Wood burning smell from the firepit in the garden

[spader]

Can wood burning smell from garden firepit problem to the neighbors, if they don't like the smell or want to put up washing in their garden?
With the number of garden chimneas, BBQs and firepits being sold these days, many folks do BBQs, burn firepits, have wood fires in chimneas in their gardens.
How could the possible problems be balanced in the neighborhoods?

We are not burning woods daily, as we don't have a log burner installed in the house. But we have a portable wood stove installed under the tarp in front of the garden shed, which gets used some days for practicing fire craft.

We have BBQs under the canopy in the patio once or twice a week, and burn some tree twigs in the garden firepit sometimes.

 

[Broch]

This is not a new problem - complaints of lighting coal fires during the day or burning garden waste were common in the 50's and 60's and probably for a lot longer than that.

I would suggest that common sense (i.e. not lighting a fire if your neighbour has just put the clean white sheets on the line to dry) will work. If the sheets have been hanging out for a few hours and you want to have a fire lit than a simple chat would solve problem.

This all depends on your relationship with the neighbours of course

 

[Pattree]

Have you had complaints?

What are your local by-laws on fires.

We are OK for fires here but I’m told that in nearby Telford, outdoor fires are absolutely banned. The new houses have no chimneys and if you have an outside fire you could have a fire engine turn up and put it out. What’s more I’m told you’d be charged for the service!

In my experience polite negotiation and explanation are the best way forward.

@spader. A reminder popped up to make a manometer this morning. I haven’t forgotten (unless someone has already done it for you.). My children were looking after the house while we were away and religiously put out all the cardboard with the recycling - I’ll think of something!

 

[spader]

Have you had complaints?

What are your local by-laws on fires.

We are OK for fires here but I’m told that in nearby Telford, outdoor fires are absolutely banned. The new houses have no chimneys and if you have an outside fire you could have a fire engine turn up and put it out. What’s more I’m told you’d be charged for the service!

In my experience polite negotiation and explanation are the best way forward.

@spader. A reminder popped up to make a manometer this morning. I haven’t forgotten (unless someone has already done it for you.). My children were looking after the house while we were away and religiously put out all the cardboard with the recycling - I’ll think of something!

No complaints yet. But this year I have been clearing the over-grown garden, and have been burning more garden twigs, branches and logs in the garden firepit.

This situation made us have more BBQs as well.

We still have mountains of over-grown garden plants dug up, and piled in the middle of the garden, and was keep burning them time to time. It saves us going to the skip which we hate.

But I can see the next door neighbors wanting to put out their washings when the garden firepit is burning the twigs, and today she came to the fence, and asked me when will the fire be put off, because she wants to put up the washings in their garden.

I said, I will stop it the now, so she can put the washings up when it finished, and let it burn out. It was a small portable firepit I was using, so it burnt out and died off quickly.

This made me think maybe there must be some ways to manage this operation more smoothly without causing any nuisance or inconveniences to the neighbors, and was wondering this might be quite common problem to many people with gardens and chimineas and BBQs these days, and how they manage to balance the situation.

I still need to check what the local by-law is here, but I am sure you can complain about anything anti social such as loud music, loud noise in the late nights, other folks' cats coming to your garden and messing the grass, overly tall hedges blocking the sunlight as well as excess smoke from BBQ or wood burners etc.

PS: No worries on the manometer. Take your time, and whenever you are free and ready for the demo. These days, I have been working with the firepit and BBQ, rather than the woodstove.

 

[slowworm]

As someone without any close neighbours and who heats our house with wood cut from our own wood I still avoid anything like bonfires in the garden because I think they are antisocial. If you have close neighbours and a BBQ from time to time and an evening firepit I would say burning brash from the garden may be a step too far.

Do you really need to burn up the garden waste? No possibility of composting it or stacking it in a large pile - it could rot down in a year or two.

 

[Pattree]

Most people use charcoal in chimneas.

Some Victorian gardens have “stumparies” - mounds of tree roots planted with ferns and saprophytic plants. Many stumparies are still there today. The King is fond of them.

