nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

Smoke Pollution in Urban Areas

[Deleted User]

Our towns and cities are destroyed with smoke from solid fuel burning stoves, ranges and fireplaces.

On a cold, still night every second chimney has smoke billowing from it that just lingers for the night.

Go outside and you come home stinking of smoke.

The sale of stoves of stoves should be banned and active night-time enforcement with heavy fines for any household allowing smoke escape their chimney.

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

Graces7

BattleCorp wrote: »

The conditions that many old people are living in are absolutely shocking.

I grew up with a coal fire in the downstairs room only. Is that what you mean by shocking?

There is nothing shocking about it to me. It is what I choose now. ( Old lady here!) Tending it keeps me active too.

Stihl waters

Pkiernan wrote: »

I've reported your personal abuse.

Why you need to mention the word retarded is beyond me.

Whats next, are you going to start calling people the N word?

Report away, I attacked the post and not the poster, retarded is the only word I could think of to fittingly describe your argument, there was plenty more but none I could use in a discussion forum, you probably expect people to sit in cold houses instead of burning coal to heat themselves

Graces7

BattleCorp wrote: »

They appear to be the cost per kWh. The fact that most of it goes up the chimney is probably neither here nor there in that chart. Again, I'm far from an expert and happy to be corrected.

Does that just apply to open fires rather than solid fuel stoves? Which heat the water and will run central heating radiators?

gozunda

Stovepipe wrote: »

the hot tub users will say that their wood is bone dry, having been stacked for three years and they'd be foolish not to use it, as they have plenty of it and it is a renewable resource.

The Scandinavians are huge into their personal wood fired hot tubs and wood burning stoves. You can order artic loads of firewood to be delivered right across the region.

That said - a lot of the wood on sale here from reputable dealers is also properly stacked and dried. Easy enough to regulate the market I'd reckon.

Graces7

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

This is a big problem, I noticed during the summer that you couldn't keep a window open because neighbours were using the stoves to heat their water and polluting the air, this was when it was 25 degrees plus during the day.

:eek: lol...

magicbastarder

we have a honeywell heating control system on our CH, it essentially makes each room a zone. we just light the (small room heater) stove to supplement, and the central heating automatically balances against it.

BattleCorp

Graces7 wrote: »

Does that just apply to open fires rather than solid fuel stoves? Which heat the water and will run central heating radiators?

No idea to be honest. I'd imagine (and this is only a guess) that it only applies to the production of the heat rather than how energy efficient things are.

Obviously if something is less energy efficient, more heat will need to be produced and that means more fuel needs to be burned.

El Tarangu

BattleCorp wrote: »

My Mam is almost 80. She is on the State pension and gets about €250 per week. It's fair to say she doesn't have any spare money at the end of the week.

She lives in a poorly insulated house that's heading for 75 years old and heats her house using a stove. What alternative does she have to using coal?

She doesn't have the capital to invest in better technology. She is hardly unique as many pensioners are in the same boat.

What do you suggest those people do?

Sell the house, and buy somewhere more economical to heat? Raise finance through some other means to insulate the house? (I presume the house will be sold on at some point in the future, and having it better insulated will increase it's resale value).

While I can understand your mother wishing to stay in her own home, having her lug bags of coal around, and stooping and bending to feed the stove, does not sound like an ideal solution.

highdef

BattleCorp wrote: »

Just a thought. Even if there's a power cut, at least with a solid fuel stove, you won't be without heat. Always good to have a back-up if the power goes out.

Had several power cuts during the 2018 late winter/early spring snow and had no central heating for several periods over several days. The two stoves kept the house nice and warm. The thoughts of not having a stove or range of some kind gives me the shivers, pun intended, as a back up heat source should there be any sort of power failure, boiler fault or an unexpected empty kerosene tank that could take a few days before it's refilled.

BattleCorp

El Tarangu wrote: »

Sell the house, and buy somewhere more economical to heat? Raise finance through some other means to insulate the house? (I presume the house will be sold on at some point in the future, and having it better insulated will increase it's resale value).

While I can understand your mother wishing to stay in her own home, having her lug bags of coal around, and stooping and bending to feed the stove, does not sound like an ideal solution.

Your solution isn't a realistic one.

Good luck trying to get an almost 80 year old to move out of a house she's lived in for over 50 years.

Secondly, if she sells an old, poorly insulated house, do you think she'll get enough to buy a newer, better insulated and more heat efficient house? This isn't an old house in Shrewsbury or Aylesbury Road we are talking about. We are talking about a town in rural Ireland and she wouldn't come close to getting a better house for the money she'd get for her own.

