Wood stove

[SteamyTea]

12 minutes ago, Carrerahill said:

The figures used for stove emissions are highly inaccurate, they use all stoves sold x burning hours per day

They can test the particulates for isotopes to establish where it comes from i.e. oil, gas, timber, soil, salt water.

Now if that is done in the popular press reports, or at least the science papers they are based on, I don't know.

 

The correct measure is ug/kJ delivered when comparing energy sources, not ug/m³ as just adding extra air to the exhaust skews the results and does not reduce the quantity of particulates released.

Edited February 7, 2023 by SteamyTea

[saveasteading]

22 hours ago, saveasteading said:

I am making best use.

That is the shrub pruning tidied up.

5 barrowloads of mulch from my Bosch grinder.

Firewood for a couple of weeks.

2 more trugs of leaves that had fallen off, onto the mulch heap.

One brown bin of ends and prickly bits will go to municipal composting.. (the original pile must have been 20 x that volume.)

 

Next time...I will do the same , but try to do the pruning such that the machine will pick up a nice  20mm branch end , and drag the vast majority of the sticky, leafy ends through.

[Thedreamer]

3 hours ago, saveasteading said:

 

5 barrowloads of mulch from my Bosch grinder.

 

 

Is that the Bosch AX25? I picked up that model a couple of months ago for £100 on a local facebook page. I am using it to make various paths in the garden. 

 

There is plenty of good resources associated with home cut firewood. 

[Roger440]

12 hours ago, Carrerahill said:

If you can smell combustion smells in those houses, you must immediately let them know they have a problem. Then the owners need to immediately cease use of the stove investigate or seek professional help.

 

If you can smell a stove or open fire combustion smells in the room, be it coal, wood, oil or gas, you have an issue. The stove box should be negative air pressure, it should be drawing in air, not allowing gasses to escape! Myself and someone else on this forum have done experiments and taken readings with our stoves on, the other BH member thought his meter was broken and lit a match adjacent to it to get a reading and I found that we had more pollution in the room when my wife lit 3 tealights! So these statements are highly inaccurate - much like saying "Gas boilers are poisoning occupants of the house" - they do in a round about away, but not in as much as your being choked with combustions gasses, unless, of course there is an issue.

 

Visible smoke is a big part of the issue because many people produce clouds of the stuff through incorrect operation of the stove and usually by burning green wood or other unsuitable fuels The smoke is heavy, it can linger for hours on a cold day, it is full of combustion smells that can taint clothing and soft furnishings and inhaling that will immediately irritate the throat, lungs etc. and will irritate the eyes if exposed to enough of it - think standing next to a bonfire when the wind changes! The heavy smoke is loaded with loads of particulate, unburnt gasses and other nasties, full high temperature combustion will reduce those.

 

The PM 2.5 particulate exists from many sources, cars, lorries, planes or stoves. It is there. The figures used for stove emissions are highly inaccurate, they use all stoves sold x burning hours per day. Every one of them. The figures are badly skewed. Our neighbours have one, it's never lit, my friend has about 4, he doesn't use them much - I know of about 72 holiday lodges each with 1, hardly anyone holidays there in the winter so they are never really on. 

 

Gas boilers produce pm 2.5 too around 50% more than the average car per annum, they emit around 1/5 of NOx emissions, they also emit other nasties like VOC's, SO2, N2O - or your could burn a locally sourced firewood, seasoned and burned in a well maintained stove which will have fewer emissions than a gas boiler, in managed firewood the CO2 will also be near totally cyclic therefore you could claim near zero CO2 emitted, v's the equivalent of 7 transatlantic flights a gas boiler will produce in a year. 

 

Your logic on the smell is sound.

 

Meanwhile, back in the real world. Ive NEVER been in a house with a wood burner that wasnt immediately obvious as soon as you entered the room. And over my lifetime, that quite a lot of houses.

 

The blurb available suggests that 35% of those particulates are from burning wood. Im happy to admit, i dont know if those figures are correct, but its a high number for something that for most people is for effect rather than genuinely used as a heat source.

 

In my village every single house has a central heating system. But they all have wood burners too. Im the only one without.

