Stove Industry Alliance responds to pollution concerns
The Stove Industry Alliance (SIA) responds to a recent article published on Air Quality News by Dr Rebecca Booth.
The SIA has long maintained that the ‘38% PM2.5 attributable to domestic combustion’ as quoted in the Clean Air Strategy, and attributed to stoves and open fires, has been significantly overstated and there are three key reasons why:
- The most recent government data from research conducted by Kantar (1) shows the volume of wood fuel being used for indoor use is estimated to be 1.73 million tonnes and NOT the 6 million tonnes that BEIS (2) found in 2016 and which was used in the 38% calculation. Using this more recent government figure would reduce the 38% figure by more than two thirds.
- The emissions factors used to calculate the 38% are three times higher than the emissions levels permitted under the new Ecodesign Regulations for solid fuel stoves that come into force in the UK on 1st January 2022. The industry awaits a review of these emissions factors
by the NAEI. - Furthermore, the corroborating measurements used to assert the 38% figure and taken at air quality monitoring stations are subject to significant levels of uncertainty. The particulates measured also include emissions from various unregulated outdoor burning such as bonfires, fire pits, incinerators, wildfires, pizza ovens and commercial waste burning.
The comparison between a modern wood burner and an HGV is highly misleading and is like comparing apples to oranges.
There is wide agreement in the scientific press that non-exhaust emissions of particulate matter are greater than exhaust emissions. AQEG, Defra’s Air Quality Expert Group, estimates that it is over 10 times the emission rate. The comparison cited by Dr Booth takes no account of this.
We must be very careful comparing two completely dissimilar things and if we do, we must be transparent in the presentation of the data rather than simply misquoting scientific evidence.
What is not shown in the 1:750 diesel truck comparison is how long a GJ of useful low-carbon heat generated by a wood burning stove will last in a domestic setting, compared to how far an HGV will drive in the same period.
The SIA is producing some verified data to show how much PM2.5 is emitted by a wood-burning stove compared to how much a modern HGV emits under typical use and will be pleased to share these findings with Air Quality News in due course.
Dr Booth’s final point about the SIA only making comparisons to the most polluting sources of domestic heat i.e., open fires. We do this as the apportionment of emissions in the NAEI is a very complex area and by comparing open fires and older stoves to modern Ecodesign compliant models, the public can
better understand the vast reduction in emissions that can be achieved by replacing old for new.
A modern Ecodesign wood burning stove produces up to 90% less emissions than an open fire and up to 80% less than a stove that is 10+ years old. To put that in context, in London approximately 70% of wood being used for home heating is being burnt on an open fire (3).
The new clearSkies appliance certification scheme is further evidence of the industry’s commitment to improve air quality by going beyond the legal requirements of Ecodesign to deliver even lower emissions and even greater efficiency (clearSkies Levels 4 & 5).
As well as considering air quality, we must also consider the carbon impact of heating our homes and the sustainability of the fuel we use to do so. A modern Ecodesign stove has less than 1/10th the carbon intensity of gas or electric heating and, when burning wood, is not using a fossil fuel to generate heat.
Against a backdrop of rapidly rising energy prices, wood-burning become increasingly cost-effective as well as being low emission, low carbon and sustainable.
This article is response to an article written by Dr Rebecca Booth, click here to view.
(1)Source: Estimating UK domestic solid fuel consumption, using Kantar data, Summary of results and discussion; Annexe A of ‘Burning in UK
Homes & Gardens’ Date: December 2020; Version: 1.0; Project code (Omnicom number): AQ1017)
(2) Source: Domestic Wood Survey, 2015/16
(3) Source: London Air
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We have prolific woodburners to the front and rear of us. We can’t use our garden when the neighbours are burning. You will get a sore throat if you spend more than a few minutes outside. We have had to block up all our air bricks to stop the smoke getting in. We have had to buy air purifiers to keep our indoor air as clean as possible. Your hair and clothes stink of smoke if you are outside for more than a few minutes. They are using modern stoves and dry wood. Is this an acceptable way for us to live? This is the reality of living near woodburners. So sia what do you suggest we do? Should we just have to put up with it?
Politely ask them to look at the reports about wood burning being harmful to health. This one for example. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/17/wood-burners-urban-air-pollution-cancer-risk-study
We had that too, got bad asthma and had to move house in the end and lost a lot of money. You have our sympathies Robert and no, no one should have to put up with this. Can you get a fine partilce meter and show it to someone from your local council (environmental officer)? If the level is very high very often perhaps they can get this bad burning stopped. Good luck.
