Wood burners in London

[del.gue]

Heard a piece on the radio yesterday that Sadiq Khan is looking at banning wood burning stoves in London due the "pollution" they cause.

The piece seemed a bit ill informed (beeb...so no suprise there) stating that as more people are using them on some days they put out more pollution than than the taffic??

Seems to me that they might be talking about coal fires and multi fuels using coal/smokeless but referred only to wood burners!

Im pretty sure that burning wood is carbon neutral so better than gas.

Im sure the clean air act is still enforceable in cities but it strikes me as more carp from from khan and the beeb?

[wymberley]

Someone should point out to him that they've been burning wood in London since 1666.

[pinfireman]

Well, his dad was a bus driver...............that qualifies him to run London..............

[Walker570]

Modern wood burners burn extremely clean if the wood is dry. I have two Clearviews and the most I get in the tops when I look , maybe once a year, is a couple of handfuls of fine white dust. It is all down to the type of wood burning stove and what is being put on them.

[JRDS]

He must be right up there as the most annoying person in the UK right now.

Edited September 30, 2017 by JRDS

[Yellow Bear]

Modern wood burners burn extremely clean if the wood is dry. I have two Clearviews and the most I get in the tops when I look , maybe once a year, is a couple of handfuls of fine white dust. It is all down to the type of wood burning stove and what is being put on them.

But being a Lieboor mayor and the burners being considered as "Toffs" devices because they are fashionable atm they will be banned shortly.

Edited September 30, 2017 by Yellow Bear

[harkom]

But Just Remember the last perversion - diesel vs petrol - emanated from The Smoke... which identified petrol as the biggest risk to Londoners since ...er..sliced bread (RIP G Brown).

Sound like another scam to boost/enforce sales of another .....what is the word I am looking for.....ah..Entrepreneur....

[JohnfromUK]

I am no supporter of Sadiq Khan and I'm not a supporter of 'banning things' either, but I have done some reading about this and have some minor knowledge of fuel burning.

 

In order for fuel (any fuel) to burn cleanly and with low particulate and oxides of nitrogen emissions, conditions must be very tightly controlled (right temperature, clean dry fuel in the case of solid fuel, no impurities (sulphur etc.) in the fuel, right air volume). This is quite hard to achieve in a wood burner and the main undesirable output is so called 'particulate matter'. These are microscopic and are what the particulate filters on diesel cars are supposed to remove. Most solid fuel burning tends to need to have very hot flue gasses to reduce the particulates and this is achieved by secondary air. Generally when the fire is burning modern fires do quite a good job of reducing this, but it is inevitable that some will be produced during warm up and when it is burned with a very low fire. If it gets too hot, oxides of nitrogen will go up, but I am not sure if this is ever a problem with wood as a fuel.

 

Boilers (gas and oil) can have a much more tightly controlled combustion and so are generally cleaner (particularly gas). Therefore I think that overall, wood isn't a very suitable fuel for city use where flue gasses (and particles in them) are not easily dissipated. The problem isn't really the fire or the fuel, it is more one of the density of fires and local layout (streets confining air movement) that exaggerate the effects where these are installed in quantity in cities.

[manthing]

Would have thought most larger urban conurbations would be covered by the clean air bill amd so you would only beagle to burn smokeless.