov. action is needed! Tax billionaire polluters!
apr 19, 2025, 8:31 am • 2 0 • view
We aren't profligate with our use of any fuel: we can't afford to be. We'd use public transport but there's none where we are, we'd use bikes but the traffic is too dangerous. This smack of penalising rural & small town, because those in cities are 'misbehaving'. One fix doesn't fit all.
apr 18, 2025, 12:50 pm • 3 0 • view
That sounds just like where we lived until early last year. And they're whacking up new estates in areas like that, with no infrastructure to support them.
apr 18, 2025, 1:14 pm • 2 0 • view
These are two completely separate issues. Both are s problem.
apr 18, 2025, 2:34 pm • 0 0 • view
Also, in our case, a damp porous 'granite rose' house - you need the convection to dry the walls out, central heating doesn't cut it. Also, can't afford it anyway.
apr 18, 2025, 2:38 pm • 1 0 • view
James Heydon says it well in this video. www.nottingham.ac.uk/policy-and-e...
apr 18, 2025, 9:17 am • 3 1 • view
Thanks.
apr 18, 2025, 1:16 pm • 1 0 • view
Yes it’s smoke, and should be done sparingly. But burning hardwoods for heat is not the same thing as burning trash—the latter typically contains plastics that create highly toxic, life-shortening fumes when burned. (If you camp, PLEASE stop putting your trash in the campfire!)
apr 18, 2025, 11:39 am • 2 0 • view
Rural areas oil/LPG only alternative, mains gas unavailable, houses old, unsuitable for air source heat pumps, poorly insulated, retrofit too expensive, there's no choice. Even in new property, ASHP, solar & battery. Power cut ends heating availability and in depths of winter it will get very cold.
apr 18, 2025, 8:38 am • 8 0 • view
Thanks for speaking out about this. The hygge fad and SIA greenwashing have devastated the lives of many people who have enjoyed decades of smoke free air in their homes. “Ecodesign” stoves are used by a tiny minority (817,000 according to SIA) yet cause 1.8X more PM2.5 than all UK power stations.
apr 18, 2025, 9:35 am • 21 2 • view
I've been saying this for ages. It's pretty obvious if you think about it.
apr 18, 2025, 8:46 am • 1 0 • view
The article implies causation because there is local wood. No, it’s because there is no gas and the eco alternative electricity is prohibitively expensive. Government needs to fix the price of electricity and make it affordable to begin to sort this out.
apr 18, 2025, 9:04 am • 6 0 • view
To all the people saying, "it's cheaper", no it isn't, unless you have your own supply. Which is one reason why wood burning is predominantly done by wealthy or middle class people, poisoning themselves and poisoning others. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
apr 18, 2025, 8:43 am • 381 61 • view
We have (thankfully) just moved out of a rented farm cottage where our ONLY source of heating was a wood fired stove. We’re not middle class. We rented off a large estate. We had no choice. It wasn’t fashionable. There are 1000’s in a similar rural situation who have no alternative.
apr 18, 2025, 9:54 am • 2 0 • view
No electric?
apr 18, 2025, 10:33 am • 0 0 • view
The central heating ran off a back boiler heated by the wood burning stove….. No fire = no heating. So, if we had wanted to heat the house using electric, we would have had to buy electric heaters for every room and paid the electric price. That was not an economical alternative….
apr 18, 2025, 2:46 pm • 0 0 • view
Even if it were cheaper, that is a narrow-minded assessment of costs. To whit, managing lung disease—not cheap!
apr 18, 2025, 9:29 am • 2 0 • view
Is there an alternative to wood that can be used in wood burners?
apr 18, 2025, 10:48 am • 0 0 • view
Why are you floating this idea now instead of listening to some good music? youtu.be/baUHfb9EIzg?...
apr 18, 2025, 8:49 am • 0 0 • view
I often worry about people in the 'tiny house' and adjacent communities where wood burning is a given.
apr 18, 2025, 9:11 am • 0 0 • view
Still can't afford anything else, and no prospect of being able to..
apr 18, 2025, 12:57 pm • 0 0 • view
Are you really gonna claim they're mostly middle or upper class? Huge swathes of Scotland don't have access to gas - heating is either by oil (v expensive), electric storage (far more expensive than it should up here in renewable central) or open fire/wood burner. How many do you think are well off?
apr 18, 2025, 8:56 am • 19 0 • view
Headline says predominantly; people who do have an alternative option. That's not the same as saying those with no option shouldn't. Those in poverty are more likely to have to choose a less healthy option, agreed! England Wales ⬆️, Scotland ⬇️ www.asthmaandlung.org.uk/domestic-bur...
apr 18, 2025, 10:41 am • 2 1 • view
Yes, the paper shows that there is increased woodburner prevalence as socioecononomic decile goes from 1 to 10 (i.e. from more deprived to less deprived). Not absolute but a clear trend.
apr 22, 2025, 11:21 am • 0 0 • view
Because the last time I checked, the Highlands has some of the highest levels of fuel poverty anywhere in the UK.
apr 18, 2025, 8:57 am • 14 0 • view
Scotland has off grid and some poverty users, but overall in the UK, George is right to say wood burners are predominantly used by upper and middle class users (many for aesthetic not necessity)
apr 18, 2025, 9:58 am • 3 0 • view
Absolutely. We need to recognise that, like car use and air travel, there are always some exceptions, but they are precisely that, exceptions, and not a sound basis for making collective decisions...
apr 18, 2025, 11:02 am • 1 0 • view
I don't think those saying 'some' exceptions realise quite how many households in the UK don't have mains gas. It's more extensive than you might think. The majority of wood burners may or may not be doing it for aesthetic reasons, but there's also a big number who aren't. www.nongasmap.org.uk
apr 18, 2025, 11:29 am • 6 0 • view
That may well be so, but it doesn't undermine its impact. The task is to address fuel poverty in more sustainable and dynamic ways, without demonising categories of users, which you rightly draw attention to...
apr 18, 2025, 11:37 am • 1 0 • view
I'm not saying I'm in favour of wood burners (I don't even have one myself), but in the depths of a Highland winter, when storage electric heating can be v expensive, I can see why folk might look to alternatives (especially so they have a back-up in case of power cuts etc).
apr 18, 2025, 11:31 am • 1 0 • view
Of course... I accept that.
apr 18, 2025, 11:37 am • 1 0 • view
Quite. I've had several homes in Scotland over the years, not all rural, none have had mains gas. Now I am rural (oil) and know several local properties that are solely wood fueled.
apr 21, 2025, 1:15 pm • 0 0 • view
what kind of people live in the middle of nowhere with no access to gas? farmers? aren't they generally well off?
apr 18, 2025, 10:19 am • 0 0 • view
I live in a village the north east of Scotland with no access to gas - it’s not in the middle of nowhere and fuel poverty is real
apr 18, 2025, 10:33 am • 2 0 • view
are there any alternatives to burning fuel?
