Ban on Sale of Coal / Wet Wood

[Pocster]

Just now, PeterW said:

But that is a lot of the issue ..!! Treated timber and other things such as pallets are a massive issue. As is unseasoned wet wood. 
 

A lot of people buy them and have very little knowledge about how to light them and run them - and that causes the most of the smoke issues. 

Sure . My saved timber is all untreated or indeed wood from a tree that was felled on site . I certainly wouldn’t just burn any timber or wood .

[Ferdinand]

1 minute ago, Carrerahill said:

Or read the Star or Sun or Express where apparently, wood stoves are being banned, cars are being banned, your going to die, Dennis is going to unleash 20" of snow on us while tornados rip through the land.

 

Should've called it Dennis the Menace...

[Pocster]

1 minute ago, Carrerahill said:

Or read the Star or Sun or Express where apparently, wood stoves are being banned, cars are being banned, your going to die, Dennis is going to unleash 20" of snow on us while tornados rip through the land.

Corona virus will get you first 

[Carrerahill]

7 minutes ago, PeterW said:

A lot of people buy them and have very little knowledge about how to light them and run them - and that causes the most of the smoke issues. 

 

Yes!

 

I grew up with open fires, I have a WBS, I have access to wood, have chainsaws and a hydraulic log splitter, I season all my timber for 18months min, usually more like 24-36 depending on stocks. Now for me that is just normal life, something I have been doing all my life.

 

Then you get people (like our idiot neighbours) who saw we had one and decided to get one too, so they get it, occasionally fill low lying land to the back with thick smoke from damp wood, or stench out the area with the smell of burning flooring off-cuts or other rubbish. They buy wet wood in B&Q at £15 for 3 bags and burn that, you hear him out with a hatchet battering at a log for 30minutes to get 2-3 logs. I ask myself, why did he get that, he has no access to wood, he is a lazy sod anyway who would never prep for it and he just makes a mockery out of a WBS. For him it was a nice little warm box of happiness in their front room. No thought into how he would fuel it, no thought into maybe even building a log shelter, so the whole exercise for them was a total waste of time and money. Ban those idiots.

 

 

Edited February 21, 2020 by Carrerahill

[nod]

I’m sort of between arguments here While I would never burn unseasoned timber All felled on site for the foreseeable future 

Many burn all sorts of rubbish 

Some of the guys onsite break up pallets to take home 

I would imagine they would make lots of smoke and burn for a short time 

[joe90]

I too have a WBS, cut some trees down yesterday that blew over In storm dorris or whatever, they will be stacked fir 24months to dry out. The problem is regulating stupid people!

[Pocster]

I think something got lost in translation here @Ferdinand and @Carrerahill . I didn’t just read the headline . I just thought of the irony as I literally plan for a flue and the announcement comes today . Also the fact I saved timber as @nod did .

What do I do with my ‘should not burn timber ‘ ? - stick it in a skip so it goes to landfill ? . Naturally once the saved timber is burnt then moving forward I’ll acquire wood from the approved sellers etc .

[Jeremy Harris]

My brother used to supply seasoned firewood as a sideline to his landscaping business, gave him an income stream in the winter, when landscaping work tends to go a bit flat.  He converted a Dutch barn on the farm for seasoning cut logs, used to stack them up on a floor made from pallets, to get air circulating underneath.  He charged a premium for dried (usually 18 months to 2 years old) hardwood logs and made a reasonable income for a few years.  The problem he found was that there were always suppliers undercutting him by selling what were claimed to be "dry" logs, but which were really cut a few months earlier.  Lots of people just buy on price, and seem not to care about getting a clean burn and a decent heat output.

 

There are, sadly, a lot of ignorant people who will burn anything, and who don't give a damn about the consequences.   This isn't helped by the way bags of wet logs are sold at places like our nearest filling station.  Some look like they were only felled a few days earlier.

[nod]

16 minutes ago, nod said:

I’m sort of between arguments here While I would never burn unseasoned timber All felled on site for the foreseeable future 

Many burn all sorts of rubbish 

Some of the guys onsite break up pallets to take home 

I would imagine they would make lots of smoke and burn for a short time 

And also I made the first log store 

Unfortunately purchased the timber 

My wife spent hours de nailing pallets and made the second From scrap pallets and felt that was over from the first one 

[Pocster]

2 minutes ago, nod said:

And also I made the first log store 

Unfortunately purchased the timber 

My wife spent hours de nailing pallets and made the second From scrap pallets and felt that was over from the first one 

Made my own also from any timber lying around . Yours look somewhat more elegant than mine ( no photo to follow ) ?

[Ferdinand]

15 minutes ago, pocster said:

I think something got lost in translation here @Ferdinand and @Carrerahill . I didn’t just read the headline . I just thought of the irony as I literally plan for a flue and the announcement comes today . Also the fact I saved timber as @nod did .

