Scotland - Ban on stoves in new build houses lifted.

[ProDave]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqxwg3pjxleo

 

The Scottish government has confirmed it is ditching restrictions on the installation of wood-burning stoves in newbuild homes or conversions.

SNP ministers introduced regulations in April - while still in a power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens - to ban new homes and buildings from using direct-emission heating systems including gas or oil boilers.

The rules were temporarily halted in September after concerns were raised that a ban on wood and peat burners would have a negative impact on people living in rural areas.

The government has now amended the New Build Heat Standard (NBHS) regulations, external to allow "the installation of bioenergy and peat main heating systems - and any type of secondary heating systems".

[North80]

I believe allowing wood burners while banning gas heating as a primary sourse doesn't make sense. Wood burners are among the most polluting heating methods, releasing harmful pollutants that harm both the environment and public health. Gas heating is cleaner, so permitting wood burners but restricting gas undermines efforts to reduce emissions.

 

Many people misuse wood burners by burning wet or chemically treated wood, which releases even more pollutants. This not only affects the environment but also poses health risks to nearby residents. In built-up areas, wood smoke is a nuisance and should be banned to protect public health.

 

Relaxing regulations to allow wood burners but restricting gas may encourage more people to install them, which is counterproductive. If they're necessary in rural areas, strict regulations should minimize their impact on others.

[JohnMo]

Government U turns say, you have no idea what you are doing, or why.

 

 

[ProDave]

In this case it shows the disproportionate power the greens had, holding the one MSP that made up the majority so they say you must do this or we pull out.

 

Now that coalition has been dissolved they no longer have that power.

 

I am surprised it allows burning wood or peat is primary heating.  A good compromise would be allow such burning as secondary heating only.

 

But while DRAX continues to burn wood on an industrial scale and they say with a straight face it is "green" then it is totally hypercritical to claim domestic scale wood burning is not green.  

[SteamyTea]

May end up like one of our other colonies.

https://www.iqair.com/pakistan

 

Full rankings here.

 

https://www.iqair.com/world-most-polluted-countries

 

 

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, ProDave said:

But while DRAX continues to burn wood on an industrial scale and they say with a straight face it is "green" then it is totally hypercritical to claim domestic scale wood burning is not green

Don't think many do now.

 

[Crofter]

I'd have preferred to see a middle ground where a small wood burner was still allowed to provide backup heating in remote areas at risk of power cuts. You could achieve similar redundancy by mandating substantial battery storage, but that gets pricey.

 

I'd like to think that a house built to proper levels of airtightness and insulation, with a correctly specced and installed heat pump, will be so warm and comfortable that most people would quickly get over the novelty of lighting their stove anyway.

[AartWessels]

True. However, I'm sure you've experienced this as well, over winter we can easily get power cuts lasting more than 24 hours. 

Also, there is no gas here at all. 

 

So I think the u-turn is great for this un-nuanced piece of legislation. 

[Roger440]

14 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Don't think many do now.

 

 

Government signals and actions suggest it is. I think you will find the public at large think it is too.

 

Everyone who comes to our house, which now has the original fireplace opened up, ask if we are fitting a wood burner. Without exception, when i say no, they think we are mad, if i try to explain why, they think im madder still and some sort of conspiracy theorist.

 

There is literally no understanding or concept of the consequences of burning wood inside your house.

[North80]

edit

Edited November 9 by North80

[North80]

3 hours ago, AartWessels said:

True. However, I'm sure you've experienced this as well, over winter we can easily get power cuts lasting more than 24 hours. 

Also, there is no gas here at all. 

 

So I think the u-turn is great for this un-nuanced piece of legislation. 

 

Many people in rural areas rely on gas cylinders for heating rather than mains gas. As far as I can tell, these will be banned under the new regulations. The way these new rules are being framed, the primary heat sources people can use are heat pumps or wood burners.

 

It seems illogical to ban oil and gas but not wood burners, considering that wood burners are far worse than oil or gas boilers in terms of emissions and air quality.

 

I have family who live in rural areas; they have an oil boiler and, during power cuts, they use a diesel generator to power an electric heater. There's no need for a wood burner in a rural area. Power cuts are infrequent, and if people are concerned about them, they could use a diesel generator as a backup.