apr 18, 2025, 10:49 am • 0 0 • view
Oil, which we do use for a few hours a day but use wood burner at weekends when not at work. Electric heating too expensive
apr 18, 2025, 10:54 am • 0 0 • view
I suggest you step outside your bubble some time. I live in a town. The nearest mains gas is several miles down the road. And my community is by no means unique. There are vast swathes of the Highlands with no mains gas, and it's not just a Highland issue.
apr 18, 2025, 10:47 am • 1 0 • view
so everyone in these towns heat their homes by burning fuel?
apr 18, 2025, 10:48 am • 0 0 • view
No, but alternatives all come with different pros and cons. Oil (v expensive), storage heaters (a: electric is most expensive in the Highlands, despite us generating far more than we use; and b: it's colder here than anywhere else); open fires/burners.
apr 18, 2025, 10:52 am • 0 0 • view
To give some idea of the lack of mains gas in parts of the UK, this website is a handy guide. www.nongasmap.org.uk Even in cities like Inverness, there's plenty of homes that are not connected to a gas network.
apr 18, 2025, 10:54 am • 1 0 • view
It says it in the article. "Combining the home energy data with data on deprivation reveals that wood burning is overwhelmingly a pastime of those in the wealthiest areas." James Heydon says it well here. www.nottingham.ac.uk/policy-and-e...
apr 18, 2025, 9:05 am • 3 0 • view
Aye, and as I pointed out, it's a dangerous generalisation to apply it to the entire UK. The Highland Council area is almost the size of Belgium, and there's masses of it with no access to gas. It quickly stops being a 'lifestyle' choice if your options are oil, storage (or worse, fan) heaters etc..
apr 18, 2025, 9:08 am • 2 0 • view
There's loads of open fires and wood burners used to heat properties in the Highlands, and yet we've also got some of the highest fuel poverty anywhere in the UK. It doesn't take much effort to realise a good chunk of those people are therefore poor AND using burners.
apr 18, 2025, 9:11 am • 1 0 • view
All I'm saying is that an article or study applied to the whole of the UK is gonna overlook some truly massive regional variations if applied universally. And that is EXACTLY what the OP did in their comments. Labelling it a lifestyle 'choice' is an insult to many folk who have little to no choice.
apr 18, 2025, 9:14 am • 3 0 • view
I don't think he has done what you've said. It's very to not generalise when there's a character limit. But he did say 'PREDOMINANTLY done by wealthy or middle class' We need to stop burning wood, and gov needs to help those who currently have no choice. See video: bsky.app/profile/mike...
apr 18, 2025, 9:25 am • 2 0 • view
I'm sorry, but it's a pet peeve of mine. Living in the Highlands, you can't help but see the astronomically high levels of fuel poverty despite the region being a net exporter of renewable power. We have some of the highest electric bills in the UK, despite the fact they should be the cheapest. 1/2
apr 18, 2025, 9:32 am • 3 0 • view
We currently live in a world where electric shipped from source to areas hundreds of miles away along masses of pylon/cable infrastructure is somehow vastly cheaper than that SAME electric that is then transported just one mile to someone's home. It's obscene and galling to say the least. 2/2
apr 18, 2025, 9:46 am • 2 0 • view
Yep, I totally agree with the 2nd post. Scotland (and Wales) should benefit from their resources. One of my pet peeves is that clean air campaigners get accused of wanting people to freeze to death (mostly on that other platform), but we don't. We just want people to be healthy. 1/2
apr 18, 2025, 10:02 am • 0 0 • view
Likewise. Furthermore, whereas 'predominantly' implies, it also _infers_ wood burning stoves are for the elite. Not factored, in addition to what you've mentioned (poverty etc), are the offsets. No auto pollution, much less commercial footprint, cleaner air, more trees/peat carbon sink... 1/2
apr 18, 2025, 1:58 pm • 0 0 • view
The regions with the greatest absence of gas supplies are also the areas with the *least carbon footprint per person*. It is thus misleading to take X whilst avoiding Y and Z. 2/2 ocsi.uk/2021/09/21/t... www.nongasmap.org.uk
apr 18, 2025, 2:01 pm • 0 0 • view
*very hard not.........
apr 18, 2025, 9:30 am • 0 0 • view
Is there data out there on price per kwh for stove wood? It would be useful to see.
apr 18, 2025, 10:51 am • 0 0 • view
We got ours about ten years ago, when there was a lot of news about impacts on the supply of gas and escalating prices. Those factors have only got worse. I don't want to be left with no heat source. Really like the idea of heat pumps but I'll wait until the cowboys get out of the market.
apr 18, 2025, 10:39 am • 2 0 • view
Thank you!!! I know someone who runs multiple wood stoves in their home and the VOCs are sky high. I can’t go in it without an instant reaction. I wish people would understand just how badly they pollute the air.
apr 18, 2025, 10:30 am • 8 0 • view
What’s the deal with ethanol fireplaces? I had one in Sweden because the central heating wasn’t warm enough for this cold Australian, and I absolutely loved it.
apr 18, 2025, 10:37 am • 0 0 • view
I like fireplaces and the more I research alternatives, the more annoying it is to understand. Burning most things seem to come with personal/environmental health risks, including chemical liquids like natural gas, propane, ethanol www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/res...
apr 18, 2025, 11:15 am • 0 0 • view
I used to live in a house with a coal & wood aga, which was then converted to oil. Oil was awful, it stank all the time and made it hard to breathe even with the door open most days. My gas boiler is loads better, but even that sets my aranet beeping all winter.
apr 18, 2025, 11:16 am • 1 0 • view
In January, in many remote areas, and some not so remote areas, of Scotland, a storm left us without power for nearly a week in some cases, in mid-winter. Towns and cities are rarely left without power like this. Boilers and heat pumps need power to work. Woodburners kept people alive.
apr 18, 2025, 11:58 am • 2 0 • view
There’s no evidence in that arrival wood burning or coal burning is “middle class”. In fact the coverage map tells a completely different story. Stoves are often used by those in rural areas with high levels of fuel poverty. It isn’t cheaper, true. Then again when do the poorest get a discount?
apr 18, 2025, 9:16 am • 6 0 • view
Poor don’t get discounts. They get fleeced. Over and over and over again.
apr 18, 2025, 1:34 pm • 0 0 • view
I'd like to see the data for both of these assertions. I'm prepared to believe anyone if the facts are there to support it.
apr 18, 2025, 10:47 am • 0 0 • view
www.gov.uk/government/s...
apr 18, 2025, 10:58 am • 0 0 • view
www.endfuelpoverty.org.uk/fuel-poverty...
apr 18, 2025, 10:59 am • 0 0 • view
www.gov.uk/government/s...
apr 18, 2025, 10:59 am • 0 0 • view
www.gov.wales/fuel-poverty...
apr 18, 2025, 11:00 am • 0 0 • view
The map that @georgemonbiot.bsky.social is using from @theguardian.com on wood burning overlaps significantly with working class and rural areas. The assertion wood burning is Middle Class is an unfortunately incorrect assumption. To tackle the issue inequality is a fundamental part of it.
apr 18, 2025, 11:03 am • 1 0 • view
I will happily support abandoning wood burning. Agree with @georgemonbiot.bsky.social it is an issue. However it isn’t “Middle Class” and it is directly linked to inequality.