What do I do with my ‘should not burn timber ‘ ? - stick it in a skip so it goes to landfill ? . Naturally once the saved timber is burnt then moving forward I’ll acquire wood from the approved sellers etc .

 

Season it for 2 years ?. Then burn it.

[Pocster]

Just now, Ferdinand said:

 

Season it for 2 years ?. Then burn it.

????

This timber has been stacked since I cleared the plot !! . So been ‘seasoning’ for best part of 6 years . ???

[Ferdinand]

4 minutes ago, pocster said:

????

This timber has been stacked since I cleared the plot !! . So been ‘seasoning’ for best part of 6 years . ???

 

Enjoy your stove  :-).

 

The one that is wing banned though is only the sale of wet timber in small volumes, so donations (or poaching or pickups) would still be OK legally.

[Pocster]

7 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

Enjoy your stove  :-).

 

The one that is wing banned though is only the sale of wet timber in small volumes, so donations (or poaching or pickups) would still be OK legally.

Lol

 

By the time I get to actually burn any wood I imagine stoves will be banned ? . Then I’ll just have to stick some red glow leds in there for effect ...

[Thedreamer]

I have a wood burner and agree with this move. A wood burner in a city or town is just a luxury and not fair on others around you.

 

We have a lot of trees and burning well seasoned wood is the best method for the environment in our particular circumstances.

 

 

 

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

The problem we have is that the valley where we live fills with smoke from wood burning stoves on a cold, still night, and the MVHR then sucks the thick smog into the house, making everything smell like smoked kippers for a day or two.  We try and turn the MVHR off if we detect the problem before going to bed, but often the thick smog only develops late at night, as the temperature drops.

 

Burning anything is never better for the environment than just leaving it unburned, especially wood, as fallen and dead trees both keep a fair bit of carbon sequestered for a few years and provide a valuable habitat.  I've never understood the logic behind the argument that burning trees is a "green" thing to do, as it flies in the face of all the available evidence.

[joe90]

2 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

The problem we have is that the valley where we live fills with smoke from wood burning stoves on a cold, still night, and the MVHR then sucks the thick smog into the house, making everything smell like smoked kippers for a day or two.  We try and turn the MVHR off if we detect the problem before going to bed, but often the thick smog only develops late at night, as the temperature drops.

my previous employer used to say “there is no such thing as a problem, they are opportunities”. @Jeremy Harris is there such a thing as a particulate sensor that you could incorporate into your incoming air duct to switch off your MVHR?

[Declan52]

Nothing as nice as sitting in front on my stove watching nice blue chep pallets burn away giving of that lovely greeny yellow haze. 

[Jeremy Harris]

10 minutes ago, joe90 said:

my previous employer used to say “there is no such thing as a problem, they are opportunities”. @Jeremy Harris is there such a thing as a particulate sensor that you could incorporate into your incoming air duct to switch off your MVHR?

 

 

Yes, I bought one, and am planning to use it to make an air quality monitor.  The snag is that might need a fair bit of trial and error to accurately detect harmful stuff, rather than harmless stuff, as all it does is count the number of particles of a particular size over time.  The harmful stuff tends to be the toxic particles that are 2.5µ or less in diameter, but there are some types of pollen that may be down around 2µ, and they might cause false alerts.  The smoke gets through the F7 filter on the MVHR, or at least the smell does.  It may be that the filter is taking out a fair proportion of the particulates, as it should be about 80% to 90% effective at filtering out particulates in the ~1µ range.  I'm not sure how much of the harmful PM2.5 stuff is down below 1µ, though, as the definition often used is 0µ to 2.5µ for PM2.5s.  There is now a PM1 category, though, for particulates that are below 1µ in diameter, so newer sensors should be able to categorise PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 particle numbers, rather than just the PM2.5 and PM10 categories that the sensor I have can measure.

[Thedreamer]

31 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

The problem we have is that the valley where we live fills with smoke from wood burning stoves on a cold, still night, and the MVHR then sucks the thick smog into the house, making everything smell like smoked kippers for a day or two.  We try and turn the MVHR off if we detect the problem before going to bed, but often the thick smog only develops late at night, as the temperature drops.

 

Burning anything is never better for the environment than just leaving it unburned, especially wood, as fallen and dead trees both keep a fair bit of carbon sequestered for a few years and provide a valuable habitat.  I've never understood the logic behind the argument that burning trees is a "green" thing to do, as it flies in the face of all the available evidence.

 

If you live in a wild environment like ours, what do you do when thirty/forty foot trees that have come down in storms? Drag them into an agricultural field and leave them to rot?

 

Or replant, season the timber and save energy from another method like electricity by obtaining the heat from seasoned timber. This practise is sustainable and I would imagine the trees over the lifetime help to improve the quality of the surrounding air.