 

Many people I know who have wood burners don't use them properly. They burn chemically treated wood like pallets and wet wood. Non-kiln-dried wood is meant to be left for about two years out of the rain to dry properly, but many people don't do that. They get wood delivered to their homes and leave it out in the rain, then burn it when it's still not properly dry. Even dry wood creates a lot of harmful emissions; wet wood produces even more.

 

I find it concerning that people are allowed to use solid fuel fires in built-up towns and villages. The smoke created by them is very harmful to health and is anti-social. People shouldn't be allowed to pollute neighbouring properties with smoke from a solid fuel fire; they should have to live far from other properties if they want to use one.

 

One person I worked with—who was not a very nice person, to put it politely—lives in a big town in a densely populated area. He recently had a wood burner fitted and burns all kinds of chemically treated wood in it. I feel sorry for his neighbours; he's exposing them to harmful chemicals but doesn't care.

[Crofter]

Is the power cuts thing a bit overblown?

We live on the Isle of Skye, which has no installed backup generation and relies entirely on the power lines from the mainland and, to a limited extent, the connector from the outer isles (who have a diesel power station, but not really big enough to export).

In the 12yrs we've lived here, the worst power cut we've had lasted 37hrs. I can't remember any other power cuts lasting more than ~12hrs.

 

During the 37hr power cut, I remember being a lot more concerned that I was about to lose hundreds of pounds worth of frozen food (we do a big shop in Inverness every couple of months) than I was about getting a bit cold. 

 

Curious to see what other rural areas are like?

[ProDave]

I think our record power cut was 3 days, being just a small cluster of houses we are well down the priority list for restoring power after a storm.  That was in our previous house and we were very glad of the WBS to keep us warm, and the fact the hob was LPG so we could still cook.

[North80]

2 hours ago, Roger440 said:

 

Government signals and actions suggest it is. I think you will find the public at large think it is too.

 

Everyone who comes to our house, which now has the original fireplace opened up, ask if we are fitting a wood burner. Without exception, when i say no, they think we are mad, if i try to explain why, they think im madder still and some sort of conspiracy theorist.

 

There is literally no understanding or concept of the consequences of burning wood inside your house.

 

My Aunty has an open fire in her house but has suffered from breathing problems her entire life. She doesn't seem to be able to put two and two together and realise it might be her fire that is causing her problems. 

With the increasing air tightness of homes solid fuel fires will be causing health problems. When people open the fire to put more wood on it will release lots of harmful dust and gasses into the house. A lot of modern houses don't have proper ventilation systems despite the airtightness. 

Even things like gas hobs in a house are harmful as noted in the video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzq0RbkHV78

 

[JohnMo]

6 minutes ago, North80 said:

Even things like gas hobs in a house are harmful as noted in the video below:

While it could be true, no source info provided, just some random guy on the internet says...

 

You have an extract directly above the hob also, which with gas should be on when hob is in use. That would pull most if not all pollutants straight out the house. You could argue that cooking in the house is bad full stop. Lots of atomised oils that have been burnt and carbonised etc.

[G and J]

Odd thing, power cuts.  We live just a few miles outside of densely populated areas.   When we first moved in and for a decade or so after we had regular power cuts lasting often many hours.   Just a symptom of where the ever growing network needs developing.   I’m assuming that as we as a nation get greener then more lecky will be needed so more network capacity will be needed and where that isn’t put in quick enough then power cuts will ensue.

 

Plus extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and they do lead to long power cuts.  
 

So the woodburner stays in the plan.

 

And if the freezer defrosts then I’ll just have to eat lots.  Especially ice cream. 

[North80]

4 hours ago, Crofter said:

Is the power cuts thing a bit overblown?

We live on the Isle of Skye, which has no installed backup generation and relies entirely on the power lines from the mainland and, to a limited extent, the connector from the outer isles (who have a diesel power station, but not really big enough to export).

In the 12yrs we've lived here, the worst power cut we've had lasted 37hrs. I can't remember any other power cuts lasting more than ~12hrs.

 

During the 37hr power cut, I remember being a lot more concerned that I was about to lose hundreds of pounds worth of frozen food (we do a big shop in Inverness every couple of months) than I was about getting a bit cold. 

