{"id":1478,"date":"2013-01-30T23:06:01","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T22:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=1478"},"modified":"2013-06-28T19:13:56","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T18:13:56","slug":"in-praise-of-wood-burners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=1478","title":{"rendered":"In praise of wood-burners"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Our cat loves the wood-burner!<\/p><\/div>\n

The Guardian newspaper has three editorials in the newsprint edition everyday.\u00a0 Two of these are on global\/local events from political perspective.\u00a0 The other is a positive one on something or someone (in praise of…).\u00a0 Last week it was on\u00a0 “In praise of wood-burners”.\u00a0 The mark of a Guardian reader is not just wearing sandals and eating muesli but now includes owning a wood-burner. \u00a0 I do read the Guardian, I am not guilty of the first two but I am of the last one.<\/p>\n

This editorial got quite a reaction with a number of letters published in the print edition slagging off wood-burners, mostly from the pollution and wood supply perspective.\u00a0 I wrote a response but I don’t think it will be published.<\/p>\n

On the pollution point the criticism was that people were using wood that was too wet and therefore too much smoke was coming out of the chimneys.\u00a0 Now its true that water does not burn.\u00a0 Wood needs to be seasoned.\u00a0 Ash will burn green wet although presumably it burns better when dry.\u00a0 However,\u00a0 in my experience logs when split with an axe (along the grain) burn well after about 6 months of drying.\u00a0 Leylandii and Cyprus dry in about 5-8 weeks. Leylandii burns well.\u00a0 Cyprus although closely related is more mixed.<\/p>\n

One person wrote that they produce smoke out of the chimney when the stoves temperature is less than 200\u00b0<\/span>C.\u00a0 This is not correct as far as my wood-burners documentation is concerned.\u00a0 At any temperature above 120\u00b0C the stove is in clean burn mode and no smoke should be visible coming out of the chimney.\u00a0 I get smoke emerging when I’m lighting it but as the stoves gets hotter this smoke diminishes.\u00a0 I put loads of air through when lighting it, but once its hot load it up with wood and turn the air down so its almost closed off.\u00a0 The wood burns with dancing mainly blue flames presumably since the wood is undergoing pyrolysis (the chemical decomposition without oxygen) forming hydrogen and methane.\u00a0 There is almost no visible smoke from my chimney at this point,\u00a0 or my neighbours chimneys.\u00a0 In fact it took years to work out that they had wood-burners as well since I could smell the wood-smoke but not work out where it was coming from.\u00a0 [In very cold weather steam is visible from the chimneys].\u00a0 The writer complained people were using it as low level incinerators.\u00a0 If they are they are making a mistake.\u00a0 I don’t burn plastic or wood with paint on.\u00a0 I do put small amounts of chicken bones and bacon rind in.\u00a0 In the UK (I cannot speak for other countries) only stoves exempted under the clean air act can be used in built up areas.\u00a0 This testing used to take five years.\u00a0 So used properly stoves should not cause a pollution issue.<\/p>\n

Another criticism is wood supply.\u00a0 I get mine from two sources.\u00a0 People who know me and are having trees taken down and scrap wood.\u00a0 The scrap wood is either wooden floorboards, pallets or joists removed due to woodworm or rot, or joiners mistakes.\u00a0 I am careful not to sit the old rotten or infested wood in the house and prioritise its burning.\u00a0 Scrap wood of course is dry so burns well producing no smoke.\u00a0 It tends to have nails in it though.\u00a0 We cover wood supply in more detail in “No oil in the lamp”.\u00a0 Suffice to say I would not rely on it for your heating.\u00a0 I find scrap wood easy to find at the moment although I’m highly proactive.\u00a0 But this ease may change in the future.\u00a0 I heard a disturbing report on the news last week from Greece.\u00a0 Due to the high oil price and extreme economic problems people there are demolishing ancient forests for firewood to keep warm this winter.\u00a0 Hopefully not a sign of things to come.<\/p>\n

Lastly everybody loves the stove; cat, children and home-group.\u00a0 Last week on of our American members almost got in it!<\/p>\n

Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Guardian newspaper has three editorials in the newsprint edition everyday.\u00a0 Two of these are on global\/local events from political perspective.\u00a0 The other is a positive one on something or someone (in praise of…).\u00a0 Last week it was on\u00a0 “In … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-practical-low-carbon-living","category-renewables"],"yoast_head":"\nwood-burners about them<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The mark of a Guardian reader is not just wearing sandals and eating muesli but now includes owning a wood-burner. 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