I think, in the interests of neighbourly harmony, you are going to have to grit your teeth, put a tarp in the boot and do a couple of trips to the skip. Is there a local garden association? What do they do? You can’t be the only person in your area with the issue.

 

[spader]

Most people use charcoal in chimneas.

Some Victorian gardens have “stumparies” - mounds of tree roots planted with ferns and saprophytic plants. Many stumparies are still there today. The King is fond of them.

I think, in the interests of neighbourly harmony, you are going to have to grit your teeth, put a tarp in the boot and do a couple of trips to the skip. Is there a local garden association? What do they do? You can’t be the only person in your area with the issue.

We use charcoals in BBQ. But in the firepit and wood stove, the tree logs, cut branches and twigs are used. We use the the dried ones first. The garden clearance work has started last year, and has piles of dried logs in the corner now.

Fine on stumparies. They certainly look cool and artistic too. But we want the garden cleared for putting work sheds in the space. We have 2x small garden sheds now, but they are filled with the tools, and there is no space to work in them. We are going to tidy up the garden, get the space and put 2x work sheds in there.

For that we want to reduce the plants and trees to minimum, so maintenance work is minimum, hence 80% of the trees and greeneries are dug out.

Trips to skip would be more than couple of times, and it is now newly introduced booking system for the skip. We cannot go to the skip whenever we please, but must wait for the day and time they tell us to come.

From my own point of view, the tree logs can be cut, seasoned and burned for heat and the ashes can go back to where they came from i.e. the soil enriching the soil feeding the living plants and trees instead packing them in the bags, hauling into the car, and driving to the skip, wait in the queue for dumping them. Therefore burning the well seasoned trees logs in the garden contained in the metal enclosure safe firepit is not always anti social or purposeless and meaningless activities like some folks seem trying to make out.

But yeah, maybe that is the last resort, which must be taken for keeping "neighborly harmony".

 

[Wildgoose]

I live in an outer London borough with neighbours on all sides. In fine weather BBQs are pretty commonplace most nights, although I suspect many are using gas so less smoke.

There is someone still using a coal fire which brings a pleasant nostalgia to the area.

Nobody seems to mind the odd chimnea burning dry logs. Choose a cooler or damp day when nobody is likely to have windows open or washing out etc.

We did have an issue last year with a house under renovation burning ALL of the building waste. That situation turned nasty pretty quickly.

 

[Broch]

Most people use charcoal in chimneas.

Really? not in my experience

 

[spader]

Really? not in my experience

Not from my experience either. Aren't chimineas made for burning woods?

 

[Pattree]

Not in my experience.

 

[Stew]

Everyone I’ve know with a chimnea has just used wood.

As to garden fires, I go for the basic rule of if it’s nice weather and people are likely to have washing out then no fire. When it gets into the evening and starting to cool off then fine for a fire pit occasionally. It’s all about respect.

If it’s masses of garden waste to go, then in the summer that’s a dump run. If you want it cleared to move on to the next bit of sorting then just get rid. If you can only burn a bit at a time then it’s going to take ages and will annoy the neighbours if you’re doing it every day.

 

[Pattree]

Do you have to pay for garden waste removal?
It’s free here and I can order as many green wheelie bins as I need within reason. I have two green bins and for eight fortnightly collections out of year’s twenty six they aren’t enough.
I can still shift a LOT of pruning and trimming in the autumn. It requires a sort of chain saw Tetris to fit it in tight and, importantly, close the lid. I only cut the hedge once a year so it’s a bulk job.
I do sometimes light a fire in an oil drum. Burning freshly cut hedging in quantity once nearly closed the road (it’s a B road!!!)

 

[spader]

Do you have to pay for garden waste removal?
It’s free here and I can order as many green wheelie bins as I need within reason. I have two green bins and for eight fortnightly collections out of year’s twenty six they aren’t enough.
I can still shift a LOT of pruning and trimming in the autumn. It requires a sort of chain saw Tetris to fit it in tight and, importantly, close the lid. I only cut the hedge once a year so it’s a bulk job.
I do sometimes light a fire in an oil drum. Burning freshly cut hedging in quantity once nearly closed the road (it’s a B road!!!)