@SIA
You should depate about health impact from you industry.
Danger of wood burning is known from years.
Pellets contains further more heavy metal.
A mass assesment of ALL components is the only way to have a scientific dialog.
Before comparing, you should be transparent on real emissions and real impact on health.
The comparison is not what is important, what is important is that your pretended healthy stove have toxic emissions that are not yet even assessed properly, the PM 2.5 is only a part of the problem, the ultra thin particules are even worth …
It ashamed to conduct such a unhealthy lobbying.
https://eeb.org/library/where-theres-fire-theres-smoke-emissions-from-domestic-heating-with-wood/
The so called CO2 neutrallity is just a convention, pretending compensation occurs at day 1…which is unthrue.
Another opportunity for the smoke industry to promote their questionable products. Comparing an HGV to a log heater is a good comparison and shows how much these log burner users get away with. It’s only apples and oranges because it doesn’t suit your agenda, correct? As national governments move away from polluting industries, it is only a matter of time before the log burners go the way of the coal-fired power station and diesel vehicles.
Any industry who build their business model based on the tobacco industry circa 1960 as the Stove Industry Alliance do is not worth listening to.
Throughout COVID we have been told listen to the science.
With the climate crisis we have been told to listen to the science.
Yet with wood burning and biomass, the industry working for their own profit tell us not to listen to the science, because they have the FACTS. Yet they provide no facts of their own to prove the integrity of their products, and only seek to cast doubt on the mountain of scientific and medical evidence against them. Classic tobacco industry tactics from all those years ago.
The problem is also lack of regulation and allowing the industry to effectively regulate itself. As Private Eye magazine put it when writing about the stove industry – they are being allowed to mark their own homework. Much tighter restrictions are required for this industry, and they should play no further role in setting those regulations.
To me the difficulty is that burning Natural Gas means drilling and fracking causing endless damage to our planet, Wood burning releases particulates and carcinogens and no matter how “green” these products become they will never be perfect. So why do we buy them? In short, to heat our homes, electricity is still prohibitively expensive per KW regardless of the number of wind farms and solar farms we invest in. Hydrogen as a replacement for Natural gas is coming and this will be cleaner but who knows what the effect of so many tons of water vapour in our atmosphere will be?
There are no cost effective viable alternatives particularly for those outside of cities who use Oil, wood, or LPG as their primary heat source. Stoves began selling big before the SIA introduced their ecodesign and clearskies products so in some ways they have responded well. Where they fail is by encouraging transition from cleaner products to wood, but can anybody really say they didn’t expect SIA to protect its own interests? If the SIA lobbied against wood burning we may well see Turkeys voting for Christmas.
Funding research into alternative fuel sources and subsidising the crossover to these products is the way forward but in the short term attempts to make all fuel sources cleaner and more efficient should be and are the primary focus for existing manufacturers.
In the meantime we’ll be subjected to arguments for and against with both sides “cherrypicking” their data and their facts in much the same way as the pharmaceutical industry and this just creates further confusion for consumers who will often buy with their heart not their head.
Energy Expert Dr Tim Forcey explains in this webinar in February 2022 that heat pump hot water systems are eligible for renewable energy certificates because it takes just 1 unit of electricity to generate 4.5 units of hot water. Modern, efficient, modern reverse cycle air conditioners (also called heat pumps) can do even better. They, too move the sun’s warmth from outside to inside homes, and can deliver 5 or 6 times as much heat to the home as they use in electric power. They are now the cheapest and most environmentally friendly heating option, with substantially lower running costs than buying firewood.
As explained in this New Scientist video, Log-burning stoves are harming our health and speeding up global warming https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10155097669589589
If households currently using conventional electric bar fires and fan heaters also switch to heat pumps, overall electricity consumption will probably reduce – a win for our health and a win for the climate as we transition to renewable electric power.
Where I live in Portland, Oregon (USA) wood smoke is the leading contributor to pm2.5 during winter time and increasingly throughout the year. Rivaled only by all tail pipe emissions combined, wood burning not only harms our health and cognitive outcomes, it contributes climate warming methane as well as black and brown soot. The SIA and all wood furnace producers should begin to create options for a new era. We want beautiful electric stoves for hearth insert and replacement of dirty wood-burning stoves. We want outdoor electric stoves that are easy and safe to use in all weather.
Log burners, which the SIA promote are scientifically proven to belch out huge amounts of carcinogens. Right where people live.
Hands up those of you who are happy for your family to breath in the toxic cocktail of carcinogens emitted from these things. I’m not. My family’s health matters to me.