apr 18, 2025, 11:04 am • 2 0 • view
No idea where that “arrival” came from 🙄
apr 18, 2025, 11:37 am • 0 0 • view
“Article”
apr 18, 2025, 1:02 pm • 0 0 • view
Here in rural France we don't have access to town gas. Wood burning is common, traditional and not fashionable.
apr 18, 2025, 9:57 am • 0 0 • view
To all the people claiming “fuel poverty” please consider clean air poverty. Our neighbour’s “Ecodesign” stove cost us a lot of money to stay in our home & considerably increased our carbon footprint. Many neighbours can’t afford the air purifiers, dehumidifiers, tumble dryers, etc they will need.
apr 18, 2025, 10:06 am • 69 9 • view
Ah, but come the apocalypse, they can gather twigs & branches, from the forest, to cook & keep warm!!
apr 18, 2025, 10:32 am • 1 0 • view
We have a wood burning Rayburn range which is lit most days November to March. I admit it’s largely a lifestyle choice, but- ▪️we’ve never bought firewood in the 15 years we’ve had it - a tree in our garden always obligingly falls in time to supply us ▪️our nearest neighbour is 170 metres away, upwind
apr 18, 2025, 11:33 am • 0 0 • view
▪️said neighbour, with a 10 acre garden and directly upwind of us, has a bonfire almost every week, which is more of an issue for us, especially with wash days
apr 18, 2025, 11:33 am • 0 0 • view
Bonfires obviously need controls too, particularly in residential areas. We are in the ULEZ but they are still permitted and dismissed by the council as "a common feature across the borough" even when causing PM2.5 over 800µg/m³ in the street for many hours.
apr 18, 2025, 11:51 am • 1 0 • view
Ecodesign stoves are dependent on the quality of the wood. If someone has an Ecodesign stove but they're throwing all sorts of wood that they got their hands on, then then the Ecodesign certification means nothing
apr 18, 2025, 11:56 am • 1 0 • view
Disagree. Knew lots of people on building sites who would use the wood skip for free heating. The company didn't care because they didn't have to pay to empty the wood skip
apr 18, 2025, 9:14 am • 1 0 • view
A lot of wood used on building sites are treated and burning releases high levels of dioxins
apr 18, 2025, 10:41 am • 1 0 • view
You made the point I was going to. I have a builder friend who will burn literally any wood he gets from his site work...often old wood with paint on, and frequently structural timber which will have been pressure treated! I have tried to advise him against it!
apr 18, 2025, 11:52 am • 1 0 • view
I live on a narrow boat in a marina. There are plenty of wood burners/coal burners here. They put out some prett unfriendly smoke but then you also get those burning treated wood waste , and it stinks!! The power plants that use it a least have scrubbers and legal requirements on exhaust!
apr 18, 2025, 12:32 pm • 1 0 • view
We drink in a few canalside pubs near us, and sometimes the fumes and smoke pollution (creating smog too) can be quite amazing.
apr 18, 2025, 12:45 pm • 1 0 • view
Ah fair enough, they don't sound healthy
apr 18, 2025, 11:38 am • 1 0 • view
So now you’re saying gas is good? Just wait a mo whilst I bang my head on’t wall!
apr 18, 2025, 11:20 am • 0 0 • view
Last time I checked, gas was comprised mostly of methane, which is 30x more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. I'm as confused as you are.
apr 19, 2025, 8:17 am • 1 0 • view
So when you burn the methane, the emissions are CO2 and water. Impossible to both burn and release the methane!
apr 21, 2025, 12:48 pm • 0 0 • view
climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-...
apr 21, 2025, 2:20 pm • 0 0 • view
Methane is the main component of natural gas; it makes up 70% or more of raw natural gas in the ground and well over 95% of the processed gas we burn for energy. When burned, this methane turns into CO2—but before then, it can escape into the atmosphere from all parts of gas infrastructure.
apr 21, 2025, 2:20 pm • 0 0 • view
Yes, thank you, I'm well aware of all that, pity you omitted to clarify in your original post. I'm absolutely against the use of gas, if only because it's just another way of injecting fossil carbon into the atmosphere.
apr 21, 2025, 3:20 pm • 0 0 • view
I have absolutely no idea what you're on about. I didn't omit anything. I stated a fact about gas and methane. You countered. I followed it up with more facts. The end. Sounds like we're in a similar boat with similar mindsets. Great. Let's go enjoy our evening. 🙏
apr 21, 2025, 4:22 pm • 0 0 • view
Based on this answer, I no longer trust you. You stated a fact, without clarifying that most of the methane in natural gas ends up as CO2 as a result of being used as fuel, so has its power as a greenhouse gas diluted. Your original post would confuse the uninformed, whether intentionally or not.
apr 21, 2025, 5:15 pm • 0 0 • view
Wow. Relax. This isn’t Reddit. I’m not interested in arguing with you. Have a nice evening.
apr 21, 2025, 7:11 pm • 0 0 • view
Furthermore, fracking, to obtain gas, uses over 1,000 chemicals and millions of gallons of water, per site. To say that using natural gas is better than burning logs, as a blanket statement, seems unlikely to me. But, I am happy to be wrong. I am not on mains gas. Like 4 million UK houses.
apr 21, 2025, 2:59 pm • 0 0 • view
But I didn't say that. I'm also not on mains gas, in the UK. I fitted a log-burner 15 years ago (we have our own wood supply) to supplement our oil system. Given what I know now about the particulate emissions of log-burners, I will decommission logs and oil when I can afford an alternative.
apr 21, 2025, 3:26 pm • 0 0 • view
I didn't say you said that. My apologies. I am responding to my own post in response to what others are saying on here, and as a follow up to my own point about the gas grid leaking methane. I too will transition when the price of electricity isn't tied to the price of gas. Ludicrous!
apr 21, 2025, 4:25 pm • 1 0 • view
Dear Lord, the excuses, the denial and the exceptionalism in the comments here would register at the top end of the scale on any pollution monitor.
apr 18, 2025, 10:28 am • 247 14 • view
Living in an area with 1930’s homes that have at least 2 chimneys, I can’t open my windows or hang washing outside in the winter . It’s so bad in urban areas because of the density of housing. We need more air pollution monitoring & enforcement
apr 18, 2025, 12:05 pm • 2 0 • view
Having mulled on this, I wonder whether there's a "hearts and minds" aspect that needs to be considered. In the old days (ie my youth), there would have been public information films - perhaps involving a cartoon ginger cat. Maybe we need a modern equivalent, that also avoids being too "judgy".
apr 18, 2025, 11:17 am • 2 0 • view
Yep. This topic literally causes people to lose their minds as if they're being asked to excavate their hearts with the soggy stump of their beloved pet's limbs.
apr 18, 2025, 10:32 am • 5 0 • view
Yes but is the wood burning stove a legal woman? One for the Supreme Dipshit Court no doubt.
apr 18, 2025, 10:29 am • 0 0 • view
They're not even healthy for the people using them. They do look nice though.
