Woodburners, nice or nasty?

My partner moved from a 300 year old house with only a wood burner for heating to a house with gas fired central heating when he was 64, he had lived in the house for 45 years, that was ten years ago, apart from the joy of waking up to a warm home, he doesn’t have to store logs, carry logs in every day, clean out the fire or worry about getting the flue cleaned every year, he breathes easier too, he says that he loves his gas fired boiler and certainly wouldn’t go back to a wood burner

I loved mine, but can no longer lift anything much. Since I lost my partner I’m aware that ease is priority, so I now have a flame effect almost replica, but last night when it was feeling chilly, a flick of the heating switch was infinitely preferable to waiting for the fire to take, then burn through, before eventually giving off some heat!

ROMILO, I'm 100% with you. we live on a very dense modern housing estate and many of our neighbors have these wood burners. The air is choking in the winter, and can be somewhat fuggy even in summer. I feel for anyone with chest problems. As you say we dare not have the window open even a crack. Ghastly things IMO, even if they are quaint.

We have two but we are very rural and we use it to keep our oil heating costs down.

It’s a no from me. Their contribution to urban pollution and health is significant.

We live in an older house. We tried having cavity wall insulation but it was a disaster and had to have it removed. Narrow cavities and suspended wooden floors on an exposed site means our house is REALLY difficult to heat so yes - we have a woodburning stove or we'd freeze. We don't use it often but when we do, it's absolutely toasty in our sitting room. Thankfully, we're surrounded by fields and our 2 nearest neighbours (who have houses similar to ours) also have stoves.

Love mine - always had one but we are very rural and have rights to any fallen trees/branches on the Downs. Never bought any wood for over 40 years. It’s very hygge as long as you have the new generation wood burning stoves. Save a fortune on heating and in power cuts we can still warm up soup/water etc

I live in a semi-rural area, but not far from the brickwork chimneys, so wood burners are the least of it.

However, I do have 16 trees which need keeping under control, so I am grateful that I have a neighbour who will burn my cuttings. We have a low height restriction on chimneys, so even though he is upwind of us, we never get any problem.

Given that my council will only take the larger pieces in general waste, so they end up in landfill.

The smaller pieces go into an aerobic digester for electricity.

If your neighbour's smoke is a regular nuisance, it is possible that it is not correctly installed, so it would be worth asking your council to check.

I'm asthmatic too but no problems with our woodburner. I do replace the door seal from time to time: a simple job.

Love mine. Live in a village with others who use them. Toasty warm, saves on gas heating. Only use proper dried wood but confess to picking up sticks from the woods to use as kindling. Ash goes on garden or on compost. Probably wouldn't have one in urban area.

Cavemen were burning wood thousands of years ago. Today we have electricity, gas and oil but some people still like the caveman life.

Wood burning stoves are great. Why have anything else when we have free wood? They are not too much bother to clean out and the heat they throw out is amazing, we have to open the sitting room door, as a consequence the heat keeps the hall and landing warm. Three cheers for them.

I would not be without mine. No houses close to me and a free supply of wood. I just have to saw it up. Two wood burning stoves and they heat the whole house and give me hot water all for free.

I wonder if people consider pollution aspects and consequences of their road travel, air travel and cruises when they jet off on holiday.

Congested city roads cause awful fumes. I light my stove for 3-4 hours in the evenings when most people are indoors, on winters nights for max 5 months. I don't have gas. I don't feel bad about it. I don't have holidays, I use my car only locally max 3-4 days per week if that.

My grandmother had an open fire all her life [died 83yrs] and didn't seem to suffer from it. She heated her iron on it, heated the kettle on it and her crumpets were very well received when toasted by it.

I have a similar problem with the smell of smoke permeating through my house. Neighbour erected a small summer house 3 years ago and installed a wood fire. With the low height tge top if the chimney is level with the bedrooms on the back of my house so basically, lounge,kitchen, dining room, bathroom and two bedrooms sell like kippers when the fire goes on. I feel its bad enough chimneys being on top of double storey houses without being allowed on basically sheds. The building is 35'
away from my house.

Fat thumb syndrome smell not sell

Just a quick question. There are enforceable rules concerning the use of wood burners to protect the environment and people's health . A lot of people have said that they get free wood, where do they get the free wood that meets the regulations?

Really like mine and also love the smell of a log fire when you're out walking on a wintry day One place I stayed for a while had a log burner which made me wheeze like mad but think that must have been the wood supply as have no problems with mine.

Graceless What size of log burner did you have to keep it going day abd night yet only clean it out once a week. I was brought up with coal fires and had one when first married and if I wanted to keep the fire going 24 hours I'd need to stay up to stoke it. Had to be cleaned daily in winter. Son has a wood burner and that too would need 24 hour stoking. For daiky use and that's really after work hours, cleaned every two days.

Many people, sadly, use free just cut wood. They do not season it as they should.

ROMILO

Just a quick question. There are enforceable rules concerning the use of wood burners to protect the environment and people's health . A lot of people have said that they get free wood, where do they get the free wood that meets the regulations?

The rules vary depending on where you live and whether you are in a smoke control zone or not. We live in a very rural area with almost unlimited access to free wood, which we cut and store ourselves until it has dried out sufficiently to burn effectively, which you can check with a meter.
Let's face it, almost every type of home heating has its pros and con. Without our free wood, we simply couldn't afford to heat our house, so it's a no-brainer as far as I am concerned.

Daisycuddles Chimney 35' away on top of a shed. I don't need to open widows in winter I do though need to keep vents open and open my door. Indoors instantly smells of smoke.

We had one in our old house and I got fed up having to bring in wood and didn’t like that it cause a lot of dust riddling etc. But the effect was cosy I agree. Everyone here seems to do the “right thing” re the fuel used and if they don’t mind the faff that’s fine. A few of our neighbours have them and we aren’t aware of any smells so perhaps they’re burning the correct fuel too.

If used properly and by the ‘rules’ there should be very little if any smoke and I would look into reporting people who are burning stuff inappropriately. Nothing wrong with Woodburners…..it’s the people….

We absolutely love ours. We had two in our last house and we have one in our current house, a barn conversion, but we do live rurally.
The heat output is brilliant and they are so warm and cosy during those dark winter nights.
I can imagine if you’re in a built up area, it might be a different scenario altogether.