We all need safe clean air to stay healthy.
The bottom line here is that the SIA want to make money. They will promote their filthy polluting products in any way possible to get further sales.
Is this ethical? Certainly not.
Domestic wood burners should be banned. We live next door to one and can’t open windows or sit in the garden. Our cars, window sills and patio are covered in soot. Goodness knows what damage is being done to our health. There is no safe level ban all wood burning.
Living with neighbouring wood burning stoves is hideous. The air outside stinks far worse than any HGV I’ve encountered – it goes on for hours and sometimes for days. At times the foul smell fills the house. We can’t open windows for “fresh air”. We can’t hang our washing out. The neighbours don’t care – otherwise they’d stop their recreational burning. These are houses with central heating systems. Wood burning is a fashion item for them – totally unnecessary. I would never buy a house with wood burners in the neighbourhood.
If HETAS (in the UK) had any real function, it would be to install AQ monitors around neighbouring properties and publish the results. Then be made to pay to have all the offending wood burners removed.
So simple solution mandatory in Norway Electrostatic particulate filters fitted on top of the chimney reduce particulates by 95% and can easily be retrofitted. Just requires political will legislation and enforcement.
Alternatively just ban them.
Well, I’m sorry at your obvious concern about the viability of your business, but my neighbours have a newish (2years) woodburning stove and when they use it we can smell it in every room in our house, and when outside, all the way down the road. Another neighbour’s child has asthma. Regardless of arguments about what produces the worst pollution, I believe all woodstoves should be banned in urban areas. Pollution is a killer and wood burning is a big source. London Mayor is about to run an anti wood burning campaign, supported unanimously by all GLA members. Many want to clean our air – it’s killing us.
You are poisoning air inside and outside our homes and giving out false information.
This is simply about profit and no one cares about the environment.
Facts have always been banded around to make money. People that write articles to self promote themselves are a curse on modern society. Rebbeca will be making a name for herself by these articles. However undoubtedly the biggest problem facing humanity is global warming. How a reasonably intelligent person at present can advocate replacing a low carbon heat source with burning more fossil fuel is beyond me. Especially as gas emissions in a residential area are a chemical nightmare. Further science is coming up with an answer to this over stated problem. Electro static filters.
I seek to disagree about “making a name for herself” – could it not be that this person just wants the truth out there? And to help stop some people from ruining the health of their chidlren and neighbours? Whereas the stogve retailers, backed by the SIA, want to make money? Wood burning emits just as much CO2 as coal and it is not carbon-neutral. Look it up.
Hi Mike, thanks for pointing out that people band about facts to make money…. Enter the Stove Industry to save the day with their FACTS and make lots of money for themselves and their members.
Last time I looked burning wood released vast amounts of Co2. Until you find a tree that grows at fast as it burns, burning trees is not a climate solution. Are you the same Mike from the coppicing lobby by any chance that bands about a lot of made up FACTS to make money? Chopping bits off trees is terrible for the long term health of the tree which in turn is terrible for climate and the local ecosystems.
Last time I looked wood stove emissions were far more of a chemical nightmare in residential areas. Just giant cigarettes pumping out filth and ruining peoples lives. No gas boiler ever made my skin smell like a wood burning stove does.
Electro static filters, utter waste of time another false solution so, as you point out, somebody can make lots of money. Wood releases far too much tar when burned for filters to be a long term viable solution, and they may deal with solids such as PM but what about the other toxins and carcinogens released.
It’s not Rebecca who is making money by bandying around untrue facts. It’s the stove industry.
Anyone who wants to know the truth should consider independent, reliable sources such as the New Scientist who say: “Log-burning stoves are harming our health and speeding up global warming.”
Wood stoves are the last product a person who cares about the climate would want to use – at least one intelligent enough to read check the facts.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10155097669589589
Why pollute the air when there are alternatives that are non polluting. Burning trees also leads to deforestation and is only carbon neutral if all felled trees are replaced which takes decades. Earlier this year 500+ scientists wrote to the EU regarding tree burning for energy saying “The burning of wood will increase warming for decades to centuries. That is true even when the wood replaces coal, oil or natural gas”
It’s “these cigarettes are a bit milder on the throat” all over again, and we know how much disease and death that led to. There’s no such thing as no harm smoke. SIA should help its members transition to selling clean heating methods – the retailers already have a brand, a customer base etc. they just need to offer better choices.
This industry is building a house of cards based on half truths and misrepresentation of facts.