apr 18, 2025, 11:12 am • 1 0 • view
Our ecological crisis in a nutshell. Regardless of the issue, there will always be some who argue it's acceptable, at the level of the individual, business, and/or government. And should something we like be legislated away, we'll just vote for the candidate who promises to restore it.
apr 18, 2025, 1:21 pm • 3 0 • view
Yes it's amazing what people come up with. I'm sure that the excuses so called "tree surgeons" use to fell trees are motivated by profit to satisfy some people's need to have a cosy fire.
apr 18, 2025, 10:41 am • 2 0 • view
📌
apr 18, 2025, 12:07 pm • 0 0 • view
I have had some of the most through-the-looking-glass conversations with good friends on this topic. Nostalgia > health, in one case even when the person's *own child* is at particular risk due to severe asthma.
apr 18, 2025, 10:42 am • 5 0 • view
Air kwality monitors £25 on ebay
apr 18, 2025, 12:15 pm • 0 0 • view
We discussed wood burning stoves on the local WhatsApp. Quite a few contributors said they didn't care about the pollution and would carry on using their stoves.
apr 18, 2025, 4:06 pm • 1 0 • view
A friend who has campaigned on ecological issues for years has just had one installed. I called her out on it but she waffled some excuse. I am quite literally choked by this.
apr 18, 2025, 12:06 pm • 2 0 • view
It’s mad. We just published this piece urging the Irish Government to ban fossil fuel ads and the comments are insane.
apr 18, 2025, 10:34 am • 22 5 • view
My favourite was ‘most of the world’s history was warmer than now’. I think the world has gone mad. Many get angry at facts being pointed out. Facts = woke 🫠
apr 19, 2025, 1:31 am • 3 0 • view
It's very disheartening. It's just generic threads e.g. blame the greens, blame the lefties, disinformation about climate, inadequate public transport, taxes...
apr 19, 2025, 8:55 am • 3 0 • view
But also compare the CO2 emissions from the alternatives...gas boilers and heat pumps. Biomass which accounts for 10% of the grid is more carbon intensive than coal! There are no simple solutions...
apr 18, 2025, 11:23 am • 2 0 • view
Banning wood burning is a simple solution and would help the neighbours of selfish wood burners!
apr 18, 2025, 11:44 am • 2 0 • view
In the UK I can well believe it. We live in NZ these days and it's a rather different viewpoint here! But then we're only 5m people in a large and sparsely-populated country.
apr 18, 2025, 11:24 am • 0 0 • view
Of course, boaters, travellers and other poor people living in alternative housing are privileged exceptionalists.
apr 18, 2025, 10:43 am • 2 0 • view
"Predominantly" highlighted. I don't see George claiming people with no other option should be forced to abandon the only method to heat that they have. Happy to be shown in the article where it says that they should. Wealthier people pollute everyone, the harms are disproportionate on the poor.
apr 18, 2025, 10:55 am • 3 0 • view
And the harms this kind of narrative perpetuate are always shouldered by the poor. Sick of it, we have enough abuse thrown at us without adding to it
apr 18, 2025, 12:18 pm • 1 0 • view
I also posted this for you earlier as well, which explains more about what I'm also trying to say bsky.app/profile/colb...
apr 18, 2025, 1:17 pm • 1 0 • view
As some people are failing to engage in good faith, or dare I say even bother to read either article and persue a blinkered objective, you've been muted. I've no time for neither a deliberate lack of nuance nor false, egregious guilt tripping.
apr 18, 2025, 8:19 pm • 1 0 • view
It shouldn't be that way, but did George make a claim about the poor?
apr 18, 2025, 1:00 pm • 0 0 • view
However, this kind of narrative adds to the abuse we suffer every day, I don't see George highlighting that fact either.
apr 18, 2025, 12:17 pm • 0 0 • view
You're aware that the author is Matthew Taylor and not George. Whomever does the burning the impact is worse on the poorest, as you've eluded to! So what's the solution? The narrative here, hasn't actually narrated against the poor.
apr 18, 2025, 1:05 pm • 0 0 • view
Sure, the poor have been inadequately assessed in the article, but that's the author's fault. As most people who are polluting are the wealthier members of the population, surely they should be discouraged, and named as they have been, as they're the largest polluting group?
apr 18, 2025, 1:05 pm • 0 0 • view
It's terrible for respiratory health and an absolute disaster for air quality. And utterly selfish. No excuse for wood burners in this day and age. No excuse whatsoever.
apr 18, 2025, 10:42 am • 6 1 • view
I wonder if folks with wood burning stoves would be equally happy if their neighbours started burning rubbish in bonfires in their gardens again - it’s basically working class hygge but somehow everyone agrees it’s unacceptable. Stick it in a fancy stove and push it up a chimney and that’s 🆗 right?
apr 18, 2025, 10:39 am • 36 3 • view
People are still burning rubbish in their gardens!
apr 18, 2025, 11:40 am • 6 0 • view
And meat! All those effing barbecues were another reason to move out of the city.
apr 18, 2025, 4:02 pm • 2 0 • view
I wonder if people clutching their pearls about woodburning would prefer boaters and other poor people living in alternative housing froze to death
apr 18, 2025, 10:41 am • 11 0 • view
An EPA certified wood stove is required for new installs now in the US. Wood isn’t cheaper if you’re buying it. It’s possible to start and maintain fires responsibly without smoking your neighbors out.
jul 23, 2025, 12:57 pm • 0 0 • view
The studies that prove that residential wood smoke increases mortality rates are readily available for you to find. There’s no excuse for polluting neighborhood air. One person’s health and quality of life doesn’t supersede another based on finances.
jul 23, 2025, 12:57 pm • 1 0 • view
Goodness. Who knew it was the responsibility of the poor to ensure the health of those financially better off.
jul 23, 2025, 1:11 pm • 0 0 • view
No pearls here! I am sick literally of breathing in other people’s smoke! People who are really too poor to heat in other ways must be helped but vast majority just do it because they want to! Too selfish and lacking in empathy to think of others!
apr 18, 2025, 11:42 am • 2 0 • view
Yes, not wanting to freeze to death is so selfish, glad to see you are so selfless you're happy to see frozen bodies hauled from our homes
apr 18, 2025, 12:16 pm • 1 0 • view
I think you didn’t read my post! I said people too poor to heat homes in other ways must be helped!
apr 19, 2025, 9:42 am • 1 0 • view
Way to miss the fucking point. People burning wood aren’t the poor ones!! And nobody should have to burn wood to stay warm. Jesus the sooner your “if it was good enough not to die” attitude is scorched from this earth the better
apr 19, 2025, 4:46 am • 3 0 • view
Goodness, this is the first time I've witnessed an actual pleas for someone to die. I have to say, that ain't happening anytime soon.
apr 19, 2025, 9:52 am • 0 0 • view
He isn’t making pleas for anyone to die! Ffs! All wood burners jump on the bandwagon of poor people who will die of cold if they can’t have their wood burning stove. The vast vast majority of people with stoves are not remotely in this category!
