Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Woodburners not so healthy after all..

In the grand scheme of things, the improvements being made in the UK to the clean air and our lower the level of our current emissions may make our local environments cleaner and a little healthier, but are a drop in the ocean compared to what the ROW is doing to the planet and they aren't about to change their ways.

I love the smell of an open peat fire, nothing quite like it. As in all things in this strange old world of ours eg Ireland has reduced its commercial peat harvesting, and by 2027 is planning to stop using any peat in its electricity generation, peat is much worse than coal.

So as they start to regenerate their old peat bogs they now import peat up to July this year include: Northern Ireland (36,714t), the Netherlands (1,112t), Great Britain (901t), Germany (415t), Lithuania (214t), Ukraine (55t), Belarus (22t), go figure. So they look more virtuous and cleaner, whilst importing peat from elsewhere..........funny strange old world, we are no better we have gas and coal deposits but importing it from elsewhere. Oh what silly games we play to kid ourselves how virtuous we all aren't.

Cheers Graham 👍
Regarding peat. We did a tour of Highland Park distillery on Orkney a few years back. They used peat and there was a nice peaty smell throughout the building. I like peaty and smokey malts. My Highland Park is no more but I am testing Tallisker from Skye. Not yet mind, It's not yet 11.00. Hmmmmm I could adjust the clock!

Sorry to hear that Dave, I think "hélas" it's a typical UK thing over the past years. In our little country of the Netherlands, we like to complain a lot, but the situation is in fact far better. I can smell "woodburners" on my evening walks, but they are mostly used as additional heating or for feeling cosy. You can see that most people have heat pumps at present. Glassfibre all over. There is a lot of comments off people regarding to asthmatic problems and wood(or is it only wood?)burners, that don't use the proper (dried) wood. There are now some cities that have rules when it is permitted to use the woodturners, depending on weather conditions and wind directions. In Holland, as a complete other problem, it has become common that you hear another house (or houses) are exploded and burned, due to criminal activities. That worries me a lot!

Dave when I read the situation of your infrastructure I could think you are reporting on a third world country.
In our country, the use of wood-burning stoves is already prohibited in many residential areas, and each city can decide that for itself.

Richard, what are you replacing your heating with?

Chaps, it's a simple equation'

If we didn't all have these log burners how would we dispose of all the trees that the local authority and government are allowing to be felled to make way for all the new houses and solar panels that we apparently need?

God bless Minibrain !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Clemens it will be a Condensing Grant Oil Boiler such as we have now, gas is not an option here in the village.

Ironically wood supplies are plentiful from our local farmers and tree surgeons many of whom are friends, Heather doesn't fancy cleaning a fire grate any more than I do


This was Christmas Day in 74 on the beach at Port Elizabeth, me on fire building, we just carried the bricks and grid around in the boot as we toured RSA for a month whilst working out there.
Whole fillet steak, chicken and baked potatoes.
Never bought a bag of charcoal out there just picked up the very dry brushwood as it made perfect charcoal and was highly combustable.

She has been on about an upgrade on those facilities so I shall succumb soon I expect

I can understand it being an issue in densely populated towns and cities .... out here where I can sit on my roof and count on my fingers the number of houses within sight (most being a mile plus away) and having chosen the place to be Off-Grid (small-scale Wind, Solar and sustainable wood from our own managed forest) so as not to use polluting (certainly at the time) 'grid' electricity for the last 35 years, I don't feel inclined to give my woodburner and Rayburn up for something driven by unreliable mains power we can't access anyway. The last three decades have built us up a pretty hefty 'carbon halo' compared to if we'd been grid connected when most of that time grid-power was still using historically dirty fuels like coal.

My wood cutting/drying/storage regime has popped up on a couple of threads here already in passing 🙂

K

Clemens.. I know, you have to experience it to believe it.. I worked overseas for 36 years, there were countries that I used to think were not so great, that in many respects are now better than ours.. The fact in our area is that past UK governments were not considerate to countryside living.. They let just about everything deteriorate, there is now a void between uban / semi urban living and the countryside in our area... The huge worry is that the latest bunch in Westminster are even worse than the last lot.. The first thing they did within a week of gaining power was cancel 99% of the proposed infrastructure upgrades that would have been of benefit to the area.

For some reason the UK government mindset is that everyone has access to easy clean reliable electricity, gas, mains water, roads that are maintained ( be it with pot holes ) and a working phone system both mobile and land line.. but the reality is hugely different in some areas..

They are building the UK's latest and greatest nuclear power station not more than 15 miles from us for the benefit of the nation, yet we are struggling to keep the lights on.. and our power is national grid, not a private supply.

Dave the rave, are you talking about wonderful Somerset or a third world country !?
You have got me grumpy also about Government , including the bacon butty dribbler , No government is going to tell me that I cannot sell my ‘castle’ if it does not have an EPC rating of at least a C !!! It’s a joke I even need one but OVO seem to be giving them away at £25. I might get one at that price as I will need one in 2025.
Best MM
PS when I run out of Warma or wool fire lighters I revert to newspaper knots that we used to make & use back in the 1950/60s
A lost art …..

I would also add, that in addition to what was previously seen in the UK as "green" log burner home heating, our house also has a twin collector solar hot water system that I designed 20 years ago and a 4 Kw ground mount solar panel system ( alas it needs a mains feed to keep it on line ) , we were the first in our local planning area to have a ground mount system. The way things are going I think we may need to upgrade the solar panel system with an overnight battery storage system, but I am not a lover of the present battery technology.. Lithium is not planet friendly..

We also completely re-engineered the house to reduce thermal loss.