Even the ‘low cost’ is a complete lie. Has anybody looked at the price of a bulk bag of seasoned firewood. They can’t even stop themselves lying about this.
“better understand the vast reduction in emissions that can be achieved by replacing old for new” Another lie given they sell so many new stoves to those who intent to use their “new” wood burning stove as an alternative to their “old” gas boiler. Absolute desperation to try and spin this one in the way they have. Yes please let’s give people this information too.
Another question for the Stove Industry – Is it true you are involved in helping to ‘stimulate’ the firepit/pizza over market in order for you to then turn around and say “it’s not us govenor, it’s those pesky firepits and pizza ovens”? A little birdy told me you were involved with this to deliberately muddy the waters of the source of the 38%.
The trouble is that we can measure pollutants but we can’t attribute where the pollutants came from. The figures attributed to wood burners are a guess based on numbers and how it’s thought that they are used.
I made a post earlier about repeated articles in The Guardian about how wood burners flood the inside of your house with toxic nasties and bought a cheap PM 2.5 meter. Ours doesn’t. What did send the measurements up was last summer with all the doors and windows open and somebody, but several houses away, not even sure exactly where, was having a BBQ. Indeed the smoke from the BBQs on a campsite we once stayed at must have been visible from space. So I suggest that you go after BBQs with the same vigour you go after wood burners.
Flood? Funny I never heard that term used in any of those articles. Are you telling us your PM sensor detected no PM2.5?
More misinformation from the stove industry, they always use the same tactics, blame all the other far less common sources and be very selective about the statistics referenced. The truth is there is no clean way to burn solid fuels in a domestic home and what is produced from even the most efficient burners is known to include carcinogenic compounds that are released into the surrounding residential areas and these will always enter neighbours homes. Also, there is evidence from other parts of the developed world that have shown in tests the results from wood burning in actual homes settings that show the burners to be far more polluting than laboratory testing suggests.
By the way : No one invented the eletric light by improving the candle…
Your article is not helping progress
Whether it be 38% or 12% it should be banned as WHO states there is no safe level of PM2.5. If you set something alight it emits and especially when it’s a known Carcinogen
People of Norway may be a little upset as their building regs demand a heating source other than gas or electric in case of failure. Generally this is a wood fired system without which many Norwegians would freeze to death in sub zero winter temperatures (-40) and power failures. Norwegians get 25% of their heating nationally from burning wood, 1.5 million metric tons per annum. Try telling them to give up their wood burners and possibly freeze to death. Try reading Norwegian Wood by Lars Mytting for a different perspective.
Good point but UK isn’t Norway.
And even Norway is getting concerned about pollution from wood burning.
Norwegian Institute of Public Health: Studies show that pollution from both traffic (exhaust gases and road dust) and wood-burning are significant. Metal that is bound to particulate matter can contribute to health effects. Organic compounds such as PAH bind to combustion particles and may contribute to the development of cancer. One of the components (benzo [a] pyrene – BaP) is used as a marker for the carcinogenic effects of PAHs. To reduce particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide further in outdoor air, measures against road traffic, particulate matter, wood-burning and industrial emissions must be extended. Intensified measures against air pollution by particulate matter from roads, car exhausts and exchange old with new heaters are planned (Norwegian Environmental Agency).
Article by the Norwegian Institute for Air Research:
https://www.nilu.com/2017/03/wood-burning-pollutes-the-urban-air-in-norway/
“The use of wood for residential heating is increasing in Norway, as it is in the rest of Europe. What most do not realize is that residential heating with fuelwood increases emissions of harmful pollutants and consequently the undesirable environmental effects, especially in urban areas characterized by high population density. Wood burning, along with traffic, is a main contributor to particulate matter in many European cities, and together they often cause high pollution episodes during winter” …. “in Finland wood burning is a common heating source mainly in detached houses, whereas in France, Italy or Spain it is mostly restricted to rural areas. In Norway, many apartments are equipped with wood burning stoves, and thus wood burning can be considered a common heating source in both urban and rural areas” …. “Around 86% of the participants think that Oslo and Akershus have a problem regarding air quality. They identified around 700 points as air pollution hotspots, associating them with traffic, wood combustion and shipping as main pollution sources” ….. “Lopez-Aparicio also thinks that how people perceive their environment is important for whether or not they will accept implementation of certain policy measures, such as car-free areas, banning of diesel vehicles in specific areas, or forced replacement of old wood burning stoves. As she sees it, the results from their study supports co-benefit measures that involves the citizens and are designed towards a sustainable urban environment”.