apr 19, 2025, 12:46 pm • 1 0 • view
It's a distinct issue with fuel poverty that needs addressing, but as the article from George states, in England and Wales, it's predominantly (not exclusively) people who have an alternative option to heat. People shouldn't be forced to choose a polluting option that risks their health. Alt 4 🔗
apr 18, 2025, 10:52 am • 20 2 • view
Had solid fuel as my only source of heating for years. Still thought it was polluting expensive and generally crap
apr 18, 2025, 5:30 pm • 2 0 • view
But you didn't freeze to death I take it
apr 18, 2025, 5:36 pm • 0 0 • view
You are literally the “yet you live in society” meme
apr 19, 2025, 4:47 am • 2 0 • view
The choice is very much dependent on place. In our adopted state of Maine, the most forested state in the USA, with a large rural poor population, wood really is a key heat source. midcoastwoodbank.org (Our heat pumps need this supplement when it's really frigid.)
apr 18, 2025, 10:34 am • 3 0 • view
I can burn my garbage wood and pruned wood, and safe money, or pay at the landfill to dump it there. Hmm, difficult choice.... I live in a city btw, no forest around, but if policy makes doing the best thing more expensive ...
apr 18, 2025, 11:04 am • 0 0 • view
I’m in Maine, too. I’m wondering if the US has different environmental standards on woodstoves, also? www.epa.gov/burnwise/epa...
apr 18, 2025, 3:43 pm • 0 0 • view
It shouldn’t need a wood burning supplement! Heat pumps are used successful in some of the coldest countries!!
apr 18, 2025, 11:44 am • 1 0 • view
This is not realistic for locations like Maine, USA, where we frequently see temps at -14°F and our housing stock is old, and our infrastructure is extremely spread out and rural.
apr 18, 2025, 3:47 pm • 2 0 • view
Seems to work in Scandinavia? Maybe US homes need better construction and insulation.
apr 18, 2025, 4:22 pm • 1 0 • view
these are all things that are very expensive, especially for older folks
apr 18, 2025, 8:04 pm • 2 0 • view
You mean the stoves are expensive I assume!
apr 19, 2025, 12:47 pm • 1 0 • view
I work in the building engineering industry. I am talking about the immense one-time expenses of insulation, upgraded windows, and heat pump units, versus cheaper wood stoves which can be fueled with material you can forage for yourself
apr 19, 2025, 5:40 pm • 1 0 • view
We have just fully insulated our home and upgraded windows and have had a heat pump installed! Expensive but not immense! You should only be burning properly seasoned and dried wood not crap you have foraged!
apr 19, 2025, 6:05 pm • 1 0 • view
Probably not. A new wood stove will run about $3K, compared with heat pump installation which is $7K and higher. Plus many people have woodstoves for decades, or buy them secondhand.
apr 19, 2025, 2:59 pm • 2 0 • view
It will be the decades old stoves and secondhand ones that cause the most dangerous fumes for both the user and neighbours.
apr 20, 2025, 12:32 pm • 1 0 • view
Sure. Comparing Sweden to Maine, Sweden has 11.3% of the population living rurally vs Maine’s 61.3%, and our state has the oldest population. People, especially seniors, rely on wood heat because it’s economical, the infrastructure exists, and it’s necessary due to frequent storm power outages.
apr 18, 2025, 4:58 pm • 1 0 • view
The issue isn’t where people live. Air source heat pumps work anywhere with electricity or are you saying that large parts of Maine have none? Likely difference is quality of Scandinavia and US construction and insulation. Scandinavia also includes Norway and Finland btw!
apr 19, 2025, 9:50 am • 1 0 • view
Yes, I know what countries comprise Scandinavia, thank you. I chose one country for simplicity. There are people here not on the grid and everyone in Maine is vulnerable to power outages due to storms for days or weeks at a time. Going without heat during those means certain death.
apr 19, 2025, 3:03 pm • 0 0 • view
Wow! Surprised that I haven’t heard reports of this on the news every winter!
apr 19, 2025, 4:45 pm • 0 0 • view
Finland isn't Scandinavian tho. Only the weird 3 aka Denmark Sweden and Norway
apr 19, 2025, 11:01 pm • 0 0 • view
There are different definitions of Scandinavia and Finland is one of the countries listed. Why are the 3 you have listed weird?
apr 20, 2025, 12:24 pm • 0 0 • view
It's a large issue that heat pumps fitted by installers without the foresight to predict seasonal variation, especially when models for the Scandinavian market can cope and in old buildings. www.euronews.com/green/2024/1... Mitsubishi supply units working down to -5 F = -21 C.
apr 18, 2025, 10:46 am • 2 0 • view
It goes down to -35C in Northern Maine, I’m next door in Canada and my heat pump works fine down to -26C, but I’m close to ocean and it rarely goes below that.
apr 18, 2025, 12:22 pm • 1 0 • view
I lived in a small community and had a wood-burning stove. In small rural areas in BC, Canada, it is the best, cheapest heat. It's also the most reliable because power would often go out from trees falling during winter storms. It doesn't invalidate @georgemonbiot.bsky.social's point, mostly.
apr 18, 2025, 10:56 am • 4 0 • view
And it’s especially not cheaper when you include the externalized health costs. www.dsawsp.org/health/real-...
apr 19, 2025, 1:40 am • 5 0 • view
I agree. We used to burn wood when I was working as a tree surgeon. I’ve come to see how bad it is for our lungs so stopped some years back. Electrical heating is better. 100 wind powered.
apr 18, 2025, 9:00 am • 4 0 • view
I appreciate wood burning fires are a source of air pollution. I’m not sure they poison people who have fires. My working class dad bought cheap, well seasoned wood when we were kids and regularly burned a fire in the grate in Winter. None of us appeared to suffer as the smoke went up the chimney.
apr 18, 2025, 9:11 am • 4 0 • view
Always had open fires as a kid....over the years room paint would become stained brown with tar residue, though it was impossible to see.. Smogs in cities before the clean air act showed how high concentrations could become
apr 18, 2025, 10:48 am • 0 0 • view
Air pollution is a real problem. My dad never used coal, unlike my Granny, he only used well seasoned logs, which he chopped into quarters himself. There was very little smoke in the living room so the walls were not discoloured.
apr 18, 2025, 10:55 am • 2 0 • view
Just saying even seasoned logs, while being cleaner, will produce tars. It is why chimneys need sweeping on a regular basis I grew up around places with open fire both wood, wood and coal and coal. I love them, but I understand they are not good for air quality Around Stroud get smog in valleys
apr 18, 2025, 11:00 am • 0 0 • view
I’m not suggesting we should have wood fires now, but if you do it properly a wood fire shouldn’t cause health problems within the house. The chimney will need sweeping. We had a chimney fire once, so I guess they forgot to get the chimney cleaned in time that year.
apr 18, 2025, 11:05 am • 1 0 • view
I believe that even wood burners with closed doors still leave a very pronounced effect on the air quality in a home... I suppose inside a home is that persons choice. As with any Fossil Fuel burning, the pollution caused outside the home and creating problems for wider society means regulation
apr 18, 2025, 11:29 am • 2 1 • view
Wood burners at bottom of five valleys is a particular form of stupidity.
