The truth about wood burners

Mandy from Communities Against Woodsmoke describes the impact that wood burning has on her health and shares some shocking facts about the realities of wood burners.

‘My neighbour installed a woodburning stove about 7 years ago and it affects my breathing every time it’s in use, which is almost every night from October until April. The top of the flue from my neighbour’s woodburning stove is just 4 metres from my window and so the smoke emitted from it engulfs my whole house. Due to damp, still weather in winter, this pollution doesn’t dissipate easily and is there for many hours, long after the stove itself has been extinguished.

I was shocked to learn that keeping doors and windows closed does not stop the smaller, most harmful particles in woodsmoke from entering the home. Because these particles  are so small, they penetrate a house quite easily through air bricks in the house itself, fan vents in the bathroom and kitchen, window vents and underneath the eaves of the house and from there into the attic and from there down into the main rooms of the house. There are 7 woodburning stoves in use in my street alone and they are used every evening in Autumn and Winter and sometimes during the day. This has all affected my mental and physical health to the point where I can no longer live in my house during the winter months. I have installed an air pollution sensor monitor on the side of my house to monitor the levels of pollution I am being exposed to and the readings are regularly at levels that are considered dangerous to health and yet there is nothing I can do about this as there is no legislation that can protect me. All of my neighbours who have woodburning stoves either have gas central heating or heat pumps.

Here’s a few facts about woodburning:

1. Woodsmoke contains the same harmful chemicals as tobacco smoke but these same chemicals are present in woodsmoke in much greater quantities and linger in the air for much  longer.

2. One Ecodesign stove (supposedly the most efficient and most commonly sold stoves) burning dry wood emits as much PM2.5 pollution as 6 modern HGVs per hour.

3. Woodburning produces more CO2 than burning oil, gas and coal because more of it has to be burnt to get the same amount of heat. A lot of the heat from a woodburning stove is going up a chimney and out of the house making it a very inefficient heat source.

4. In most instances a wood burning stove is not cheap to run. Installing and maintaining them is costly and wood fuel prices continue to rise every year. The UK has to import wood for domestic burning from forests in Latvia and Estonia, as there are not enough trees in Scotland to support the growing trend for woodburning.

5. The carbon storing capacity of mature trees that are cut down to be burnt cannot be replaced by planting saplings. These new trees will take decades before they are able to store the same amount of carbon that mature trees were storing before they were cut down. A huge carbon deficit is being created when a mature tree is cut down and burnt.

6. There’s no such thing as smokeless fuel or smokeless firepits.  The South Coast Air Quality Management District in California found that the particulate emissions rate per minute from one beach fire ring (fire pit) is equal to the secondhand smoke from 800 cigarettes.  

At Communities Against Woodsmoke, we hear from people around the country struggling to be able to breathe in their own homes, worried about their children who are having their health harmed irreparably in a place where they should be safe – their home.  People are unable to open their windows to vent their houses after cooking or showering because of woodsmoke pollution. This  results in damp conditions building up inside houses causing black mould to grow. Other people are unable to go out and walk their dog in the evening or go jogging or even enjoy their garden in late summer because of smoke from firepits. That’s why Communities Against Woodsmoke was formed because we believe it should be a basic human right to breathe clean air in your own home.’