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

Generally seen as the must have when marketing houses I have to say we in our village are surrounded by stinking chimneys in our small village, anyone else ?
The advantage we do have is we are 500' amsl and not in a valley and avoid walking out of an evening.

An interesting study.

Wood burners are the blight of rural villages (and the suburbs) here in the East Midlands.

The sooner they are outlawed, the better. It wouldn’t be so bad if they burnt well seasoned wood, but they seem to always buy the cheapest they can find - with the inevitable consequences.

We burn wood but at 200 metres ASL we have to have a certified closed fireplace that is pretty efficient. We would have to be above 300 metres ASL (1000 feet amsl) to be allowed an open fireplace. Ours was open up until about 8 years ago but we then fitted a closed, fan driven, insert. It is not as nice as an open fireplace but it burns much less wood and helps to keep our gas heating bills down. The only downside is that I have to clean the glass every day. The wood we burn is very well seasoned
I think a lot of our neighbours still have open fireplaces, and yes, of a cold evening there is a lot of smoke smell outside.

Probably going to alienate some here.When I was growing up in the North, everyone had coal fires. We had one main fire fireplace and the bedroom ones only got lit very occasionally . I think my parents got central heating when I was a teenager .
I just love the smell of coal burning in the morning - don’t you !?
I love my wood burner,, it is stunning and a pleasure to watch and enjoy.i It is DEFRA approved, triple burn and gives little in the way of emissions and no smell outside , I know there is a new updated rating body for wood burners but no doubt they will get banned in London by 2030 . I use expensive well seasoned low moisture content logs . Wood in Europe is half the price of the U.K. but much is imported from Europe.
I also know it will emit micro particles that might affect my health but I can live with that (sic).
Peter the glass should not get blackened , that is the sign of ‘wet’ wood. I clean mine once a month with wet newspaper and dipped in the ash , clean in 30 seconds
I also have an old Villager, a staple fire of the south and south west - all the houses in TV s
Escape to the country seem to have a Villager ?

I appreciate some fires may offend , may annoy, but where do we draw the line in either being offended or being righteous .
I hated smoking , meetings in rooms with smokers, I hate smoking in pub gardens, I hated eating food in restaurants when people smoked. I hated sitting close to the smoking section on planes. I’m not keen on diesel car or petrol particles. Let those who want to complain, complain, it’s their right . We will all see the error of our ways in time but I will throw a log on to stay warm and cheerful and crank up my reasonably new 42 kilowatt gas boiler . I assume my decision to replace not with a heat pump will annoy some folk !?
MM
PS I don’t think I know anyone in London who doesn’t have a wood burner ? Oh and many of you who wear fleeces or hoodies are putting micro plastic particles into the rivers and sea when you wash them . I hate that thought when I Scuba/dive.

No, definitely not wet. The guy we buy the wood from stores it under cover and it is well and truly seasoned. We keep it in a dry area in our "cantina" too. The wood is cut from the local forest which has areas where there are traditional rights to cut the wood. Regrowth takes 20 years or more but must soak up a fair amount of CO2.
I suspect the problem is that in the mix of wood there is some that is a little resinous. We don't have pine or other deciduous species so I don’t know what it is.

Who said they were ever healthy

BTW air wash on windows of wood burner helps keep them clean.

Our space here is a refuge from confrontation you will come to appreciate in time, we are all consenting adults but not grown up's and respect others opinions. You are in no danger of alienating anyone on here, now chuck another log on

I'll probably be firing up the Plus 8 for another run today.

We have made the active decision to have our Condensing Grant Oil Boiler replaced in the near future before they legislate them out of existence..
Heat pumps are a joke at this stage of development and not for us.

sospa jnr has a pizza business...Pizza Boys and been on tv.
They use specially prepared wood that is safe for use in the wood burning ovens. Clean burn with no toxins. Bought bagged from a supplier. Not cheap but a must have. The oven takes about 20-30 mins to get hot, about 500deg.
A mate has a small stove he uses in winter to warm a greenhouse. It's outside and warms water for pipes inside.

That was a great travel/food series Phil
And Happy Birthday

We have two wood burners in our house, they keep out house warm and comfortable, both for hot water and room heat. We purchase our wood 12 months before we burn it to season the wood for use in our " approved wood burners" there is almost zero smoke from the chimneys. We have no gas available, the electricity supply is semi unreliable. We have a UPS on the computer etc to keep the system stable and de-spiked and all our internal plugs have surge suppressors. Since September we have had 11 power cuts over 4 hrs, the last due to the latest "great" storm took us off power for almost 3 days, we have had 3 power cuts since in a week.. We also do not have reliable broadband internet, it comes via a microwave connection to a tower across the valley 5 miles away. Because the major suppliers will not run fibre to our local villages. We also barely have mobile phone coverage, 90% of the time no 4G coverage... Oil deliveries for heating oil is difficult due to the fact that the lanes have been left to fall to bits.. Now even the hedges are not cut by the council when they should be. This has stopped delivery drivers this year as it damages the sides of vans and lorries trying to get down the lanes.
We have to have ready a 5kw generator, hurricane lamps and gas cooking stoves, in case the power goes out.

So from these comments you may think we live in the middle of nowhere.. the fact is we live 1.5 miles off a main road, 1 mile in each direction from two villages and only 17 miles from the county town and 3 miles from a very small town...

We are not alone with heat and power issues... over 500 homes in our little area have suffered the power issues listed above.. The fact is the countryside has been devalued in the last 25 years to the point of exhaustion, some of the things that may not be seen as nice in a secure and well tendered location are critical to others in other areas of the countryside.. Yes, we choose to live here, but the poor old wood burner is a prime example of something that is actually needed in a lot of homes in the countryside just for basic heat.. Lastly, yes our MP's know the problems, its brought up in Parliment by MP after MP over the years, has anything changed.. zero...

I attended a local meeting of farmers and countryside folk last night.. 99% have had enough....