apr 18, 2025, 11:05 am • 3 0 • view
I presume as well that the particulates would be slightly heavier and tend to descend from those up slope... It is most strking on those clear frosty mornings, no air movement, but the valley floor is 'foggy' while from halfway upslope it is quite beautiful...just unfortunate for the lower pop!
apr 18, 2025, 11:18 am • 0 1 • view
It depends to some extent on the population density too, and that’s much greater now than it used to be in many rural and semi rural areas.
apr 18, 2025, 11:38 am • 1 0 • view
Reminded of my dad talking of fog/pollution trapping around Wolverhampton and walking (as too dense to see/drive) up to home which was on escapement on edge of town.
apr 18, 2025, 11:34 am • 1 0 • view
We lived near the top of a hill, perhaps that helped with the air pressure.
apr 18, 2025, 11:08 am • 1 0 • view
In Germany we have to fit special filters on our word burners and they are checked yearly.
apr 18, 2025, 11:01 am • 5 1 • view
They will still emit harmful fumes even with filters. We have so called eco stoves here which claim to solve the problem but don’t!
apr 18, 2025, 11:47 am • 5 0 • view
We switched to an air source heat pump after I realised what was making the curtains dirty was also going into our lungs. Nothing to stop people keeping a wood burner as an attractive feature, but I won't use ours again.
apr 18, 2025, 8:47 am • 3 0 • view
This winter I had my worst asthma flare-up in about 20 years because of long cold, dry, still spells not dissipating the woodsmoke. I live in a village so lots of people like the ‘cosy’ vibe but most of the houses burning wood are postwar… including the one right by my child’s nursery
apr 18, 2025, 11:50 am • 14 0 • view
COSY vibes💀 There are tricks- massively hiking insurance on dwellings with fires/stoves, both as particulate health hazard and getting burnt down- death hazard. Voluntary limiting use code could work if linked to heat pumps & solar array discounts. It's habits that get entrenched & depended on.
apr 20, 2025, 6:25 pm • 1 0 • view
What’s next, plastic straws??
apr 18, 2025, 9:10 am • 3 0 • view
Is there anything else I could burn in my wood burner that's better?
apr 18, 2025, 8:25 am • 0 0 • view
Old socks?
apr 18, 2025, 9:07 am • 1 0 • view
As many have said, try living outside of the gas grid & in areas with frequent power cuts. We heat one room & (if it’s on) use it for the kettle & heating food. Recently got PV & a battery though so hopefully next winter the power cuts won’t be as impactful & we can still use the oil boiler.
apr 18, 2025, 9:04 am • 9 0 • view
I do and manage perfectly well without burning wood!
apr 18, 2025, 12:00 pm • 3 0 • view
How have you dealt with hot water & heating when you have had power cuts? To add further issues to the point, we aren’t even on the water & sewage network so no power means no water and no sewage treatment. However I know the log burner doesn’t help there.
apr 18, 2025, 1:55 pm • 0 0 • view
Warm clothes and camping stove!
apr 19, 2025, 9:44 am • 1 0 • view
Bericht voor alle paasvuurstokers, -gedogers en -faciliteerders. Arme omwonenden…
apr 18, 2025, 10:31 am • 2 0 • view
In rural areas we don't have access to gas so the wood burner is a back up if the power fails, which it does occasionally.
apr 18, 2025, 8:30 am • 16 0 • view
Unfortunately where I live they use them all the time not just as a back up!
apr 18, 2025, 12:00 pm • 2 0 • view
Bottled propane is cleaner
apr 18, 2025, 10:11 am • 4 0 • view
Disagree with you on this. Surely emissions from aircraft and cars are much worse? Our 5kw burner warms the room it's in within minutes and thereafter the rest of the house.
apr 18, 2025, 8:57 am • 9 0 • view
Evidence from Scandinavia doesn't back up that claim. www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/...
apr 18, 2025, 9:31 am • 0 0 • view
No, they are not. Look at NAEI 2023 data. An average "Ecodesign" stove produces more PM2.5 pollution than 45 average car exhausts. Neighbours are exposed to inhumane levels as we get the brunt of the pollution. We have no protections from these deadly appliances.
apr 18, 2025, 9:24 am • 11 1 • view
And how many friends and neighbours have you lost to these 'deadly' appliances?
apr 18, 2025, 9:45 am • 3 0 • view
It wouldn't be recorded. Just put down to asthma attack, heart attack, etc. as no official monitoring & council refuse to acknowledge evidence from our monitors. Neighbours "Ecodesign" stove nearly killed my family, so will not stop campaigning on this issue just so you can stare at a pretty flame.
apr 18, 2025, 9:51 am • 5 1 • view
Admittedly, there are those idiots that burn materials unsuitable for wood / log burners. I am completely against that. Seasoned wood is all we use.
apr 18, 2025, 9:57 am • 1 0 • view
"Seasoned" wood still has extremely high emissions factors. Our neighbour burned "kiln dried wood" in an "Ecodesign" stove and caused PM2.5 levels over 250µg/m³ in our home and warnings on our Carbon Monoxide monitor.
apr 18, 2025, 10:15 am • 5 0 • view
We have an air filter with a pm2.5 monitor next to our stove and a carbon monoxide monitor in the same room. The light on the filter remains blue (safe) while stove is on. It goe's red when we cook at the other end of the house even with extractor on 🤷♂️
apr 18, 2025, 10:23 am • 0 0 • view
Oh good I am glad that you are OK inside your house! It is the neighbours that will be breathing it in! Also how do you put logs on without opening the stove door??
apr 18, 2025, 12:03 pm • 1 0 • view
Exactly! All the protections are for the person choosing to pollute. HETAS would intervene if YOU were exposed to high levels of pollution. Its the neighbours that get the brunt of the pollution. Cooking is within our control, we can choose methods that limit our exposure.
apr 18, 2025, 10:33 am • 4 0 • view
Personally I would a)shut the windows b)wear a respirator or c)consider moving.
apr 18, 2025, 10:41 am • 1 0 • view
Windows are all shut, all vents sealed over, houses are designed to breathe! We had to get a new roof but smoke still gets in. Are you seriously suggesting our family wears respirators in our own home so our neighbour can burn wood? They are not doing it for heat - they always have a window open!
apr 18, 2025, 12:01 pm • 1 0 • view
The classic stove industry troll response! Most people can’t “just move”, because of finances & social, family, employment, school reasons. We lived smoke free here for 2 decades, if our new neighbours wanted to burn they should move to the countryside with no neighbouring properties, not the ULEZ!
apr 18, 2025, 11:59 am • 0 0 • view
Moving won't help. Even if you moved to an area that had no wood burning stoves, there's nothing stopping your neighbours from installing one. We need to phase out wood burning, with help from the government.
apr 18, 2025, 10:57 am • 4 0 • view
While wood-burning stoves can contribute to local air pollution and health issues, the overall impact of aviation on climate change and air quality is far greater due to the scale and type of emissions.
apr 18, 2025, 9:37 am • 2 0 • view
Its not "just" about climate change though. Its a public health issue. You can't just ignore those of us who have had our lives put at risk by a neighbours wood burner so that a tiny minority can pollute in this way. How many people have to die before action is taken? This is a huge cost to the NHS
apr 18, 2025, 9:46 am • 3 0 • view
I think ultra processed foods, pesticides and smoking / vaping are an even bigger cost to the NHS.
