BURNING WOOD - THE FACTS
Happy Friday to you all,
Have you had anybody come up to you yet and say, 'Oh, you're going to have to take your stove out soon' or 'you won't be able to burn wood soon' or 'stoves are going to be banned' ?
What a load of .....ash! You can now tell them they are totally wrong and badly informed!!
In 2019 the Clean Air Act Strategy was announce forming the backbone of negative media coverage on burning wood and woodburning stoves. The original report does not reference any breakdown of appliance type within its “stove” definition, therefore open fires will undoubtedly be included in the study’s figures for “stoves”, which they say account for up to 70% of wood burnt in London alone!!
Since then new key documents and reports have enabled accurate emission modelling and have found the previously accepted contribution of indoor domestic burning to the UK’s PM2.5 emissions has been dramatically over estimated, with almost half the emissions coming from outdoor burning.
*The SIA, (Stove Industry Alliance) have said the main key findings in these studies are:
- Ecodesign Wood Stoves contribute just 2.7% of emissions from indoor burning, while open fires contribute 39%.
- The particulate matter emissions reduction offered by a modern wood burning stove that complies with the new Ecodesign Regulation by comparison is up to 90%.
• Domestic burning releases 47,643 tonnes of PM2.5 a year; of this 46% originates from outdoor burning.
• Emissions from outdoor burning are 9 times higher than the current percentage (5%) attributed to outdoor burning in the 2019 National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI).
• When analysing the relative contributions of outdoor burning to indoor burning for just wood fuels (assuming the banning of house coal and wet wood), outdoor wood burning was found to account for 51% of all domestic wood burning PM2.5 emissions.
• Green waste, waste wood and rubbish combined account for 90% of all outdoor burning emissions.
• Outdoor burning sources emit at ground level with no chimney to provide dispersal at height, unlike a stove.
Andy Hill, chair of the Stove Industry Alliance (SIA), said: “...new research shows that appliances that meet Ecodesign regulations account for a very small percentage of PM2.5 emissions, just 2.7%, whereas open fires contribute over 14 times as much. This provides clear evidence of the benefits of switching to modern Ecodesign stoves and shows that calls for all wood burning stoves to be banned are misguided and based on flawed data.'
*SIA comment on EPHA study into health costs related to PM2.5 from domestic sources, 31st March 2022
So now you know the facts you can burn your stoves with pride and ask these people who think they are being clever and greener than you when they say, 'stoves are to be banned', if they have an open fire or ever have a bonfire! Then tell them they need to get a quote for an Ecodesign Ready stove from The Stove House, as they produce 90% fewer emissions than their open fire and become more eco friendly like you. 😍