what is the burning passion for having an open fire?

Graces7 · 11-12-2019 7:06am

Out here; islanded, and burn island turf from the field next door, and coal. The stove has a back boiler so that heats the water.

That way I pay as I use so no nasty shocks from ESB... I cook by bottled gas for the same reason.

I no longer run a car; am island and all but housebound. Do not use a washing machine as it proved impossible to get anyone over to plumb my new one in.
.
Swings and roundabouts and free choices and life style. At my advanced age, a real fire has been a lifelong resource.

Oh no one here coughs and splutters and we all burn turf. The Atlantic winds sort that.

stefanovich · 11-12-2019 7:13am

Bobblehats wrote: »

Women in Love?

Loafing Oaf · 11-12-2019 11:19am

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

Labour’s Alan Kelly started the idea in 2015 - due to be banned nationally in all towns , cities and villages of Ireland in autumn 2018

and Minister for Climate Action and Environment Richard Bruton has now confirmed it will be pushed back. He gave no indication of when the ban would come into force - so shelved indefinitely it sounds like

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/government-delays-plans-for-smoky-coal-ban-following-legal-threats-from-industry-1.3849945?fbclid=IwAR1bJ2yurUq-EJwqd3_vFOZSTgRNmDcAcBAjT7aHYZutQQzFeV8VIIxk0Ws

You're saying Alan Kelly initially proposed the nationwide smoky coal ban? But I'm asking where the idea of extending that to turf and timber came out of. Varadkar certainly seems to be disociating himself from it...

s7ryf3925pivug · 11-12-2019 2:27pm

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

You're saying Alan Kelly initially proposed the nationwide smoky coal ban? But I'm asking where the idea of extending that to turf and timber came out of. Varadkar certainly seems to be disociating himself from it...

The premise the coal industry would use to sue the government is that it is not consistent to ban smokey coal but not peat and wood. So the only way to ban smokey coal nationwide without expecting to be sued would be to ban the others as well.

Loafing Oaf · 11-12-2019 2:37pm

Jonathan Dazzling Heat wrote: »

The premise the coal industry would use to sue the government is that it is not consistent to ban smokey coal but not peat and wood. So the only way to ban smokey coal nationwide without expecting to be sued would be to ban the others as well.

I get that but I'm not seeing who is actually saying, or implying, we should actually do the bolded bit.

s7ryf3925pivug · 11-12-2019 2:47pm

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

I get that but I'm not seeing who is actually saying, or implying, we should actually do the bolded bit.

Absolutely should ban turf and peat. Banning wood seems impractical and possibly counter productive. High efficiency wood burning stoves and wood pellet boilers are advocated as being carbon neutral. There also are people who depend on burning solid fuel to keep warm.

There is going to be a public consultation on the matter anyway. I'm sure the voice of reason will be drowned out as usual.

s7ryf3925pivug · 11-12-2019 2:48pm

Irish and simple solution is to ban it all and just not enforce the wood burning ban.

2lazytogetup · 11-12-2019 3:02pm

Idea of wood burning being carbon neutral is untrue and a marketing ploy from stove producers. Cant remember all the details but many wood logs are transported from as far away as china and the burning efficicency is only 20%.

My biggest problem is the selfishness of homes burning wood and peat and coal. All the fumes go outside onto the roads and paths and very detrimental to health of neighbours and people outside. Could be GAA training, or kids in a school yard. Its like f**k them outside, i dont care as long as I want a fire inside my house, it doesnt matter what other people think, as long as i am happy, thats all that matters.

s7ryf3925pivug · 11-12-2019 3:16pm

2lazytogetup wrote: »

Idea of wood burning being carbon neutral is untrue and a marketing ploy from stove producers. Cant remember all the details but many wood logs are transported from as far away as china and the burning efficicency is only 20%.

My biggest problem is the selfishness of homes burning wood and peat and coal. All the fumes go outside onto the roads and paths and very detrimental to health of neighbours and people outside. Could be GAA training, or kids in a school yard. Its like f**k them outside, i dont care as long as I want a fire inside my house, it doesnt matter what other people think, as long as i am happy, thats all that matters.

I concluded wood burning stoves are bad after looking into them alright. It might behave been more to do with particulate than carbon. We disposed of our stove and bricked up the fireplace. I was under the impression wood pellet boilers are a good option where heat pumps aren't suitable though.

pablo128 · 11-12-2019 4:20pm

My brother in law lives in Sweden. I was over there talking to a friend of his who lives outside the town in a one off house, with a few neighbours within sight.

They all use wood pellet burners. They are electrically controlled, and don't leave a lot of ash. Now it was probably 6 or 7 years ago, but they used about 1200 euro worth a year. (It can get down to -30°c).