apr 18, 2025, 10:00 am • 0 0 • view
Irrelevant, we have control over our exposure to these things. We have no say in being poisoned in our own homes by our neighbour's decision to burn wood. We have protections from gas boilers, but not from "Ecodesign" stoves that cause hundreds of times more PM2.5 pollution than a gas boiler.
apr 18, 2025, 10:11 am • 4 0 • view
‘Unanticipated impact on air quality’? How was stupid enough to think it doesn’t impacts air quality?🤦♀️
apr 18, 2025, 2:28 pm • 2 0 • view
I bought one when I moved into my house 10 years ago. I thought it was a green option. When I found out how bad it is I got a heat pump and solar which keeps the house nice and warm. I’ve kept the wood burner for emergencies 🫤
apr 18, 2025, 10:43 am • 4 0 • view
Burning stuff is a human right now.
apr 18, 2025, 3:43 pm • 1 0 • view
Make electricity and gas cheaper and we won’t need to resort to burning wood! I use my wood burner to heat one room. It’s economically sensible. Why is the same ire not directed to the huge number of bonfires used to dispose of waste in commercial and domestic settings?
apr 18, 2025, 8:21 am • 29 0 • view
Except the majority of people with wood burners aren't mostly too poor to buy fuel. They are living in expensive suburban areas.
apr 18, 2025, 11:31 am • 2 0 • view
100% Cush Hygie....Solar arrays are the way to go - roofs are okay, but a lot of rural folk have a little land, and how much do you need for the roses & sunbed. PV is now highly efficient; could end up self sufficeient and feeding/selling back to grid. Store some extra too- no brainer really 🤔
apr 20, 2025, 6:37 pm • 0 0 • view
I’m hoping we can find the ideal property with double this amount of land or more for an array and space for chickens - and my workshop!.
apr 20, 2025, 6:57 pm • 1 0 • view
And once the investment is paid for the electricity is free, or even turn a profit with grid feed in. Solar clearly is max ideal for off grid in super hot countries for running life saving air con.
may 18, 2025, 8:16 pm • 0 0 • view
Evidence for that claim? I don’t live in an expensive suburban area
apr 18, 2025, 11:43 am • 0 0 • view
The article you are commenting on is the evidence for the claim.
apr 18, 2025, 11:49 am • 1 0 • view
It isn’t just about you though is it! I live in a village and I know everyone with a wood burning stove and hardly anyone needs to use it. All those who have no other option maybe 3 or 4 are ill - one heart disease, one severe autoimmune condition and two cancer!
apr 18, 2025, 11:52 am • 0 0 • view
Burn coal instead? It's cleaner than wood at least.
apr 18, 2025, 9:17 am • 0 0 • view
Incorrect • Coal produces more carbon dioxide (CO₂) per unit of energy than wood, contributing more to climate change. • It also releases more sulfur dioxide (SO₂), mercury, and other toxic heavy metals, which are harmful to both people and the environment.
apr 18, 2025, 9:20 am • 6 0 • view
I can't vouch on the toxins produced but I know the CO2 produced from wood per MWh is about five times that of coal in industrial scenarios. I will take your point that other pollutants besides CO2 are more directly impactful for human health in an urban environment.
apr 18, 2025, 9:28 am • 1 0 • view
In industrial scenarios… how is that relevant when we are discussing domestic use in small wood burners?
apr 18, 2025, 11:00 am • 0 0 • view
Not true at all. CO2 emissions KG/kj Hard coal = ~94.6 Wood = ~93.8 Wood pellets = ~85.7 Source: UK Government GHG Conversion factors BEIS 2023
apr 18, 2025, 10:09 am • 5 0 • view
Definitely not sensible! I also direct ire at bonfire burners.
apr 18, 2025, 11:49 am • 4 0 • view
Exactly! My 3 bed house is electricity only and I have no radiators. Using portable oil filled electric rads I spend £1,000 a month heating our home!! We replaced our log burner recently and it heats the entire house for around £300/mnth. When electricity prices tumble I’ll switch back!
apr 18, 2025, 11:18 am • 0 0 • view
Of course it will be expensive if you are using oil filled radiators! Are you campaigning for the government to help home owners change to greener sources of heat??
apr 18, 2025, 11:54 am • 0 0 • view
What would you recommend I use? I have no radiators and no boiler. I am in a rural area without access to gas. I will literally bank transfer you £100 if you can tell me a way to heat my home efficiently in the winter without gas, with no rads and no boiler. And yes, I campaign constantly!
apr 18, 2025, 12:02 pm • 0 0 • view
Good glad you are campaigning. I can suggest options if you can afford them. We have no radiators but have an air source heat pump with underfloor heating. Cottage was a wreck so could start from scratch. Government needs to help people insulate their homes so air source is a good option with grants
apr 18, 2025, 12:06 pm • 0 0 • view
Your options are likely the same options I already know of and have been quoted for. A heat pump will cost £25k with boiler and pipes run. We already spent £13k on solar and battery. Nov-Feb we make about 2-5kwh of electricity/day Not everyone has the money to buy a cottage and install a heat pump.
apr 18, 2025, 12:15 pm • 1 0 • view
I have storage heaters for economy 7 electricity, plus a fan heater for occasional spot heating. But i also have a stove and candles for back up when the power is down.
apr 18, 2025, 2:19 pm • 0 0 • view
I've thought about storage heaters. Does the heat get distributed throughout the day? I have 2 small children so need to keep the house as warm as possible. Hence, why I used to spend £1k a month on electricity.
apr 18, 2025, 2:28 pm • 0 0 • view
By the way if you were spending £1k a month on electric you have a perfect business case for splashing out on as many storage heaters as you need! We have an overnight storage heater stove (cheapest way to run one) and electric heaters/fans but I’m only (!) spending less than £350 a month.
apr 18, 2025, 7:23 pm • 2 0 • view
In winter, that is.
apr 19, 2025, 10:09 am • 0 0 • view
I’m currently looking at home battery system to store overnight eco rate for use during the day.
apr 18, 2025, 3:08 pm • 1 0 • view
Thanks. I have a 9kw battery. But, being electricity only, that 9kw goes in about 1.5 hrs in the cold hours of a winter morning. It's really not easy to be electricity only with no boiler. No cost effective way to heat the house, that I know of. Thanks for the storage heater info.
apr 18, 2025, 3:18 pm • 0 0 • view
You have to be careful. The old, huge storage heaters had rather large heat bricks (and were correspondingly heavy). Modern ones are better but may not be true storage heaters - sometimes ceramic or oil filled heaters only store the heat for a relatively short time. Best used with a timer.
apr 18, 2025, 2:52 pm • 1 0 • view
Yes. The cost efficient way is to charge in the eco7 period (usually 12:30 - 7:30 GMT) where it is half the day price. But in the latter part of that period, they are warm, so i don’t use them upstairs in the bedrooms - too hot too early.
