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How smokeless are wood-burning stoves?

  • by JW

There is “a new breed of stoves for smoke control areas that will protect us from killer pollution.”

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There’s concern that ‘trendy’ wood-burning stoves are not actually that environmentally-friendly:

Wood burning stoves produce THREE TIMES more small particle air pollution than road traffic | Daily Mail Online

Green Britain: Wood-burning stove ‘invisible killer’ warning – COMMENT | Express Comment | Comment | Express.co.uk

Wood burners triple harmful indoor air pollution, study finds | Air pollution | The Guardian

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Although there’s been concern for some time:

Is your wood stove choking you? How indoor fires are suffocating cities | Cities | The Guardian

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However, it depends…

‘Which’ gives some advice:

Three ways to use your wood-burning stove correctly – Which? News

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As does a retailer:

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Stoves for Smoke Control Areas – Smokeless Zones

Today gas is becoming expensive and we begin to realise that this bounty is not limitless or replaceable. Now wood burning stoves are making inroads to the city with a new breed of stoves for smoke control areas that will protect us from killer pollution.

Please accept this responsibility. If you want to burn wood in a city, please take a few simple steps to ensure that the future air quality is maintained

Go to http://smokecontrol.defra.gov.uk/appliances.php?country=s there you will see a list of  “Exempt appliances”.

Basically (And this is really basic) the hotter the conditions maintained within the stove the more smoke will be burnt off and the less smoke will come out the chimney. Tweak this and you have a stove that will comply with current clean air legislation…

DEFRA Approved Stoves | Smoke Control Stoves | Smokeless Log Burners | Lanarkshire Glasgow Edinburgh Scotland