If a country like Sweden readily allows it, it cant be that bad in my book.

sbsquarepants · 11-12-2019 5:16pm

2lazytogetup wrote: »

Idea of wood burning being carbon neutral is untrue and a marketing ploy from stove producers. Cant remember all the details but many wood logs are transported from as far away as china and the burning efficicency is only 20%.

.

Not if you burn them in Belfast, then they magically become 200% efficient. That Arlene bloke is some geebag.:D

I personally don't see the appeal of open fires, yeah fires are nice to look at but they are an absolute pain in the hole to light, clean and control.

I always wanted one of those big american gas fired fireplaces though. Looks the part but flick a switch to light and no cleaning. The gas inserts you get here never look right. They must hoor through the gas though.

Ubbquittious · 11-12-2019 8:04pm

2lazytogetup wrote: »

Idea of wood burning being carbon neutral is untrue and a marketing ploy from stove producers. Cant remember all the details but many wood logs are transported from as far away as china and the burning efficicency is only 20%.

My biggest problem is the selfishness of homes burning wood and peat and coal. All the fumes go outside onto the roads and paths and very detrimental to health of neighbours and people outside. Could be GAA training, or kids in a school yard. Its like f**k them outside, i dont care as long as I want a fire inside my house, it doesnt matter what other people think, as long as i am happy, thats all that matters.

I doubt there is anyone here bringing logs in from China that havn't been first turned into crappy furniture.

From what I can tell there aren't enough fires being lit to worsen the air quality enough to deem it unhealthy. If it does happen it will be very localised and only on very calm days. Other people will always have some effect on your life unless you want to live in some technophile utopia city where everyone is physically prevented from having any contact with each other and possibly plugged into a matrix of some form

Ubbquittious · 11-12-2019 8:06pm

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Not if you burn them in Belfast, then they magically become 200% efficient. That Arlene bloke is some geebag.:D

I personally don't see the appeal of open fires, yeah fires are nice to look at but they are an absolute pain in the hole to light, clean and control.

I always wanted one of those big american gas fired fireplaces though. Looks the part but flick a switch to light and no cleaning. The gas inserts you get here never look right. They must hoor through the gas though.

This stuff about them being a pain in the hole to clean keeps coming up but I wonder how long do people spend cleaning them? Even if you're burning turf week in week out surely you'd spend no more than a few minutes cleaning the thing and the lighting is easy unless your fuel is damp

Mic 1972 · 11-12-2019 8:09pm

I have a gas fire, it looks very sleek and keeps the room really warm, it's real fire not one of those electrical fakes

deezell · 11-12-2019 8:25pm

From the tone of some of the anti stove replies here, do I detect a whiff (Pardon the Pun) of that new social media phenomenon, 'shaming'? 'Emissions' or "stove' or solid fuel shaming? If so, you can fcuk off back to Twatter or Faceache, boards is a discussion forum. Make your point and support it with facts, not your holier than thou put downs and opinions of those who have a different world view to you. You like stoves? Fine. You like hermetically sealed underfloor heated incubator homes? Good for you. Tell us why you like them, not why you detest the people who think differently.

air · 11-12-2019 8:27pm

Ubbquittious wrote: »

From what I can tell there aren't enough fires being lit to worsen the air quality enough to deem it unhealthy. If it does happen it will be very localised and only on very calm days.

You can't tell a whole lot then, given pollution is 10 times worse at night than it is during the day on 1 in 5 winter nights.
This has been attributed to domestic solid fuel burning.

deezell · 11-12-2019 8:34pm

air wrote: »

You can't tell a whole lot then, given night time pollution is 10 times worse at nighst than it is during the day on 1 in 5 winter nights.
This has been attributed to domestic solid fuel burning.

And if this pollution level during the day is trivial, 10 times that is still trivial. Ten times is not a measure of anything, it's just rhetoric. And how are you qualified to state this person 'cant tell a whole lot'? His statement is an empirical observation of fact.

air · 11-12-2019 8:40pm

deezell wrote: »

And if this pollution level during the day is trivial, 10 times that is still trivial. Ten times is not a measure of anything, it's just rhetoric.

From the IT article I linked previously
Prof O’Dowd confirmed “extraordinary levels of air pollution” exceeding WHO guidelines were found in Dublin during one in five winter days last year

So exceeding WHO guidelines is trivial rhetoric?

deezell wrote: »

And how are you qualified to state this person 'cant tell a whole lot'? His statement is an empirical observation of fact.

I'm qualified to read, and all he has offered is feelings. He hasn't presented any facts or references to support his position that there is no issue with air pollution caused by solid fuel fires.

Ubbquittious · 11-12-2019 8:44pm

air wrote: »

You can't tell a whole lot then, given pollution is 10 times worse at night than it is during the day on 1 in 5 winter nights.
This has been attributed to domestic solid fuel burning.

