Does have a wood burning stove increase the PM2.5 inside your house where you are burning it? Or is it just a concern for pumping it out into the atmostphere?
I have a wood burning stove, used 3 or 4 times a week in winter (never otherwise). I love it, and we are building a new house and want one there too. Then OH and I notice we cough. We cough more after a night with the fire. We had the chimney cleaned. We still cough. There is a definite pattern to it, it can’t be anything else.
I am certain now it’s really not good for you inside. My first thoughts were about cycling and cleaning the air with filters. Then I though about the outside too!
I’ve not really got my head around the science, but thanks for the links, I will read them with interest. I’m posting as I can definitely say it affects you inside.
@delski It's both. When you open the door to the stove, the PM2.5 rockets inside the room. The rest of the time it is filling the air around the chimney. As the particulate is super-fine (tiny and light) it stays airborne for a long time and can travel hundreds of miles on wind currents.
He articulates it better than I could but my experience is that having used wood burners for many years I can say that using a properly installed and configured burner with properly seasoned dry firewood will have a negligible negative effect. Burning wet wood and / or on an bonfire is another story... My personal view is this is one of those emotive topics like covid and brexit where there is plenty of opinion and lots of easy targets created by the media, but actual unbiased scientific evidence seems to be a little thin on the ground.
There is a heafty weight of scientific evidence - some outlined in the intial post. The post above from the guy who sells stoves also wrote the article last year. There has been more research published since then.
We have 2 stoves, only occasionally used, but still necessary here.
No gas, oil heating needs power for the pump, and in the winter, power cuts can be long ones if heavy snow brings the lines down. If snow is really bad, it can be hard to get the oil too, if it lasts a long time, as we live half a mile off a rural side road, down a steep farm track,
We only got a cooked Christmas dinner one year by using the top of the woodburners and the barbecue, they are our insurance policy!
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Then OH and I notice we cough. We cough more after a night with the fire. We had the chimney cleaned. We still cough. There is a definite pattern to it, it can’t be anything else.