This Summer I put in a woodburner in my house, reopening the old fireplace and making good and laying a new hearth. For the woodburner I had already found a brand and model I wanted, a Burley Bradgate which is supposed to have very high levels of efficiency and passes all DEFRA and EcoDesign specifications, and I was lucky enough to be able to find an ex-display one at a local a shop local at half price. I paid to have a flexible flu liner installed by the local chimney sweep firm. I got the work signed off under council building control.
I had been wanting to get a woodburner for some time. With the move to working from home due to COVID (and in my work homeworking looks like it can now be a long-term thing), I had got pretty cold being sat at a computer downstairs near a patio door. In our old house we had an open fire and knew it was handy to use in the Winter and I enjoyed tending, so the idea of an efficient wood burner to give localised and long-term heat at little cost was appealing. I have a clay bread/pizza oven I had already built in the garden which uses wood so I am already in the practice of sourcing wood locally and storing to dry and season in a wood shed I built. It is a house in a town (Crosby), but I'm quite close to the country side and also have a country park nearby, also lots of trees nearby and there's nearly always someone getting some tree surgery done - so finding wood locally is not an issue. Having moved to a my new house a few years ago I had thought about installing a nice woodburner, that would look nice and be practical.
However very recently the research on pollution linked to domestic wood burning has really become prominant. This new knowledge for me, made me have to think very hard about if I should install a wood burner or not.
Data on the polluting nature of domestic wood burning on local air quality and the effect on the health of the population is very troubling, with reports about wood burners being as polluting as road traffic in terms of 'particulate matter'. And other reports about the PM that woodburners can release into the home environment and the bad effect this can have on children those with health problems such as asthma (which I have). By not installing I would not have personally been responsible for degrading the local air quality and contributing to external polution that may have had a big long-term impact on my neighbours especially children and those with health conditions, or contributing to the climate crisis in a very direct way. By not installing one it would have no impact on my health, or the health of the next owners of my house. Goverment is cracking down on woodburning and it might be that the fire cannot be legally used at some point in the future. Also I have my clay bread oven which gives me a fire that I can use and enjoy for that purpose. It would have saved a lot of cash not installing a wood burner.
I talked to friends and family to get their opinion, I read articles, but in the end as is usual for me my heart won and I decided to pull the trigger. Final deciding points were very strongly around me currently living by myself and doing something that would bring me pleasure and warmth for myself. First off I enjoy the challenge of DIY, learning about a topic, planning, and then the actual practical work in learning new skills and getting better at construction (maybe prep for another big project on the horizon), it's a pleasurable past time, and finally the high from successful completion of a project. Having some experience of wood seasoning I would be conscientous about ensuring wood was well prepared (not green), and the model of woodburner promised high degrees of efficiency by being able to burn off more of the wood particals in the smoke, and I would not necessarily need to light it all the time maybe only in the coldest months or special occassions, and maybe not at all at some points. It would look nice in my house which has a certain style, it would be warm and cosy for me to enjoy personally in the long term, and I would enjoy showing others it. It was now or never and I just decided I would do it rather than regretting I hadn't, and it might cost a bit but I wasn't going to beat myself up about it. I would do it, enjoy it, and get on with my life.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/18/wood-burners-triple-harmful-indoor-air-pollution-study-finds - initial article that I had read, reporting on the University of Sheffield study which conducted research in 19 homes in Sheffield with PM sensors, finding that woodburners flood the homes particularly during reloading causing spikes that last several hours, showing benefit for those that reload less or not at all. All stoves EcoDesign. “It is recommended that people living with those particularly susceptible to air pollution, such as children, the elderly or vulnerable, avoid using wood-burning stoves. If people want to use them, we recommend minimising the time the stove is open during lighting or refuelling.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/07/fireplaces-and-stoves-are-bigger-polluters-than-traffic - Camden asking people not to use solid wood fuels
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/09/eco-wood-stoves-emit-pollution-hgv-ecodesign - 750 times more harmful that a HGV (even EcoDesign): “You would be rightly up in arms if six lorries were driving in your street each evening, but we have normalised home wood burning”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/16/home-wood-burning-biggest-cause-particle-pollution-fires - fires used by 8% of the population cause three times the particle polution of traffic
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/11/wood-burner-debate-stoked-up-by-scientists
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/24/wood-burning-stove-is-good-for-my-health " I’m one of those people who gets depressed, really depressed, and when this happens I hunker down at home in front of my little wood burner, imbibing the “spirit of the fire”..I do this because it helps my head and may even actually prolong my life"
https://burley.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Wood-burning-stoves-and-indoor-air-quality.pdf - Burley woodstoves report back on their own research with a PM sensor trying to counter the research by UoS. They find that in their test conditions there is much lower 2,5 PM levels (26 when lighting with door on latch) that quickly go back to background levels (7), even at reloading backgroud levels are maintained. They compare this to levels of PM from home furnishings, lighting a candle (44), blowing out 10 candles (730), toast (120). They argue that the Sheffield study did not consider other sources of PM. They recoommend using dry wood, using a quality (Burley) stove, refueling carefully (only when embers, opening slowly), when drawing only leaving door open a crack, with these the PM is negligable.
https://mr-soot.com/2021/02/24/oh-crumbs-toaster-caused-more-pollution-than-a-woodburner-claim/ - an interesting post on this HETAS registered chimney sweep. Seems to offer more of a balanced view point, arguing that there does seems to be an issue with EcoDesign stoves that allow PM to flood the room on reopening. He does though suggest simple tips on refueling: only when embers remain, careful opening of door, dry fuel (no more that 20% moisture), careful closing of door.
https://mr-soot.com/2020/02/08/stoves-woodburning-what-i-learnt-in-sweden/ - earlier article I read by the same sweep. Arguing that keeping the chimney swept and maintained is key
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/11/harmful-effects-of-wood-burners-need-further-study - author was concerned so did own testing on his woodburner with a PM sensor, finding no effect even when re-loading, compared to high level from lighting a match.
24 hours high levels of PM
It seems very self-serving and selfish to centre on the indoor harms rather than wider impact on air pollution to the environment. But with my health concerns I wanted to find out more about this. It seem's that there are definitely two camps here, and there is a lot of bias going on in the data presented and the debat. So I wanted to look at this as a new owner who I feel can look at it objectively.
In winter 2021 I seem to sneeze a lot every morning, and my asthma is worse. This might be to do with being in the house more. With COVID I might be panicing more. It might be that there is high degrees of dust in my house (maybe after the building work) or the house needs a good clean. Or it might I fear be due to the wood burner.
I saw online that PM sensors are now quite cheap to get, and you can get one as an attachement to a rasperry PI: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/enviro?variant=31155658457171 and https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/pms5003-particulate-matter-sensor-with-cable
Saw I decided to set up my own monitor to evaluate what my current levels of PM are, and if there are any practices I should be doing as I use my stove
Luftdatten, also logs to Google Drive, code here
Initial Finding
Worrying, bed room, high many hours
Other household pollutants
First real test of Woodburner
Safe levels