You can be attributing away but that doesnt make it so. There are more sources of night time pollution than people lighting fires.

1 in 5 winter nights is about 18 days of the year which is feck all. and most of the country(by area and by population) remains unaffected. If the daytime air quality is really good like it is in pretty much the whole country than '10 times worse' could very well still not be bad enough to cause a problem.

NIMAN · 11-12-2019 8:47pm

We got our stove taken out after last winter, and to be honest we miss it in the living room. It is great on a cold night.

OH already talking about putting one back in!

As for the pollution, it is very obvious in some places locally. There are certain parts of the local town where you drive through a thick area of smoke, where its obvious people are burning really cheap, dirty coal. Its can't be good for the lungs.

air · 11-12-2019 9:04pm

Ubbquittious wrote: »

You can be attributing away but that doesnt make it so. There are more sources of night time pollution than people lighting fires.

Such as what? Let us hear your alternative explanation?
I'm not attributing anything by the way, only reading what a professor in the relevant area has to say about it.

Ubbquittious wrote: »

1 in 5 winter nights is about 18 days of the year which is feck all. and most of the country(by area and by population) remains unaffected. If the daytime air quality is really good like it is in pretty much the whole country than '10 times worse' could very well still not be bad enough to cause a problem.

I agree that a lot of the country is unaffected, but a million odd people are still affected in Dublin alone.
Exposing people to toxic air pollution for 18 nights a year in the name of ambience doesn't sound like a good trade off to me.

s7ryf3925pivug · 11-12-2019 9:12pm

deezell wrote: »

From the tone of some of the anti stove replies here, do I detect a whiff (Pardon the Pun) of that new social media phenomenon, 'shaming'? 'Emissions' or "stove' or solid fuel shaming? If so, you can fcuk off back to Twatter or Faceache, boards is a discussion forum. Make your point and support it with facts, not your holier than thou put downs and opinions of those who have a different world view to you. You like stoves? Fine. You like hermetically sealed underfloor heated incubator homes? Good for you. Tell us why you like them, not why you detest the people who think differently.

Burning stuff produces smoke.
The smoke has tiny particles that get lodged in your cells.
This causes a range of diseases and causes developmental issues in children.

People burn ****ty fuel in my area. I have a machine that detects the level of particulate in my house and it gets high enough. Nowhere near wexford levels but high enough.

Not a holier than attitude. Simple genuine human anger. I knocked on a neighbour's door in the middle of the night last year and played them a recording of my kid's breathing. They agreed to stop burning whatever plasticky **** they were burning to cause it.

Everybody should get angry about this stuff. There should be social pressure not to do things that harm your neighbours. Not pressure to put up with people poisoning you because they're too lazy to insulate their attic properly or don't want to wear a jumper in the house.

air · 11-12-2019 9:17pm

Ubbquittious wrote: »

If the daytime air quality is really good like it is in pretty much the whole country than '10 times worse' could very well still not be bad enough to cause a problem.

The professor has said that the levels that "ten times worse" represent exceed WHO guidelines in Dublin.
You're dismissing this without providing any counter argument which doesn't make for a very robust position.

buried · 11-12-2019 9:27pm

People have a lot more to be concerned about than what is getting burned in a fireplace down the road. Especially in large housing estates. Some of these large housing estates there is other forms of harm people are doing to their neighbours other than burning wood in their gaffs. Anti social behaviour etc People get angry and complain about that too but f**k all gets done. What do people think is actually going to be done? Its all well and good professors and academics creating studies and data sheets from their plush gaffs behind gates and walls. On the actual ground nothing will get done, just like the anti social behaviour, I mean that is actually illegal and nothing is ever done about it in these places, burning fuel in a fireplace is legal so you may as well forget about it.

Muahahaha · 11-12-2019 9:29pm

Article in the Indo on the topic and how three coal companies got the government to back down on banning coal
https://www.independent.ie/news/environment/coal-companies-cloud-government-ban-on-smoky-fuel-38769630.html

Strongly worded letters are usually the last resort of the desperate but in the case of three coal companies, it has proved an effective strategy. Despite issuing no formal legal proceedings, their mere threat of a date in the High Court has thrown the Government's plans for a nationwide smoky coal ban into disarray. The ban was meant to be in place by September this year, the date having been pushed back for several years, but the threat of legal action scuppered its introduction.

The companies, two from Northern Ireland and one Dutch (10 of the 20 'baggers' registered here are from the North), claim it is unjust to ban their smoky products while allowing people to burn peat and wood which are just as likely to clog up winter skies and vulnerable lungs. They are objecting not just to the extension plans but to the existing ban which covers all of Dublin city and county and 25 other towns and cities.In the case of Dublin, the ban has been in place for 29 years and has achieved a visible improvement in the city's smog so the thought of returning to the dirty 1980s rattled Government, however likely or unlikely that would be.