We have to pay for the garden waste bin lifting service here. Even if we pay, we get only 1 bin, and it gets lifted only once per every 4 weeks. So it may not be adequate to clear the garden wastes in short period of time.

We are planning to move house to somewhere more rural and countryside with no close neighbors around. But then houses in rural areas may have its own problems such as isolation, being remote from the shops causing inconvenience buying necessities, illegal dump of industrial and commercial waste by the mindless folks in the fields and roads and being a target for house burglaries etc.

All locations have positive and negative points, and nowhere is 100% good or bad, it seems.
It is good, we believe and feel, to have neighbors in some respect, helping out each other and looking out for each other, but then there might be times when some concessions have to be made for each other for harmonious and peaceful living.

 

[spader]

When it gets into the evening and starting to cool off then fine for a fire pit occasionally. It’s all about respect.

You made a good point regarding "all about respect". But respect only makes sense when it is in mutual terms. If you demand respect from the other party while you give no respect to anyone else, then you are demanding others to live under your law, and no one will take you seriously.

 

[Toddy]

If you can smell it then it's a very obvious sign that the air is full of micro particles....and those are now considered hazardous to health.

If you live cheek by jowl with neighbours even with windows closed smoke from next door can stink up a house.

An occasional fire is fun, a constant one ruins every evening and weekend when it's right next door. Doesn't matter whether that's a bbq or chimineas or basic garden fire. We all breath the air and smoke is no longer considered acceptable.

Honestly, I think you need to bite the bullet and get an uplift or look at Hugelkultur. You can do that along a fence line or hedge, cover it with turf, run a strimmer over it, if you don't want to grow on it.
It's just a happed up compost heap that will slowly break down over the years. It can look very tidy while it does so.

M

 

[Stew]

You made a good point regarding "all about respect". But respect only makes sense when it is in mutual terms. If you demand respect from the other party while you give no respect to anyone else, then you are demanding others to live under your law, and no one will take you seriously.

While true, I don't think anyone finds anyone putting their washing out as anti-social...
(Waiting for a wisecrack from PT about it)

 

[spader]

While true, I don't think anyone finds anyone putting their washing out as anti-social...
(Waiting for a wisecrack from PT about it)

Never said putting washing out was anti social. We do as well. There are many things they have done which are truly anti social, but we never said a word, but kept on living quietly out of respect and for neighborly harmony. I am not going to list the details here.

 

[spader]

If you can smell it then it's a very obvious sign that the air is full of micro particles....and those are now considered hazardous to health.

If you live cheek by jowl with neighbours even with windows closed smoke from next door can stink up a house.

An occasional fire is fun, a constant one ruins every evening and weekend when it's right next door. Doesn't matter whether that's a bbq or chimineas or basic garden fire. We all breath the air and smoke is no longer considered acceptable.

Honestly, I think you need to bite the bullet and get an uplift or look at Hugelkultur. You can do that along a fence line or hedge, cover it with turf, run a strimmer over it, if you don't want to grow on it.
It's just a happed up compost heap that will slowly break down over the years. It can look very tidy while it does so.

M

Yeah, we have other things to drop off to the skip as well, such as old paints etc. We are going to take the garden waste as well at the same time. Just wondered how other folks might deal with the possible problems with the issue, when so many chimineas and garden firepits are selling like hot cakes recently.

We will still have occasional BBQs, and firepit going on the rainy nights.

 

[Toddy]

They are, aren't they ? and everyone loves having a real fire....until they don't have it and they start to complain about the smell and the smoke, etc.,

Personally I love fire, I have a thing about old hearth herbs, but I loathe the stench of improperly burnt crude hydrocarbons....you know the stuff the inept pour onto their 'charcoal' to get it to light ?
That stench clings to everything.

One of our neighbours decided to burn the scraps from his new decking in his chiminea....that stuff was tanalised and it burned with an acrid smoke like TCP. Absolutely horrible, but since the wind blew it away from him he didn't care.....yet fruit wood prunings, or pine, most folks like.

It's not easy keeping everyone happy

M