 

Curious to see what other rural areas are like?

 

I believe the concern over power cuts is exaggerated; they usually last only a few hours here and there. Some of my family members live in rural areas and, several years ago, experienced a power cut that lasted over a week. However, they managed just fine with a cheap diesel generator. They have an open fire in the house but haven't used it for at least 15 years without any problems—the generator sufficed.

 

If people are that worried about power cuts, they should consider designing their home's power system to be compatible with a diesel generator. Some houses have a master switch that allows them to switch from mains power to a diesel generator backup. If I were building a new house in a rural area, that's what I would do instead of installing a wood burner. My family doesn't have the generator wired into their house electrics; they simply had it out in the garden with an extension cable running inside the house.

 

One thing that irks me about this wood burner debate is that Kate Forbes is very outspoken against the wood burner ban. Her husband is the owner of a chimney sweeping firm, so her family has financial skin in the game, so to speak. If this were a Tory politician speaking out against a matter that directly affected the finances of their spouse's business interests, the media would be all over it as a conflict of interest.

[Kelvin]

Rural Perthshire. All overhead lines round us. One power cut for a few hours in 3 years. We had more power cuts in Cambridgeshire. Cooking could be done with our portable induction hob connected to the car as could some heating but it’d beed to be really cold with no power for long enough to really drop inside the house. The EV is rarely below 50% so that’s a fair amount of power available to run a few things. The bigger issue for us is access to water and getting it into the house as everything is pumped. 

Edited November 9 by Kelvin

[SteamyTea]

I have an all electric house, only had one long power cut in that time.

I have a camping stove, so can make tea.

 

29 minutes ago, North80 said:

skin in the game

Sometimes that is good, other times bad.

Jenny Tonge got the wiring regs tightened up after a bad installation killed her daughter.

Not as though they can change legislation in isolation.

 

 

[Roger440]

4 hours ago, North80 said:

 

 

If people are that worried about power cuts, they should consider designing their home's power system to be compatible with a diesel generator. Some houses have a master switch that allows them to switch from mains power to a diesel generator backup. If I were building a new house in a rural area, that's what I would do instead of installing a wood burner. My family doesn't have the generator wired into their house electrics; they simply had it out in the garden with an extension cable running inside the house.

 

 

Exactly what i am doing. Boiler is oil, but clearly, still needs power to run. So a small diesel genset does that. If i ever get my forklift to be my battery bank, thats more than enough to keep the boiler running.

 

My primary reason for sorting all this stuff out isnt power cuts, though we do a get a fair few usually no more than a few hours, its protecting myself and not being a victim of Ed's bonkers ideas and the inevitable power rationing that follows. 

[G and J]

I know that public opinion and factual science/engineering often differ, but I’d guess the vast majority of folk would not see having one’s own diesel generator as being eco-friendly.  A box of candles just in case would be more what peeps would expect…

[JohnMo]

Have battery and manual changeover to manual start petrol generator. This keeps the water pump online, heating ect.

 

We had multiple power outages over the last 12 months, generally in the 4 to 6 hours region. Once half way through cooking our tea. Generator on, hot food finished cooking no drama.

 

 

[scottishjohn]

15 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Have battery and manual changeover to manual start petrol generator. This keeps the water pump online, heating ect.

 

We had multiple power outages over the last 12 months, generally in the 4 to 6 hours region. Once half way through cooking our tea. Generator on, hot food finished cooking no drama.

 

 

yep I have had a cheap chineese generator for years and if we get a power cut just turn off at mains and plug it into a 13amp socket 

 fine to run everything but the cooker 

will maybe up grade it for new house with a bigger one so it can run ASHP easily ,but to be honest Ihave akready seen how long it takes the house to cool down when ASHP is turned off ,and that is a couple  of days  amd that was from 22c to 16c 

it was on to dry out the subfloor for the floor fitters to start work 

[ProDave]

9 hours ago, scottishjohn said:

yep I have had a cheap chineese generator for years and if we get a power cut just turn off at mains and plug it into a 13amp socket 

Please tell me you are not using a widow maker lead?

[FuerteStu]

6 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Please tell me you are not using a widow maker lead?

Probably got a sticker on one end that says [plug in this end first] to make it safe...