Wood Burning
Updated February 2024
What’s so bad about wood burning?
Many people have positive associations with wood burning – as a cosy, attractive way to heat a room, or as an allegedly carbon-neutral fuel, yet even the most ‘eco-friendly’ wood burning stoves emit high levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5). This report commissioned by DEFRA reveals that on an equivalent hourly operational basis, an Ecodesign stove is likely to emit six times the mass of PM2.5 than a diesel Euro 6 HGV (see figure 2 on page 18).
PM2.5 is one of the most problematic pollutants and has been associated with a range of conditions, including decreased lung development and function, exacerbation of asthma, allergies, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder), pulmonary fibrosis and an increased risk of lung cancer. It is also linked with increased morbidity and mortality.
A major source of particulate matter
In the UK domestic combustion is one of the biggest sources of PM2.5. The term “domestic combustion” covers the burning of wood, coal, solid smokeless fuels, and fuels derived from waste such as coffee logs. Most of the PM2.5 emissions from domestic combustion come from households burning wood in stoves and open fires.
Despite a network of smoke control zones introduced after the Clean Air Act of 1956, emissions of PM2.5 from domestic wood burning have grown in recent years. These emissions increased by 56 per cent between 2012 and 2022, to represent 22 per cent of total PM2.5 emissions in 2022. This is more even than road transport, which contributed 18 per cent of PM2.5 emissions.
Professor Chris Whitty’s 2022 air pollution report
As Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty writes an annual report to the government, presenting information about the health of England’s population. His 2022 report examined air pollution, laying out the scale of the challenge of reducing air pollution alongside progress that has been made.
The report notes that “solid fuels are by far the most polluting method of domestic heating”, and that Ecodesign wood burning stoves are several hundred times more polluting than gas central heating.
Image from Professor Whitty’s report showing comparative emissions from heat sources
Wood burning versus smoking
Wood smoke contains most of the same carcinogens as tobacco smoke, including benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Research shows that wood smoke is more toxic than cigarette smoke. 15 per cent of lung cancers diagnosed in the UK develop in people who have never smoked.
Burning wood is not carbon neutral
Many people think that burning wood is carbon neutral, because living trees absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and store the carbon within. But when wood is burned, the CO2 that was absorbed over the years that the tree was alive is released back into the atmosphere all at once, along with short-lived pollutants such as black carbon. Trees can be replanted, but it takes decades for those new trees to reabsorb the carbon that was emitted when their predecessors were burned.
Wood burning is costly
Research published in October 2023 revealed that the yearly cost of using a new, Defra compliant stove for 20 per cent of a household’s heat, including purchase & installation, is 24 per cent higher than running a typical gas boiler. Even when using an existing stove, the yearly cost is 15 per cent higher than gas. In almost every scenario, it is cheaper to heat your home using a gas boiler or a heat pump, not to mention less polluting and more efficient.
What is the Government doing?
Restrictions on the sale of coal, wet wood and manufactured solid fuels
On 1st May 2021, new restrictions (part of the government’s clean air strategy) came into force in England. Bagged coal and wet wood of less than 2 cubic metres can no longer be sold, and wet wood in larger volumes must be sold with advice on how to dry it before burning. All manufactured solid fuels must have a low sulphur content and only emit a small amount of smoke.
We welcome the restrictions but much more needs to be done. It is not enough just to “burn better”. Many people now believe that as long as they do not burn wet wood, and sweep their chimney once a year, they are not contributing to the harmful emissions that neighbourhoods are subject to when sold fuels are burnt. Even burning seasoned, dry wood, releases large amounts of pollutants.
Ecodesign stoves
In January 2022 new legislation came into force that mean only Ecodesign stoves can be sold in the UK and EU. Ecodesign stoves meet tighter emissions standards than previously manufactured stoves, so any new stove installed will automatically be less polluting than an older one. However, the report mentioned above states that “despite the proposed Eco-design Directive, domestic stoves will continue to make a substantial contribution to particulate emissions across Europe”.
Further to that, research from the European Environmental Bureau discovered that per GJ of energy, an EcoDesign stove is actually allowed to emit 60 times as much particulate matter as an old truck from 2006 and 750 times as much as a newer truck from 2014. This research was carried out under optimal laboratory conditions - which will produce better results than in real-life conditions.
We can conclude that Ecodesign stoves are not the clean air miracle they are being sold as.
Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP)
In January 2023 the Government published its Environmental Improvement Plan, the five-year update to the 25-year Environment Plan. To start work to meet the air pollution targets set out in the Environment Act, a plan was produced to reduce the amount of smoke that new stoves can emit in smoke control areas, from 5g of smoke per hour to 3g. Local authorities were to be instructed to consider using powers to issue on-the-spot civil penalties, ranging from £175 to £300.
However, these proposed changes were never made law, so were unfunded and unenforceable by local authorities. Prior to the change in government in Summer 2024, all Defra would say was that it was “preparing policies to tackle domestic emissions”. It remains to be seen whether a Labour government will step up on this issue. Defra are carrying out a rapid review of the Environment Improvement Plan and we look forward to the findings late in 2024.
What can I do?
Stop burning if you have an alternative
Firstly, please don’t burn if you have a secondary form of heating. Can you only burn on special occasions if you can’t stop completely?
And if you’re thinking about installing a stove…please don’t! Take a look below at just a few examples of alternative options.
Images of fireplace alternatives, L to R: Matt White, Natalie Martin, Lily Hughes, @salbots
On our social media platforms we asked you for images of fireplaces that aren’t used for burning, to show that fireplaces or stoves can be beautiful without the flames. There were some excellent ideas - including a stove that had been turned into an aquarium! If you have an alternative way to heat your home and don’t need to burn wood, your fireplace can still be a focal point, just in an emission-free way.
Wood burning images in the media
Interior magazines, television programmes and social media are full of images of living rooms with roaring fires or beautifully styled fireplaces and stoves. A stove is portrayed as a coveted purchase, and there is usually no awareness or acknowledgement of the amount of air pollution given off by burning wood and smokeless fuel.
If you read a newspaper or magazine or watch a TV programme that promotes wood stoves as a design feature, please bring our campaign to the attention of the magazine editor or broadcaster. We have a template letter that you can use to email them.
If you see burning portrayed as a good thing on social media posts, please leave a quick comment to explain that wood burning gives off a lot of pollution that is damaging our health.
Local authorities
We write to all London and Manchester councils every Autumn to ask them to raise awareness of the dangers of wood burning and to ask all residents not to use their stoves or fires unless they are the only source of heat. You can use our template letter to contact your council if you’d like to do similar.
What do we want?
We’re calling on the Government to:
Phase out the sale of new wood stoves by 2027, and ban the use of wood burners unless the only source of heat by 2032 at the latest.
Label wood burning stoves as harmful to better educate consumers.
Provide effective powers to local authorities to stop unlawful burning, with all wood burners registered with local authorities to enable enforcement.
Launch a public health campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of wood burning stoves.
If you have a stove for secondary heating, we urge you to try to limit the number of times a year you use it.
We have a flyer that you can order for free or download and print yourself. People across the country are using them to raise awareness of the impacts of wood burning.