apr 18, 2025, 2:48 pm • 1 0 • view
bsky.app/profile/olli... If you have half acre or less. Ground fixed solar PV arrays are for you. A set up for 100% self sufficiency probably available for ten grand. Pay it off in 5 years, specially if you also charge EV off it. After that free clean energy. *PV seconds panels save more on setup
apr 20, 2025, 6:44 pm • 0 0 • view
I have a solar array and battery right now. But we don’t make much in the winter. I have a 4.5kw array, which maybe makes 2-5kw a day in Dec/Jan and Feb. In summer we can make 40kw. Which is brilliant! 2-5kw a day is about 1/20th what we need to heat the house. But thanks for the suggestion. 🙏🏼
apr 20, 2025, 8:04 pm • 0 0 • view
There are people on here and Twitter who run arrays winter and summer in Minnesota and manage to run EVs, the home, outhouses and still feed back into the grid and battery storage. I'm a non user, other side & dense urban rental, but the thought of free electricity post investment is cheerful.
may 18, 2025, 8:13 pm • 1 0 • view
Not convinced about this. I'm in a lovely bit of rural France. Electricity is much cheaper than the UK. But in winter everyone fires up their wood burners anyway and on those still cold nights the pollution builds up and up. Rural pea soup. Grim! I avoid winter here because of that.
apr 18, 2025, 11:20 am • 3 1 • view
Consider ire directed. I'm sure George won't be in favour of that either.
apr 18, 2025, 10:44 am • 0 0 • view
Nothing will happen it’s easier to pick on home owners
apr 18, 2025, 10:57 am • 0 0 • view
They are the ones causing the problem!
apr 18, 2025, 11:53 am • 1 0 • view
We have an electric boiler and a wood burner.We live in an isolated cottage but realise burning wood contributes to air pollution However we can't afford to use the electric boiler and it doesn't warm the cottage much either. If electricity was cheaper we would have the heating on all the time.
apr 18, 2025, 4:14 pm • 0 0 • view
This is weird to read about as a Norwegian. Why do you say 'hygge', instead of just... coziness. This is just hobbitcore with Scandinavian cosplay, isn't it?
apr 18, 2025, 11:18 am • 2 0 • view
Practically, people are not going to stop using their wood fireplaces. It’s driving people away from the discussion. What needs to happen is for filtration to become standard, and for more money to go into their innovation.
apr 18, 2025, 10:23 am • 1 0 • view
You will never be able to reach the same levels of pollution as a gas boiler with wood burning using filtration. We need to transition to renewables as soon as possible. In the meantime choose gas rather than wood burning.
apr 18, 2025, 10:35 am • 2 0 • view
The electric heating is 'clean' only at the point of use.
apr 18, 2025, 11:55 am • 1 0 • view
You are the one using the word clean. I use the word cleaner. Wood burning is still more polluting than electricity generating. Here's my proof. youtu.be/hTqa8RHk5yM
apr 18, 2025, 12:20 pm • 2 0 • view
Mate, that, whatever you think it is, ain't proof.
apr 18, 2025, 12:21 pm • 1 0 • view
I bet you can't prove that. I bet you only have a fact-resistant opinion. I'm showing the data. Where's yours?
apr 18, 2025, 12:22 pm • 2 0 • view
btw, a rocket furnace is not an 'eco-design' stove. Do yourself a favour and find out what they are.
apr 18, 2025, 12:25 pm • 0 0 • view
I mean you took less than 1 minute to reply without even looking at the video. Please come back when you are capable of having a rational discussion.
apr 18, 2025, 12:23 pm • 2 0 • view
I, along with the two other people who have watched your video, one of them being yourself, have absolutely nothing to say on it. Again, it has NOT got anything to do with a rocket furnace, which is the thing you responded to. You are the one unable to rationalise.
apr 18, 2025, 12:28 pm • 0 0 • view
But really, compared to cars - is this so great a problem?
apr 18, 2025, 8:47 pm • 2 0 • view
Yes, much worse, especially in terms of emissions per user. Even a so called "Ecodesign" stove emits 45x more PM2.5 (mostly toxic and carcinogenic) than an average car exhaust. Would you want that less than 2m from your windows? Totally unnecessary pollution source in most cases.
apr 18, 2025, 9:14 pm • 5 1 • view
City dwellers. When your only source of backup heat is a woodburner and your electricity is up and down like a yo-yo, some times for a week......no electricity means no gas or electric heating. Fix the grid and distribution, and then you may start to fix the carcogenic woodburners.
apr 18, 2025, 12:09 pm • 4 0 • view
Oh, I forgot. Oil Burners don't work without electricity either. However, 50% of Scotlands emissions are created by Muirburn, of which ⅓ is burnt every year. 50% of Scotland is owned by 32 landowners. LEZ & Woodburners are fiddling around the edges.
apr 18, 2025, 12:15 pm • 7 0 • view
I assume that bonfires are worse polluters?
apr 18, 2025, 3:14 pm • 0 0 • view
people treat this like it's an either/or thing. the fact that the majority of wood burning is done as an aesthetic choice by fairly comfortably off middle class people does not mean that there are not also people who do need to burn solid fuel to warm their homes. these are not mutually exclusive.
apr 18, 2025, 2:25 pm • 3 0 • view
I live in a van. I need a wood burner to stay warm. the people in the village nearest me are largely pretty affluent, and don't need to be burning wood. both of these things are true. I would freeze or get very ill in winter without it, but do we also need less solid fuel being burned in general.
apr 18, 2025, 2:28 pm • 2 0 • view
And, most probably, birds and other animals too.
apr 18, 2025, 10:39 am • 3 0 • view
The difference between vehicle particulate emissions and wood burner smoke is the height and temperature they are released at. Vehicles release low and cold. Wood burners release high and hot. Hence wood burner smoke rises and disperses far more than vehicle fumes.
apr 18, 2025, 9:56 am • 2 0 • view
Any more feeble excuses, or is that the lot?
apr 18, 2025, 10:23 am • 4 0 • view
The science reported was very poor. What validation is there that energy certificates can be used as a proxy for wood burners? The entire study depends on that. Are the rates of lung disease statistically significant? What is the strength of the correlation between lung disease and wood burning?
apr 18, 2025, 10:30 am • 0 0 • view
The pollution doesn't all go upwards. 70% of outdoor pollution enters houses. I can't be bothered to find a link for you, cos you obviously don't like facts.
apr 18, 2025, 11:01 am • 1 0 • view
Correlation is not causation - and where are the validation data that confirms energy certificates are effective proxies for wood burning stove use?
apr 18, 2025, 9:26 am • 3 0 • view
You don't have to bark and chase every damn car that drives past you, y'know. I write from the comfort of a 100% electricity home, in a country where fossil fuels are down to c.20% in the generation mix. Come back to scolding about flippin' wood burners when you've sorted the important stuff out.
apr 18, 2025, 10:39 am • 1 0 • view
This data is based on % of homes with burners - not on the amount of use (or even whether burners are used at all). This map is probably more representative of the average age of homes, rather than of burner use.
apr 18, 2025, 8:26 am • 5 0 • view