{"id":8389,"date":"2019-02-13T22:20:21","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T21:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8389"},"modified":"2019-02-13T22:20:21","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T21:20:21","slug":"need-talk-woodburners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8389","title":{"rendered":"We need to talk about woodburners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Woodburners come up in the news a lot at the moment.\u00a0 And not in a good way. They are much maligned as a source of air pollution.\u00a0 Confession time I have a woodburner which I love, so it was with interest and some trepidation I heard that the the radio 4 programme \"DSC_2911\"<\/a>“More or Less” was covering the issue.\u00a0 For those of you this programme throws a unbiased eye over statistics in the news.\u00a0 For example the same programme briefly has a look at the statistic that had been in the news that week that the average length that someone (women) kept new clothes was 5 weeks.\u00a0 It turns out that is completely untrue and was plucked of thin air.\u00a0 But I digress…<\/p>\n

All combustion produces oxides of nitrogen (NOX), soot and carbon monoxide (a product of incomplete combustion).\u00a0\u00a0 Most combustion produces sulphur dioxide as well.\u00a0 NOX is produced largely since air is nearly 80% nitrogen.\u00a0 This is present as a molecule made up of two nitrogen molecules joined by a very stable triple bond. \u00a0 The energy of combustion is enough to break this bond and the nitrogen reacts with any oxygen present.\u00a0 This is true of central heating, wood burning,\u00a0 in fact any combustion.\u00a0 Gas central heating produces soot, NOX and sulpher dioxide since the compound added to give it odour is a sulpher based organic.\u00a0 After the concern over acid rain in the 1980’s cars in all Western countries had to be fitted with catalytic converters.\u00a0 In addition NOX is carcinogenic.\u00a0 Petrol cars have three way cats fitted these remove the NOX, organic hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide.\u00a0 Diesel cars have two way cats fitted these remove the last two but not the NOX for technical reasons.\u00a0 Under EU rules new diesels have particulate filters fitted to remove the smallest particles.\u00a0 These are known as PM2.5’s due to their size (2.5 millionth of a millimetre).\u00a0 These particles are now known to have a very wide range of health effects, none of them good.\u00a0 Its been found that 100 \u00b5g\/m3<\/sup> increase of PM2.5, the morbidity of residents increased by 12.07% (1).\u00a0 There has been a clear correlation between some asthma deaths and PM2.5’s.\u00a0 So its a serious problem.<\/p>\n

Now getting back to woodburners.\u00a0 The UK government states that 38% of all PM2.5’s comes from burning wood (notice the subtle distinction).\u00a0 Up until now my view as been as the following*;<\/p>\n