UK Government announce domestic ban on coal and "wet wood"

Harry Palmr · 21-02-2020 10:50am #1

Very interesting and frankly unexpected development.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/21/house-coal-and-wet-wood-to-be-phased-out-by-2023-to-cut-pollution

The sale of the most polluting fuels burned in household stoves and open fires will be phased out from next year to clean up the air, the government has said.

Plans to phase out the sale of house coal and wet wood have been confirmed as part of efforts to tackle tiny particle pollutants known as PM2.5, which can penetrate deep into lungs and the blood and cause serious health problems.

Wood burning stoves and coal fires are the single largest source of PM2.5, contributing three times as much of the pollution as road transport, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said.

Sales of two of the most polluting fuels, wet wood and house coal, will be phased out from 2021 to 2023, to give householders and suppliers time to move to cleaner alternatives such as dry wood and manufactured solid fuels.

Obviously it not the end of the stove - just the beginning of the end. What chance of the next Irish government taking its cue from this? They might be able to officially ban such materials in urban areas but obviously it'll just be bought in the nearest rural town/village.

Lurching · 21-02-2020 10:53am

What's the official difference between wet and dry wood?

Harry Palmr · 21-02-2020 10:56am

Clean burn or not, dry wood uses up it's carbon in a cleaner fashion - damp timber doesn't burn fully and releases creosote and more smoke (full of PM 2.5s) - it also burns "cooler" so isn't a very good heat source anyway. It's cheaper of course - cut wood should be dried for at least six months and preferably a year

magicbastarder · 21-02-2020 11:31am

speaking as an urban living stove owner - there's often a conflation of open fires with stoves. i keep an eye on my stove (dry wood only, have never burned turf or coal) and you can't see the smoke once it gets going.

as Harry Palmr mentioned, if the wood is wet or unseasoned (and these can be two different things) a lot of the heat burned in combustion goes to boiling the water off, which drags the temperature right down and does not result in an efficient burn. you want a stove to be as hot as possible, which burns the particulates away.

Muahahaha · 23-02-2020 9:01pm

Lurching wrote: »

What's the official difference between wet and dry wood?

I dont think there is one officially but the fuel merchants generally sell kiln dried wood with less than 20% moisture as dry wood. I bring my own wood indoors about 3 weeks before burning and it gets lower than that, stuff I was burning last night was reading as 7% on the moisture meter.

AFAIK the dept of the Environment here are planning on banning the sale of any wood above 20% moisture. Which I think is fine as burning any kind of wet or unseasoned wood is only going to give you a smokey fire that isnt very warm anyway.

magicbastarder · 23-02-2020 11:52pm

there had been plans announced for the ban on smoky coal to be extended nationwide, but then the AG decided, after a threat from several coal importers (some of whom are not even based in ireland, IIRC) to advise the government not to proceed. the argument from the importers basically was 'prove our fuel is smokier than ****ty wet wood that's been sitting out in the rain on the forecourt of a petrol station for several weeks'.
the government then seemed to suggest they'd ask the public if they'd support a ban on all solid fuels (coal, wood, turf) because that was a sensible response.

rn · 04-03-2020 8:55am

Ya it was an unfortunate capitulation by a minority government, you need an overall majority to have back up to push through things.

Wet wood has moisture between 40-20%, it doesn't really burn well and lacks same heat as dry wood. We probably need to move to professionally kiln dried wood in urban areas. All smokey coal has to go in urban areas.

TheChizler · 04-03-2020 9:03am

So you won't be able to season your own wood unless you cut it yourself?

magicbastarder · 04-03-2020 9:05am

one of the issues for many people in urban areas is somewhere dry to store wood.
my plumber told me that he'd installed a large stove (16kW, IIRC) for someone who then told him that he'd nowhere to store wood, he'd buy it from a garage forecourt by the bag. i suspect that will have proved to be an expensive and inefficient way to heat the house.

bigroad · 04-03-2020 9:11am

What sort of particulates does an oil boiler put out compared to using smokeless coal in a stove.
Strange they are not going after the oil burners.

TheChizler · 04-03-2020 9:12am

How much would he expect to go through? I have 10 large bags worth stacked outside against a small sheltered wall in a fairly urban area, only used 12 kiln dried for the entire winter for an open fire, hoping to have a stove by the next so will presumably use less (or have it on more often if its easier!). Granted it wasn't my primary source of heat.

magicbastarder · 04-03-2020 9:14am

i'd say a stove that big could easily go through a couple of bags a night. could easily be €15 a night based on that, and the wood could be damp, reducing the heat considerably.

looksee · 04-03-2020 9:25am

I check my timber with a moisture meter and have found that non-kiln dried - usually from a local co-op - is already well below 20 and once it has been stacked indoors for a couple of days it is way down in single figures. I do wonder what is the point in paying a premium for kiln dried when you can organise non-kiln dried quite easily. I don't see the point of burning coal in a stove, the manufactured fuel is a bit more expensive but is so much more efficient it more than makes up.

magicbastarder · 04-03-2020 9:37am

we get through maybe one (loosely stacked) cubic metre bag of wood a year, bought in. the place which sells it only stocks kiln dried so that's the decision made.
i've ripped up quite a few overgrown shrubs and taken out a eucalyptus, they were split and left sitting on the roof of the shed for the last year, and this weekend went into the woodshed for use in about one year's time, assuming moisture levels look good then.

Muahahaha · 04-03-2020 3:44pm

TheChizler wrote: »

So you won't be able to season your own wood unless you cut it yourself?

The details of the ban havent been made clear yet but its looking like fuel merchants will not be able to sell anything with a higher moisture content than 20%. So it has to be either kiln dried or seasoned by them to below 20%, they can no longer sell 'wet wood'. If you normally buy it that way and season yourself for a year then yeah it looks like the ban will hit you as merchants wont be allowed to sell it wet.

There would be nothing stopping someone cutting their own wood and burning it right away if they want to as there would be no way to really police that anyway. But thats only a small minority of people who have land and mature trees on it.

magicbastarder · 04-03-2020 5:05pm

you'd be a bit of an idiot to want to cut and split wood and then waste all that effort by burning it straight away.
especially if you've a lot of land, you've then got space in which to leave it to season.

Muahahaha · 05-03-2020 1:29am

ah yeah, I was more saying it to illustrate while burning wood over 20% moisture might be made illegal it would be impossible to actually police it, especially on private land. But making it illegal means merchants can no longer sell it and that will capture the vast majority of people who burn wood anyway so its no odds in the grander scheme of things.

But yeah, burning wet wood is a waste of time and energy. I didnt have a tarp at the front of my log store and now Im getting down to the last 20-30 logs from a cubic meter the ones that were on the outside row near the ground got a bit wet with rain hopping off the concrete and onto them. Started the fire with two of those wettish logs last night and some kindling and it would barely take, an hour after lighting it was a smokey, smouldering mess. Got it going with some of the drier wood from the back row of the log store and it was fine then but yeah, burning wet wood produces lots of smoke and little heat and just ends up frustrating you.

magicbastarder · 05-03-2020 8:50am

people also claim that ash burns green - it does burn better while green than other woods, but IIRC the moisture content is around 35% as compared to 50% you'd get in a lot of other woods.

magicbastarder · 05-03-2020 8:50am

people also claim that ash burns green - it does burn better while green than other woods, but IIRC the moisture content is around 35% as compared to 50% you'd get in a lot of other woods.

UK Government announce domestic ban on coal and "wet wood"

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