 

Im not one for banning things, and as i said, poison themselves if fine, but not me as well.

[saveasteading]

3 hours ago, Thedreamer said:

Is that the Bosch AX25

No. Mine must be 15 years old now, but the AXT Rapid looks very similar.

it works by a rotating worm screw grabbing the wood and squeezing it past a blade. It is great at grabbing a stick then pulling in all the minor twigs and leaves. Ok for sticks up to about 20mm dia

I have also borrowed one that has a rotating cutting blade. It's good for long sticks but they have to be pushed. No good for small stuff. I am not using it.

[Nick Thomas]

On 06/02/2023 at 18:10, Ralph said:

No one is banning them.

 

That aged well

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/08/wood-burners-in-effect-banned-new-refurbished-homes-london

 

Not seeing the primary source offhand, anyone got a link?

[PeterW]

17 minutes ago, Nick Thomas said:

 

That aged well

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/08/wood-burners-in-effect-banned-new-refurbished-homes-london

 

Not seeing the primary source offhand, anyone got a link?

its not legally enforceable as “guidance only” and will be subject to legal challenge. I have a draft version -

will see if I can find the published one 

 

Edited to add I’ve now found the link - here

Edited February 8, 2023 by PeterW
Added link

[George]

Should be banned for new build anyway. And open fires/old stoves allowed only in exceptional circumstances - for example, listed buildings. 

 

That said, PM from wood burners I don't think have as direct a pollution pathway compared to gas hobs, deodorants and vehicles. They contribute to background levels but while background levels continue to fall I can't get too excited about it.

[Ralph]

38 minutes ago, Nick Thomas said:

 

That aged well

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/08/wood-burners-in-effect-banned-new-refurbished-homes-london

 

Not seeing the primary source offhand, anyone got a link?

Another reason I'm glad I don't live in London 😀

[SteamyTea]

57 minutes ago, Nick Thomas said:

 

Not seeing the primary source offhand, anyone got a link

Guidance at the moment.

Here

 

20 minutes ago, Ralph said:

Another reason I'm glad I don't live in London 😀

I still miss it, so much to do and see.

 

Cultural highlight down here is this.

 

 

[PeterW]

34 minutes ago, George said:

Should be banned for new build anyway. And open fires/old stoves allowed only in exceptional circumstances - for example, listed buildings. 

What should be banned ..? Stoves ..? Biomass boilers..? Log gasification boilers ..? Oil boilers..?

 

All sources of PM_2.5 and all perfectly acceptable including some receiving “eco” grants very recently ..!

 

37 minutes ago, George said:

They contribute to background levels but while background levels continue to fall

That’s debatable - there are also now issues and concerns on brake dust from vehicles including any road vehicle (inc EV) due to the changing of materials used contributing to the lack of significant drop in background PM emissions

[George]

5 minutes ago, PeterW said:

What should be banned ..? Stoves ..? Biomass boilers..? Log gasification boilers ..? Oil boilers..?

 

All sources of PM_2.5 and all perfectly acceptable including some receiving “eco” grants very recently ..!

 

That’s debatable - there are also now issues and concerns on brake dust from vehicles including any road vehicle (inc EV) due to the changing of materials used contributing to the lack of significant drop in background PM emissions

I don't see a role for biomass in new build home heating where insulation + solar panels would keep everything at a good temperature. But still plenty of roles in retrofit as fossil fuel replacement. 

 

No argument from me that vehicles are a much more obvious and concerning source of PM. 

[Ralph]

32 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I still miss it, so much to do and see.

 

Cultural highlight down here is this.

I did a bit of work down there and it was fun for a time. Cultural highlights here would be a talk on antique farm implements.

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, Ralph said:

Cultural highlights here would be a talk on antique farm implements.

The history of haggis.

[Ralph]

1 minute ago, SteamyTea said:

The history of haggis.

The hunting and preparation of maybe.

[saveasteading]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

The history of haggis.

Bought it, put it in the fridge, cooked and ate it. The end.

 

 

Anyway, in Angus it will be the Forfar Bridie that would be the more relevant lecture on culinary delights.

