Comment on Wood heater pollution is a silent killer. Here's where the smoke is worst
Tau@aussie.zone 1 week agoFires are horrible.
They’re about the best feeling source of heat around, so not horrible.
Very difficult to controll the heat output
It’s not particularly difficult to control the heat output, it’s just a matter of how you load it and how much air you let in. They don’t do well for extremely low heat output, but at that sort of cold just put on a jumper instead.
they also are very costly to run
Used to cost about $20 a tonne for wood a few years back when I was in a place with a fire, plus maybe another $50 per tonne in fuel for the ute and saws to gather it (so ~$70 a tonne total). Was a hell of a lot cheaper than gas and a lot cheaper than electricity.
require a lot of maintenance
It’s just popping up onto the roof once a year and taking ash out every week or so, I never found it a big deal.
require a lot of space to store the wood
This I’ll grant you, given how tiny modern yards are. You need a square metre or two for the wood and another couple for room to split it - not much in a traditional suburban backyard but it’s noticeable in newer blocks where you have bugger all room around the house.
the vast majority of the heat will always be lost through the chimney. poor efficiency coupled with extremely high particulate output. the maintenance may be easy for you today, but for people with mobility issues chimney issues can quickly become fire hazards.
meanwhile, you’re in AUSTRALIA, sunlight is plentiful and battery tech will store and dole out that power all night. I don’t see why anyone wants it besides ‘ehh feels real cozy’
That poor efficiency isn’t even compared to a modern heat pump, either. In terms of heat output vs energy consumption, they can be up to 400% efficient.
yup. and that heatpump could easily be powered by solar, which is abundantly available here.
was cheaper.
Still is, I just had a look and forestry is still selling permits for $16 a tonne. Currently only available further away than I used to get so the fuel part of the cost would rise if I had a fire at the moment, but it’d be noticeably cheaper and better than paying more to feel colder like I currently am with an air con setup.
sunlight is plentiful and battery tech will store and dole out that power all night.
Given cost is an issue I don’t think I’m going to be pulling ~$50k out of my arse to install a solar and battery setup that might be able to run a heater all night.
lol downvote away it’s not changing physics you dingus
Well I see you’ve downvoted my comment and I hadn’t downvoted yours, but that’s about to change.
You go and collect your own wood? From land you own? Is it sustainably sourced? I don’t know where you live but it’s a few hundred a ton, here, now and has been for about 10 years.
That was buying firewood permits off NSW Forestry in the broader region around Canberra, which I looked and they’re still doing at $16 per tonne (albeit only in the further away forests at this point). They give areas you can pick firewood from after logging operations, you’re just not allowed to fell trees. You do have to be able to go out and saw it then haul it back yourself. If you’ve got a current collection area near you it’s a very cost effective method, even if you have to drive a fair way it still works out cheaper than buying it elsewhere.
another couple for room to split it
You split your own wood? I’m in the USA so maybe it’s different here, but when I lived in a house with a wood stove, I bought my wood pre-split from a guy who presumably did it with a machine.
We buy our wood from a guy who delivers it in a mix, some smaller, split pieces and some larger. So need to split probably 3/4 with a block splitter.
The larger pieces are good for an open fire, but ours is closed.
Always did through my childhood and continued on that way, would do so again if I had a place with a fire. We’d saw into rounds when collecting and load them up then split and stack at home.
Plenty of people do buy pre split wood here though, I’d expect it’s the source for the majority. Not everyone has the ability, inclination, or the equipment to go out and get firewood and it gets hard to find sources to collect wood in the bigger cities.
Heat pumps generator 3kwh heat per 1kwh electricity you or in. Nothing beats it. It would be like getting 3 logs of heart out of 1 log. Fireplace you can’t say i want my room at 22 degrees. Also if you come the fire, then you are wasting money cause the wood is but burning properly, Thefore you are wearing moneyq. I grew up with a fireplace, fireplaces are shit compared with heat pumps.
If you buy the wood… perhaps. But if you know some people in the arborist business, you can have all the wood you could ever need for free. However, it is a lot of hard work to saw and split the wood yourself.
If you get it free. It would still be wet and need double the space to store it. 1 space to dry it and 1 space for the dry stuff that you can burn.
If your burning wood in 2025, youre most likely living in a rural area. Space isnt an issue.
psud@aussie.zone 1 week ago
A single high efficiency wood heater can fill a valley with visible smoke. I can’t believe that breathing that density of smoke can be healthy. The valley I live in is full of smoke from mid spring through to new years, I wonder how many are killed by that smoke
ozeng@aus.social 1 week ago
@psud @Tau so you live in a valley with exactly 1 modern wood heater do you? Hyperbole much..
psud@aussie.zone 5 days ago
The valley I live in holds thousands of houses, there are hundreds of fires during colder parts of the year
Every now and then we get seriously thick smoke from the coast on the sea breeze
I have been to rural areas where the density is far less and have seen a single house’s chimney fill a valley in still air
ozeng@aus.social 5 days ago
@psud ok so you don’t know for a fact they’re using a modern high-efficiency wood heater like you said earlier… hence my hyperbole comment.
There are absolutely people who should not be operating wood stoves, but there are also a lot of people who should not get behind the wheel of a car. Banning something unfairly punishes those who use the thing responsibly.