I think it’s air quality not climate change that’s being addressed. I’ve just read a news story about reducing dirty diesels in London vastly improving air quality.
Ban on sale of coal and wet wood.
- Thread starter Gaudette
- Start date
I think it’s air quality not climate change that’s being addressed. I’ve just read a news story about reducing dirty diesels in London vastly improving air quality.
Yep, two options, the Dutch one, or the Chinese one.
When I moved from Sweden to England, it was winter. The first olfactory sensations, and ‘aha!’ moments, were that England air and the English had a similar smell as the air and people in Eastern Europe.
If some state genius connects the inefficient burning of wood with Global Warming they will put a tax on the dry wood.
As it produces CO2, CO, plus soot, which is carbon particles. I am sure these also contribute to Global Warming somehow, everything we do seems to.
When I moved from Sweden to England, it was winter. The first olfactory sensations, and ‘aha!’ moments, were that England air and the English had a similar smell as the air and people in Eastern Europe.
If some state genius connects the inefficient burning of wood with Global Warming they will put a tax on the dry wood.
As it produces CO2, CO, plus soot, which is carbon particles. I am sure these also contribute to Global Warming somehow, everything we do seems to.
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What sort of stove is it? Does it have a fan, or just a double wall and natural convection with feeder holes around the top rim? I have a Bushbuddy as well as a bigger home made version, and while both will burn "smoke free", they deposit a huge amount of soot on my pots. So smoke free, but not particulate free. Was rather disappointing that it didn't burn cleaner...and that is with really dry wood, like down around 10%m.c. never mind the slightly damp stuff in nature.
I was pretty disgusted at the usual media hyperbole and lack of details. A quick skim through the government website found dry wood defined as less than 20% moisture content and that low sulphur, smokeless coal will still be legal to sell.
Where I live we have no gas. So we are reliant on wood coal electric or oil for heating. I do have a multi fuel stove that burns smokeless coal or wood. I'd be lost without it as my main heating is electric If we have power cuts I'd have no heating cooking or hot water. Luckily I'm prepared for this so it doesn't affect my ability to cope with no electric.
This is causing a lot of worry round here as a lot of people rely on wood or coal to heat their homes. I don't think the government have thought this through in detail. It's a response to the global warming issue to look like they are doing something.
I'm never giving up my woodburner! I'll barricade the house before anyone takes it !
The amount of electricity needed to power all these new electric cars and heating systems isn't achievable with renewable sources at present levels. Watch them try to build more nuclear power stations!
This is causing a lot of worry round here as a lot of people rely on wood or coal to heat their homes. I don't think the government have thought this through in detail. It's a response to the global warming issue to look like they are doing something.
I'm never giving up my woodburner! I'll barricade the house before anyone takes it !
The amount of electricity needed to power all these new electric cars and heating systems isn't achievable with renewable sources at present levels. Watch them try to build more nuclear power stations!
I thought that smokeless coal was all you could burn anyway due to a clean air act in the 40s sometime?
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Yep the clean air act mandated smokeless fuels in smoke control zones
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_1956
The pea souper smog puts corona virus in to some context, 8000 dead in london in one night plus more following in the next few weeks !
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As I wrote earlier, in -95 when we movement to UK, all cities smelled wintertime of low grade coal being used, exactly the same smell as in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary ( have no experience of Poland and Soviet Union).
Smokeless it was not, that I am 100% sure off.
Fear not, WG, they will not take your woodburner!
But if you will need to replace it, you will only have the option of the new, high efficient and low polluting, designs.
Laws are (sometimes ?) designed by city dwellers who do not understand the negatives with country living.
I too would barricade my house if the authorities told me I was not allowed to use a wood burner. All my Norwegian friends would do the same.
And stand in the window, brandishing a gun, whale harpoon or any other tool.
I find sometimes the logic the states use ridiculous.
Banning stuff to save a couple of thousand lives ( supposedly, not scientifically proven or verified) but allowing the sale of tobacco and alcohol, two single items that kill tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people ( in a country with the population the number of UK.
Oops, maybe the duties and taxation has something to do with it?
Or the sickening fact that once we are OAPs we are an economic burden and not an asset?
Just a thought!
Smokeless it was not, that I am 100% sure off.
Fear not, WG, they will not take your woodburner!
But if you will need to replace it, you will only have the option of the new, high efficient and low polluting, designs.
Laws are (sometimes ?) designed by city dwellers who do not understand the negatives with country living.
I too would barricade my house if the authorities told me I was not allowed to use a wood burner. All my Norwegian friends would do the same.
And stand in the window, brandishing a gun, whale harpoon or any other tool.
I find sometimes the logic the states use ridiculous.
Banning stuff to save a couple of thousand lives ( supposedly, not scientifically proven or verified) but allowing the sale of tobacco and alcohol, two single items that kill tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people ( in a country with the population the number of UK.
Oops, maybe the duties and taxation has something to do with it?
Or the sickening fact that once we are OAPs we are an economic burden and not an asset?
Just a thought!
Unless I’m mistaken, those two items usually have high duties and taxation specifically to discourage their use without banning them outright. It seems it rarely works but banning them outright would be more disastrous Just look what happened when we tried banning alcohol: there was still a lively trade and consumption but all safety and quality control went out the window and the crime rate soared.