The option of extending the ban not only nationwide but to all smoky fuels so the three coal companies would not feel victimised was not very palatable either. Smokeless coal is now almost the same price as the smoky variety - after many years during which it was more expensive - which makes it viable for coal users to make the switch.

But for those burning peat or timber, usually because it's cheaper or free from their own land, the change would not be welcomed. According to the 2016 census, just over 90,000 households were using peat to fuel their central heating system - a surprising 14pc increase on the number in the 2011 census.
The number using coal was 86,611 - a 9pc increase on 2011. There were almost 23,200 with no central heating, presumably solely reliant on open fires and some were most likely using peat. Many of the 90,000-plus are believed to be one-off, rural homes, making the occupants most likely to be elderly, isolated and poor - not a group to hammer with a peat ban in the run-up to an election.

But the problem is wider than that. The Department of Climate Action says 40pc of all households use coal or peat to some degree, either as a primary or supplementary source of heat, which equates to around 680,000 homes and a lot of air quality issues where those homes are clustered - not a problem to be ignored with an election looming. Climate Action Minister Richard Bruton is trying a compromise approach and will ask Cabinet next week to approve a limited extension to the ban, taking in 13 medium-sized towns. He will also suggest running a public consultation to seek views on whether a full smoky fuel ban should be introduced. Both those requests, if approved, would take time to implement and buy time for the Government to come up with what the minister calls a "legally robust plan". Or possibly an election-proof plan.

Timing is also significant here because ultimately, quite apart from the air quality issues, carbon emission reduction targets will require the phasing out of all fossil fuels. If a coal company was to try to drag the State into court, they would be doing so against a backdrop where EU and national law was turning the tide against all fossil fuels for the sake of saving the planet. Cries of injustice in that context would surely fail to ignite much sympathy.

Ubbquittious · 11-12-2019 9:50pm

air wrote: »

The professor has said that the levels that "ten times worse" represent exceed WHO guidelines in Dublin.
You're dismissing this without providing any counter argument which doesn't make for a very robust position.

A few more sensors would be no harm but looks like even in Dublin air quality is better than in Singapore (where there are feck all stoves too bloody hot)

pablo128 · 11-12-2019 10:26pm

Growing up we would have had an open fire. When the folks got central heating installed, it was naturally ran off a back boiler, though that was years ago and it's powered by gas now.

But to this day I remember we weren't allowed throw plastic in the fire. They reckoned it would cause a chimney fire. I assumed everyone done the same. It's bad form burning stuff like that in an open fire. A bit of paper or cardboard maybe just to get rid of it but not plastics.

air · 11-12-2019 10:29pm

Ubbquittious wrote: »

A few more sensors would be no harm but looks like even in Dublin air quality is better than in Singapore (where there are feck all stoves too bloody hot)

Population density of Singapore 7,804/km2
Population density of Ireland 77.8/km2
(Per Wikipedia)

Two orders of magnitude difference, hardly a good comparison.

Your chart has a resolution of one day.
It doesn't necessarily contradict the professors figures at all since he only referred to night time levels (not a 24 hour average).

Furthermore it lacks a key to explain what levels the colours represent so it's difficult to decipher.

Are you implying the professor's data is incorrect?
Perhaps you should contact him directly to let him know.

Ubbquittious · 11-12-2019 10:42pm

air wrote: »

Population density of Singapore 7,804/km2
Population density of Ireland 77.8/km2
(Per Wikipedia)

Two orders of magnitude difference, hardly a good comparison.

Your chart has a resolution of one day.
It doesn't necessarily contradict the professors figures at all since he only referred to night time levels (not a 24 hour average).

Furthermore it lacks a key to explain what levels the colours represent so it's difficult to decipher.

Are you implying the professor's data is incorrect?
Perhaps you should contact him directly to let him know.

No it's there for the whole year (albeit only pm2.5 in the screenshot, pm10 and o3 are green all year round).

I don't know the professor and I suspect he might not even care about a pet project he did back in the day. What strikes me is how there appears to be a certain base load of pollution even in very remote places. Have a look on waqi.info if you want to know more about the colours

air · 11-12-2019 10:54pm

Ubbquittious wrote: »

No it's there for the whole year

That's my point, the resolution isn't high enough to support your argument.
The data shows daily averages while the issue the article mentioned peaks in pollution values at night time.

I'd imagine city folk probably run their fires from 6pm to midnight approximately, so pollution levels would only peak for a quarter of the day.
On this basis you could multiply the figures in your chart by 4.

what is the burning passion for having an open fire?

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