How does an 80 year old struggling to get by on the old age State pension get the finances to insulate/upgrade the house?

I bring in Coal for her every day so there's no struggling to bring in coal etc.

Your recommendations above sound like Marie-Antoinette whe she was told that her French subjects had no bread to which she replied "Let them eat cake".

Graces7

El Tarangu wrote: »

Sell the house, and buy somewhere more economical to heat? Raise finance through some other means to insulate the house? (I presume the house will be sold on at some point in the future, and having it better insulated will increase it's resale value).

While I can understand your mother wishing to stay in her own home, having her lug bags of coal around, and stooping and bending to feed the stove, does not sound like an ideal solution.

I find that tending the coal stove keeps me mobile ( I am just under 80) Just switching something on and sitting is not healthy for old folk. Bending and dealing with bags of coal is good exercise.

Keeping mobile is very needful in old age.

Graces7

highdef wrote: »

Had several power cuts during the 2018 late winter/early spring snow and had no central heating for several periods over several days. The two stoves kept the house nice and warm. The thoughts of not having a stove or range of some kind gives me the shivers, pun intended, as a back up heat source should there be any sort of power failure, boiler fault or an unexpected kerosene tank that could take a few days before it's refilled.

Due to a council.. error... when I arrived here a few years ago I was five months, September to January, with no electricity. I did buy in a gas cooker but for heat and hot water relied on the solid fuel stove as I still do from choice now.

You have to have that back up .. although I loved being offgrid, apart from no internet at home. I could live that way with no problem. The stove is my lifeline.

Stihl waters

BattleCorp wrote: »

Your recommendations above sound like Marie-Antoinette whe she was told that her French subjects had no bread to which she replied "Let them eat cake".

This has come into my mind several times reading this thread, you'd wonder do some people live in the real world or do they only see city centre living on 6 figure incomes while wondering how come everyone else isn't driving a 202 beemer, more power to them I suppose

[Deleted User]

BattleCorp wrote: »

Your solution isn't a realistic one.

Good luck trying to get an almost 80 year old to move out of a house she's lived in for over 50 years.

Secondly, if she sells an old, poorly insulated house, do you think she'll get enough to buy a newer, better insulated and more heat efficient house? This isn't an old house in Shrewsbury or Aylesbury Road we are talking about. We are talking about a town in rural Ireland and she wouldn't come close to getting a better house for the money she'd get for her own.

How does an 80 year old struggling to get by on the old age State pension get the finances to insulate/upgrade the house?

I bring in Coal for her every day so there's no struggling to bring in coal etc.

Your recommendations above sound like Marie-Antoinette whe she was told that her French subjects had no bread to which she replied "Let them eat cake".

It's more or less a poverty trap, and if your house is too old you can't even access the insulation grants which is very frustrating

ercork

BattleCorp wrote: »

No idea to be honest. I'd imagine (and this is only a guess) that it only applies to the production of the heat rather than how energy efficient things are.

Obviously if something is less energy efficient, more heat will need to be produced and that means more fuel needs to be burned.

Page 2 of that SEAI document gives you the price of a unit of heat supplied by all the different fuels. This is the only way to compare them as it does not rely on kg, bags, tonnes, litres, etc. So a unit of heat from an electric heater cost about 20c (band DD, electric heaters are 100% efficient). A unit of heat from coal in an open fire costs between 20c and 30 c as open fires are deemed to be only 20% efficient (see the column on the right hand side). Heat from a modern condensing gas boiler cost about 7c per unit and is probably the cheapest unless you're in the position to use a heat pump.

Stihl waters

ercork wrote: »

Page 2 of that SEAI document gives you the price of a unit of heat supplied by all the different fuels. This is the only way to compare them as it does not rely on kg, bags, tonnes, litres, etc. So a unit of heat from an electric heater cost about 20c (band DD, electric heaters are 100% efficient). A unit of heat from coal in an open fire costs between 20c and 30 c as open fires are deemed to be only 20% efficient (see the column on the right hand side). Heat from a modern condensing gas boiler cost about 7c per unit and is probably the cheapest unless you're in the position to use a heat pump.