I doubt that janne. They havnt built house in the uk generally with chimneys since the mid 60s. Coal is virtually unheard of if you can get piped gas. You where probably smelling the dioxin from the desils, which are still not great.
And drugs too! Look at the medical and legal costs of having illegal drugs. If you emptied the prisons of people on crimes related to drugs and the health services of people who where in there for low quality drug complications there would be a lot more breathing room.
Below 20% moisture means that just drying it outside under a roof is enough, all the "free" water from the wood is gone. That is not easy to measure in a practical and dependable way. Sounds like a mandarin has not had anything useful to do.
We consider wood to air-dry to an equilibrium moisture content of approximately 12%
at a rate of 1" of thickness per year. Outdoors, under cover and not cooked in a shed.
The compressed wood pellets that I buy for the stove are ultra dry.
That means that over the course of a summer, those left-over bags of pellets will absorb enough house humidity
such that they burn very inefficiently = best mixed with fresh pellets. 1/1.
I believe for as good as a pellet stove is, you people in the UK would have a terrible time with humidity issues.
Select a number of fresh wood pieces and weigh them every 6 months. Blocks, logs, whatever.
You will see the wood level off to a nearly constant weight when the drying process is finished.
That is as dependable as is needed for furniture and other cabinet making.
I weigh 24" wood blocks that I buy as stock material for wood carving.
Fresh cut, most of them weigh in the order of 40 lbs each ( 18+ kg).
Very old and very dry blocks of similar size weigh no more than 20 lbs (9 kg) each.
Fortunately, the value of air-dried wood is not a concern of mine.
at a rate of 1" of thickness per year. Outdoors, under cover and not cooked in a shed.
The compressed wood pellets that I buy for the stove are ultra dry.
That means that over the course of a summer, those left-over bags of pellets will absorb enough house humidity
such that they burn very inefficiently = best mixed with fresh pellets. 1/1.
I believe for as good as a pellet stove is, you people in the UK would have a terrible time with humidity issues.
Select a number of fresh wood pieces and weigh them every 6 months. Blocks, logs, whatever.
You will see the wood level off to a nearly constant weight when the drying process is finished.
That is as dependable as is needed for furniture and other cabinet making.
I weigh 24" wood blocks that I buy as stock material for wood carving.
Fresh cut, most of them weigh in the order of 40 lbs each ( 18+ kg).
Very old and very dry blocks of similar size weigh no more than 20 lbs (9 kg) each.
Fortunately, the value of air-dried wood is not a concern of mine.
Not new built areas, but towns like T. Wells, London, Eastbourne.
It got better and better over the years.
Diesel fumes smell much different. Some vehicles here smoke incredibly much from their Diesel engines. Embarrassing.
Environment is not high on our government agenda. Talking about it is, but action is low.
Right with you Robson, bought pellets for my wood gasyding stove, put the rest into my dry outhouse but couldn't really use them anymore as they had sucked up all the air humidity
Yup, just a little Chinese cheapo, pan's bottoms are black too but I still like using it in places where you're not allowed to be. No smoke to give away your location.... apart from eminating smells of bacon, chorizo, black pudding and venison
Yes, to a very large degree. If marijuana alone were legalized and taxed it would go a long way toward emptying the jails and prisons and providing revenue that could be used to treat addiction.
I was there from 1985 until 1989 and I had no problem with it. Not even in or near the places with open fireplaces. That said, I most likely won’t ever build another house that doesn’t have a real fireplace.
I feel that wood burning is at odds with modern fast paced consumerism. Felling, snedding, logging, drying and splitting wood is relatively time consuming. Even lighting a fire takes more preparation and effort than gas/oil/electric equivalents. People jump on the bandwagon and bung a wood stove in their chic modern home but don't appreciate the paraphernalia that is necessary to achieve that cosy glow:- the log storage, splitting down kindling, drying kindling for the next fire, carrying in logs, dropping dirty chunks of bark on the carpet, embers spitting out when you put on a new log, disposing of the ash, etc.
In my experience those sorts make a hobby out of it talk to you like it's some dark art lol
Fortunately much of that doesn’t apply here. Litard (fatwood) is our kindling of choice and is ready to burn as soon as harvested (only minimal splitting) and ignites easily without tinder. We also don’t “dry” (season) our firewood in the South; it rots within a year rather than seasons and attracts unwanted bigs (particularly termites) If we try to burn last year’s wood, it simply burns like paper and leaves loads of ashes without any real heat so if any is left at winter’s end it usually just gets used in a backyard bonfire. Rather we cut and stack a about month’s worth at a time and burn before cutting more. Yes we make a bit of a mess with dropping chunks carrying it in but rarely did we have carpeted floors when I was growing up and they seem to be going back out of favor again. We also have access to trees of a size that rarely need splitting (Turkey Oak)
Our biggest problem is finding a mason that still knows how to build a proper fireplace. It’s more common now for fireplaces to be prebuilt metal things with a masonry (or even wooden) facade around them. I don’t want that: I want a real brick or stone fireplace.
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