Do your research in selecting a fire
THE large amount of radiant heat produced by a woodburning fire suits many of our houses — especially older, poorly insulated and draughty homes with high ceilings.
A properly sized and installed woodburner can heat the whole home.
Many people also like the toasty radiant heat a woodburner produces. Some models can heat hot water and all of them can be used during a power cut.
Many have a flattop surface for heating a kettle — or even for emergency cooking.
Burning wood is carbonneutral because it's a renewable resource, but burning it cleanly is the key to making it envirofriendly.
By burning dry wood in a cleanburning woodburner you win three times over:
A Wood is a sustainable heating fuel.
A You get more heat from a cleanburning (nonsmoky) fire.
Cleaner burning means fewer smoke particles lodging in all our lungs.
AThat’s the positive stuff. The flip side of woodburners is their contribution to air pollution and their relative lack of convenience.
If you burn wood carelessly or burn wet wood you can create a health hazard through ultrafine pollution lodging in people's lungs.
Modern woodburners can burn much more cleanly than older models.
But our tests have shown that clean burning occurs only if the fire is carefully tended and with the rightsized dry wood.
Air pollution is not inconsequential. The ultrafine soot particles in wood smoke are a health hazard.
They can lodge deep in the lungs, causing premature death, hospital admission and respiratory illness.
There are many monitored areas (‘‘airsheds’’) where there are health risks from woodfire pollution.
Woodburners aren’t as convenient as heatpumps or central heating systems. You ‘‘regulate’’ the room temperature through the amount of wood you burn and there’s no timercontrolled automatic starting system. You also have to buy firewood in advance and store it.
(Consumer NZ)