What's the price of a unit of heat ifrom a solid fuel stove burning coal

magicbastarder

i'm as much of a tree hugger as they come, but it's a no brainer. if you have someone in a house who burns fuel in an open fire, the cheapest option for saving them money (in the long term) and cutting down on air pollution is to put a stove in. you'd do it - including lining a chimney - for probably less than two grand.

i have read figures that open fires are 25% efficient and a halfway decent stove is 75% efficient. our experience before we got the stove in was that we had to close the door to keep the heat in the room when the fire was lit. now we have to open the door to let the heat out.

obviously, if there are cheaper things like proper attic insulation, that should be done without too much hesitation too.

magicbastarder

from what i can remember when doing some reading about the topic - a stove will generally draw in the air it needs to burn the fuel. an open fire will also do this, but the draw also sucks in a hell of a lot of air which *isn't* used in the burn - air you've already heated being pumped up the chimney, and crucially, air that has to be replenished from outside.

Seanergy

Why don't you wave your flag @ Poolbeg incinerator first. What a daft idea by DCC.

magicbastarder

you mean in terms of particulate emissions? i don't think the incinerator really plays much of a role there.
you could argue about its placement, or CO2, but it doesn't produce smoke.

Seanergy

Yeah I do, CO2 is a silent killer, yeah smoke is the more obvious pollutant cause it's easier to see. Surely the OP is also concerned with air quality and not the visual impact alone of smoke?

kenmc

Sonic the Shaghog wrote: »

No problem with the banning of stoves and fireplaces as long everyone that uses them is given adequate grants to completely insulate their house and install heat pumps to standard, if it's too costly then social housing should be provided.

As you can see not a fan of just ban and let the poor freeze to death myself now

No doubt you'd moan at the tax hike/new charge to cover this tho.

There's more to it than just installing a heat pump. I built a new house in 2017\18, including heat pump and heat recovery ventilation. BER calculations before the build indicated a fail, as the heat pump did not contribute sufficiently to renewable energy consumption.

The 2 solutions were
Either
- install a wood burning stove
- solar panels. But of course these have currently no way of storing excess nor selling to grid, so pretty pointless.

Went with the stove,with external air supply, so not sucking warm air out of the room. have lit it maybe 15 times since we moved in, mainly those mouldy nights when the rain is bouncing off the windows. It's usually too hot.

BattleCorp

Graces7 wrote: »

I grew up with a coal fire in the downstairs room only. Is that what you mean by shocking?

Nope. What I mean by shocking is damp, draughty houses with no insulation, poor heating, poor electrics, poor plumbing etc. Basically houses falling down around them.

magicbastarder

Seanergy wrote: »

Yeah I do, CO2 is a silent killer

you sure you don't mean CO?

ercork

Stihl waters wrote: »

What's the price of a unit of heat ifrom a solid fuel stove burning coal

If I'm reading the table correctly it's between 8c and 12c.

Seanergy

salonfire wrote: »

Go outside and you come home stinking of smoke.

What fuel smell are you refering to? wood? coal? turf? Are you able to decipher the difference? Are you also able to smell gas? Do you not think that it also gets caught in your cloth fibers?

Atlantic Dawn

Looks like last weekend was particularly bad in Dublin...

Air pollution in Dublin and other towns and cities last weekend was at a level not seen since before the introduction of the ban on smoky coal 30 years ago.

Air pollution levels in Rathmines and Ringsend, both in Dublin, were up to 15 times higher than EU and World Health Organisation guidelines on Saturday night last.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2020/1201/1181748-air-pollution/

fleet_admiral

ted1 wrote: »

What city are you in. Very little being burnt n Dublin

I live opposite Tesco in Terenure, there are 4 houses around me literally billowing smoke out of the chimneys right now. All I'm waiting for is Dick Van Dyke to start dancing across the rooftops

TheChizler

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Looks like last weekend was particularly bad in Dublin...

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2020/1201/1181748-air-pollution/

I can't remember where I saw the source of those figures but they had graphs with the PM2.5 and PM10 levels perfectly overlapping, PM10 is diesels primarily isn't it? So if both fires and diesels peaked at the same time does it point towards weather conditions more than a significant increase in source?

ongarite

fleet_admiral wrote: »

I live opposite Tesco in Terenure, there are 4 houses around me literally billowing smoke out of the chimneys right now. All I'm waiting for is Dick Van Dyke to start dancing across the rooftops

Plenty of people burning smoky coal all over the country.
Look on the Bargain Alerts forum & a discussion there on sourcing coal cheap from NI or other sources that is against the law to use/burn.
The thousands of enquiries there show people don't give a damn about the environment, only their pocket.