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Comment by hmottestad | Hacker News Reader

In Norway it’s very normal to have a stove and burn wood pretty much every day in the winter season. Open fireplaces are rather uncommon though, essentially because they produce a lot of smoke and very little heat.

I hope they do a follow up study that separates fireplace and stove.

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Woodsmoke re-enters buildings within a 500-1000 meter radius of the fire.

Burning wood is a very bad idea. It smells nice and we like it, but it is positively terrible for our health and should not be done.

Traditions, however, are strong.

Properly operating a wood burning stove will release very little smoke. This is where the center stone is in the range of approx 300-600F (100-300C). The chimney will produce clear heat and there is no detectable smell when standing outside. Much different result than a fireplace.

It’s referred to as double combustion, or secondary combustion.

You often will not smell small particulate. In addition the problem here is that the stove has to be operated correctly and in good condition which, unfortunately, is not something you can rely on.

Is there any reason to believe that they are properly operated?

> it is positively terrible for our health

Norway is top 10 in the world for life expectancy. Compared to all other possible ills, it suggests the danger here is a tad histrionic.

Interesting, women lung cancer rate in Norway seems to be slightly higher than most of the Europe bu significantly lower in male population: https://canceratlas.cancer.org/the-burden/lung-cancer/

That is very interesting. Seems to be the case for all the nordic countries. Sweden stands out a bit more than Norway though, they actually have a higher lung cancer rate for women than for men.

You might be interested in: https://www.fhi.no/en/cl/air-pollution/wood-burning/

I don’t remember the exact details, but the Oslo municipality has a program that will provide home owners a grant to replace their inefficient wood stoves.

Statistics Norway might have some interesting data on how many households burn wood.

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