And Dundee so close, with all its attractions and history.

 

People like living in London for about a year in my experience, then stop going to the shows and museums.

 

Erm...wood stoves??

 

 

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, saveasteading said:

wood stoves

Must have one. Goes with the London salaries.

 

[saveasteading]

7 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Goes with the London salaries.

Family question came, a few years ago,  asking what sort of salary differential was needed to justify a job in London.

We reckoned £6k, probably £9k now, plus allow for the time and discomfort of commuting, and the smaller houses, and the pollution, and that nobody is friendly.

But hey, you can go to the museums.

[Ralph]

38 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Anyway, in Angus it will be the Forfar Bridie that would be the more relevant lecture on culinary delights.

And Dundee so close, with all its attractions and history.

I'm a transplant from Moray, it would be Cullen Skink and the Rowie

[Thedreamer]

5 hours ago, George said:

I don't see a role for biomass in new build home heating where insulation + solar panels would keep everything at a good temperature. But still plenty of roles in retrofit as fossil fuel replacement. 

 

 

Heating exclusively with wood is working just fine for me. I finished our self-build in 2020.

 

Solar panels are going to be more cost-effective in say Kent compared to my location in the Hebrides. Growing trees for biomass heating is going to be more cost-effective in the Highlands than in Kent. 

 

Building regulations should allow flexibility for buildings to be designed to suit the environment in which they are going to be located. Blanket bans are a terrible idea.

 

I burn a small trug of logs in the winter evenings mostly from wind-blown trees or from coppicing.

 

In the summer my south-facing glazing is my heating source.

 

With the rebate of £400 and a further one of £200 expected from being off the grid from gas, I will have free energy for 8 or 9 months.

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, Thedreamer said:

Solar panels are going to be more cost-effective in say Kent compared to my location in the Hebrides. Growing trees for biomass heating is going to be more cost-effective in the Highlands than in Kent. 

How so.

PV will convert, on average, around 10% of the incidental solar radiation into energy.

A tree, probably 0.1%, if you are lucky.

So it is going to take you 100 years to get the same energy.

Now I know you are going to say that PV does not work in the winter, and that is when you burn logs from your home grown trees.

But you need to plant 100 times then land area with trees than you would cover in PV.

But if you only get 20 of the annual generation from PV in the winter, you would only have to cover a fifth of the land with PV, compared to planting trees.

And if you could string it out in an arc, and vary the angles, probably a lot less.

 

[Nickfromwales]

1 minute ago, SteamyTea said:

How so.

PV will convert, on average, around 10% of the incidental solar radiation into energy.

A tree, probably 0.1%, if you are lucky.

So it is going to take you 100 years to get the same energy.

Now I know you are going to say that PV does not work in the winter, and that is when you burn logs from your home grown trees.

But you need to plant 100 times then land area with trees than you would cover in PV.

But if you only get 20 of the annual generation from PV in the winter, you would only have to cover a fifth of the land with PV, compared to planting trees.

And if you could string it out in an arc, and vary the angles, probably a lot less.

 

I love it when you talk mathy.....

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

I love it when you talk mathy.....

Was talking timber, morning wood, if you like.

[Roger440]

6 hours ago, George said:

I don't see a role for biomass in new build home heating where insulation + solar panels would keep everything at a good temperature. But still plenty of roles in retrofit as fossil fuel replacement. 

 

No argument from me that vehicles are a much more obvious and concerning source of PM. 

 

Except that vehicles are producing less than half that of burning wood.

[George]

25 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

 

Except that vehicles are producing less than half that of burning wood.

Well... maybe. The stats are always 'wood burning stoves and open fires' or 'domestic combustion'. I don't think there's any way of being able to detect what type of appliance a wood PM has originated from so it has to be done via proxy methods. Presumably the wood PM in summer are all originating from BBQs.

Also, wood burners tend to be lit on cold nights when most people are indoors, whereas vehicles are driven all day every day in urban areas. So the pollution pathway is not as direct.

 

For thos reasons the cars trundling past my children's schools cause more concern than the wood burners lit when they're in bed. 

Edited February 8, 2023 by George