 

The alternative would be to have no woodlands and then return the land to rough grazing for sheep. 

 

The problem you have is that the timber being burned by your neighbours is probably what has been happening for a long time and use of a MVHR is probably not even a consideration. Everybody has the right to fresh air outside or inside but I guess in certain circumstances the technology does not meet the environment or geography. 

 

I have learned a lot from the forum over the last few years and particularly about the airtight houses and the calculations/details that goes into this. Is the surrounding geography/closeness of neighbours considered when doing the modelling? Or are house modelled on the basis or the expectation that air will be fresh/clean etc.

 

Wood smoke and use of stoves seems to be a real 50/50 split on the forum.

Edited February 21, 2020 by Thedreamer

[PeterW]

5 hours ago, ProDave said:

Surely this will spell the end for the nonsense that is Drax?

No because the scrubbers / filters that are fitted are taking 99.99% of the particulates out along with the NOx

[Jeremy Harris]

In terms of what's best for the environment, then leaving fallen trees where they fall is undoubtedly better in many ways than burning them.  Trees will take many years to rot down, providing nutrients and habitats for a wide range of organisms as they do so, and keeping the CO₂ that they've sequestered through the decades that they've been growing locked up for another few decades as they decay.

 

Apart from the harmful particulates problem, burning trees releases many decades worth of sequestered CO₂ in a very short period of time, weeks or months, rather than years.

 

The evidence of the harm to health from wood and coal combustion is compelling.  The impact on health has been measured, and has been known about for decades.  Back in the 1950s legislation was passed to ban the use of coal in open fires, because of the high loss of life associated with the winter combination of fog and smoke.  This event (happened to be the year I was born): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London triggered this legislation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_1956 , for example.

 

More recently, the popularity of wood burning stoves has led to a significant increase in disease and mortality.  This BMJ article about a study of wood burning in Launceston, Tasmania, and the surrounding area, illustrates the impact on health: https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.e8446

 

Even the USA has been trying to educate about, and in some areas legislate against, wood burning for domestic heating for some time now:  https://www.epa.gov/burnwise/wood-smoke-and-your-health and https://phys.org/news/2020-02-restrictions-wood-utah-air-quality.html

[Ralph]

29 minutes ago, Thedreamer said:

Wood smoke and use of stoves seems to be a real 50/50 split on the forum.

Not just on the forum. When people find out I'm installing one I often get two reactions, "Yeah you'll need one because those heat pumps are sh*te" or "Why do you want one of those they stink"

[Thedreamer]

41 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

In terms of what's best for the environment, then leaving fallen trees where they fall is undoubtedly better in many ways than burning them.  Trees will take many years to rot down, providing nutrients and habitats for a wide range of organisms as they do so, and keeping the CO₂ that they've sequestered through the decades that they've been growing locked up for another few decades as they decay.

 

Apart from the harmful particulates problem, burning trees releases many decades worth of sequestered CO₂ in a very short period of time, weeks or months, rather than years.

 

The evidence of the harm to health from wood and coal combustion is compelling.  The impact on health has been measured, and has been known about for decades.  Back in the 1950s legislation was passed to ban the use of coal in open fires, because of the high loss of life associated with the winter combination of fog and smoke.  This event (happened to be the year I was born): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London triggered this legislation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_1956 , for example.

 

More recently, the popularity of wood burning stoves has led to a significant increase in disease and mortality.  This BMJ article about a study of wood burning in Launceston, Tasmania, and the surrounding area, illustrates the impact on health: https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.e8446

 

Even the USA has been trying to educate about, and in some areas legislate against, wood burning for domestic heating for some time now:  https://www.epa.gov/burnwise/wood-smoke-and-your-health and https://phys.org/news/2020-02-restrictions-wood-utah-air-quality.html

 

I am sure the numbers back up what your saying about the decay.

 

But what happens if one falls on the road, damages other trees, preventing new growth or is a hazard. Who would be transporting or storing the rotting trees to safe place? 

 

I agree with your points regarding damage to health etc.

 

But you can't compare the great smogs of London with sparely populated areas such as the Highlands of Scotland. 

 

I think our set-up is an exception where wood burning stoves can work.

[epsilonGreedy]

7 hours ago, Jeremy Harris said:

The concern with coal and wood burning isn't so much the CO₂, but the harmful particulates.  There's plenty of evidence to show just how harmful they are relative to vehicle emissions.

 

 

Other evidence proves the reverse is true.

 

The rise in the incidence of asthma in this country is inverse to measures introduced to create smoke free zones with resulting particulate reductions post the smogs of the 1950's. The rise of asthma tracks the rise of clean heating via gas central heating. The rise of asthma also tracks the rise in private motor car usage in this country.