I’ve been dreading spending another winter in our new house. Not because it’s not warm inside – the house was completed in 2024 and is very well insulated with an air source heat pump and underfloor heating so we can heat it to a comfortable temperature without worrying about our heating bills, but because the air quality really deteriorates when it’s cold in our new area as so many people use wood-fire burners.
Wood-fire burners are terrible in terms of the amount of air pollution and subsequent health problems that they cause because of the sheer amount of fine particulate matter (PM) that they create:
‘Burning just one kg of wood will pollute 500,000 m3 of completely clean air up to the level of the current WHO air quality guideline for fine particulate matter (10 µg/m3).‘ Where-theres-fire-theres-smoke_domestic-heating-study_2021.pdf
‘Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) released during combustion has the ability to penetrate deep into the lungs and bloodstream, affecting every organ in the body, and leading to or exacerbating various health issues.’ health_impacts_from_domestic_burning_in_the_uk.pdf
These health issues include heart, lung and brain diseases (rcp-summary-for-policymakers-a-breath-of-fresh-air-responding-to-the-health-challenges-of-modern-air-pollution.pdf), and yet sitting around a wood fire has an image of being a cosy, natural things to do. It’s become a stylish status symbol, and you can filter your search for holiday homes based on whether or not they have a wood fire burner, as if it is a desirable item and not one of the best ways to increase your kids chances of getting asthma and you getting dementia.
As when solid fuels like wood are burnt they create more pollution than liquid fuels, even ‘eco’ wood burners create hundreds of times more pollution than gas boilers and oil boilers (see Where-theres-fire-theres-smoke_domestic-heating-study_2021.pdf for a table of emissions from each heating method). They’ve been linked to 2,500 deaths a year in the UK, analysis finds | Air pollution | The Guardian and are a bigger problem than traffic: 2.4 times more PM2.5 pollution from domestic wood burning than traffic | The BMJ despite 90% of the time being used for aesthetic purposes rather than out of necessity.
I’m really hoping Brussels will adopt stronger regulations against wood fire burners and create a smoke free zone as they have in London. It is insane to me that our 2024 new build house came with a wood fire burner. We obviously don’t use as it’s completely unnecessary in an EPC A rated home, but our neighbours (who’s home is virtually identical to ours) do.
This has caused us some very immediate problems because as it’s a new build house and was constructed to be very air tight, it also has a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery (MVHR) to ensure we have enough fresh air circulating in the house. It’s in the attic and the air inlet for the system is located on the roof, approximately 7m away from our neighbours chimney. Whenever they used their fire, our ventilation system would suck in fairly undiluted smoke into our house (and similarly so would their MVHR who’s inlet is even closer to their own chimney).
To cut a long story short, the developer has now raised the chimney heights and it does seem to have helped reduce the smell of smoke in the house. To minimise the pollution we use a special filter and have the speed on the MVHR set to it’s lowest, and we run air purifiers in each bedroom or the living room during evenings when we think (based on our air quality monitor’s readings) that our neighbours are using their fire. I’ve tried telling them how bad the pollution from wood-fire burners is and to use it as little as possible, but to no avail. So here’s hoping some visuals will help! Also if any developers happen to read this: DO NOT INSTALL WOOD FIRE BURNERS IN HOMES WITH MVHR IT IS JUST SILLY.
(I know some people don’t have a choice about using a wood fire burner as it’s their only heating source and it’s too expensive for them to renovate their home. Grants really need to be made available to people in this situation so they can increase the amount of insulation they have and switch their heating system to an ASHP).
More resources on wood fire burner pollution/fine particle pollution:
Wood Burners Beat Traffic as Top Pollution Source, Study Shows
Air Pollution and Noncommunicable Diseases – CHEST
What the Air You Breathe May Be Doing to Your Brain – The New York Times
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