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It has become clear that burning wood and other solid fuels produces gases and particulates linked to several illnesses including asthma, dementia, stroke and some cancers.
Open fires are the worst, and also lose heat up the chimney (see table of toxic smoke emissions for same amount of heat for different heating methods, relative to gas boilers, from Sir Chris Whitty’s report, 2022). A wood burning stove might seem a better option, but:
a) Stoves cause indoor air pollution: Opening the stove door to replace logs fills your room with harmful particulates that are worse than diesel lorry exhaust (see table below)
Type of heating | Toxic emissions relative to gas boiler |
Solid fuel open fire | 4100 |
Traditional wood burning stove | 3700 |
Modern “Ecodesign” stove | 470 |
Oil fired boiler | 8 |
Gas boiler | 1 |
Electric heating or heat pump | 0 |
b) Seasoning logs for 2 years does reduce these pollutants by 75%, but stoves are still highly polluting compared to other heat sources.
c) Wood smoke is not safe: When wood, coal, “smokeless” fuels and fuels made from waste are burned they release toxic chemicals including carbon monoxide, benzene, toluene, formaldehyde, arsenic and particulates, similar to tobacco smoke. Burning wood as a fuel may be the cause of the 15% of lung cancers which develop in people who never smoked. Carbon monoxide poisoning can be fatal but is hard to detect, so if you use a wood burner, check your CO alarm is working. Burning wood also generates tiny PM2.5 particulates, responsible for 5% of UK adult deaths per year. These cause poor lung development and function, asthma, bronchitis, allergies, pulmonary fibrosis and lung cancer. Burning solid fuels for heating accounts for three quarters of all UK particulate emissions, much more than all forms of road transport.
d) Installing a stove is usually more expensive than installing a new oil or gas boiler
e) Wood is not cheaper than other forms of heating: Burning wood to heat your home is almost always more expensive than a boiler or heat pump. It is cheaper if you have your own wood supply – but then the wood must be seasoned for at least two years. The yearly cost of using a new “Ecodesign” stove to provide one fifth of your heat is 24% higher than running a gas boiler.
f) Burning wood instead of fossil fuels does not reduce global warming Burning wood releases more carbon dioxide than oil or gas for the same amount of heat or energy. It takes decades or even a century for new trees to reabsorb the carbon dioxide that was emitted when their predecessors were burned – decades the planet cannot wait. So, burning wood does not reduce global warming in the crucial next three decades.
Modern “Ecodesign” stoves are less polluting than open fires (see table), but still emit 470 times more air pollution than gas central heating and six times more particulates than a modern Euro 6 diesel HGV engine. The air inside homes with ‘Ecodesign’ wood burners is three times more polluted than those without. So, the ‘Ecodesign’ label is probably misleading consumers into believing that burning wood doesn’t produce pollution.
So, burning wood and solid fuels can seriously harm your health, wallet and the environment. You might consider an electric fan heater or convector to replace your open fire or wood burner but these are inefficient ways to use electricity. A much better solution is a split heating /air conditioner unit (see our previous article). These cost about £600 plus installation but are heat pumps, so produce four times more heat per unit of electricity than electric heaters - and can also dehumidify and keep you cool in summer.
Also, don’t forget these other sources of indoor air pollution:
Gas hobs – including those fuelled by bottled gas - emit carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and benzene, which cause respiratory damage and are linked to cancer. An electric induction hob is faster and easier to control than gas and can usually plug in to a nearby 13A socket.
Candles and cigarettes or pipe smoking also cause indoor air pollution, so keep these away from children and anyone with a chest problem.
Further information: Wood burning stoves: pollution and health impacts. Which? February 2024; “Mums for Lungs”: https://www.mumsforlungs.org/our-campaigns/wood-burning
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