Hacker News Reader

Comment by dazzawazza | Hacker News Reader

Cheaper for you but if you live anywhere near others the cost to the communities health is a lot more. London's air is often terrible thanks to wood burning and bloody fireworks! Why we allow this I will never know.

View on HN

I'm gonna stick a "citation needed" here. I have discerned no obvious difference in air quality from wood burners in the winter so unless London has a lot of folks burning wood in the summer I find it unlikely. As for Fireworks, their usage is so infrequent that I find the idea of "often" slightly confusing.
Disclosure, my family had open fires and then log burners for as long as I've been alive. Not in London where I now live. I love a proper fire, it's great, one of the things I enjoy about visiting family in the countryside.

I am, however, ambivalent about the things and wouldn't resent them being banned.

I'm the person with a city center wood burner - They're terrible for air quality [0].

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/30/home-woo...

And not all particulates are the same. If i recall, wood burning yields rather large particulates which are less bad then something like diesel fumes, which are smaller. I find some of the comments here strange… complaining about lack of insulation and use of wood. While the alternative is over insulation with inevitable mold in the walls from vapor.

> As for Fireworks, their usage is so infrequent that I find the idea of "often" slightly confusing.

Not in the context of London, but I live near an amusement park and they launch fireworks every weekend while the park is in season. I don't smell or notice any difference in air quality except for after the 4th of July when they launch a lot more of them.

You're probably not noticing any odors from your local municipal fireworks because they launch them quite a bit higher into the air than your typical neighbor is going to be sending their firecrackers and bottle rockets, making it someone else's problem. The reason industrial smoke stacks are as tall as they are is to get the smoke away from the immediate vicinity/surface.

That absolutely makes sense.

lol at citation needed, just go out in a village that has more then 10 people running wood/coal stoves and try to breathe...

_Disclosure I also have open fire pit in a garden, and love occasional fire_

I mean, I grew up in environments like that and I and there is no noticeable difference as I walk out and back again (order miles).

I will say that if folks are having proper bonfires - that absolutely makes a difference. Largely because they are not burning dry wood.

> Cheaper for you but if you live anywhere near others the cost to the communities health is a lot more.

I live in the middle of a city centre. My next door neighbour burns coal in an open fire too, it's shocking.

I don't disagree with you, but when I'm looking at saving £250/month on top of all my other costs skyrocketing, it becomes an attractive thing to use.

That makes me wonder: Can you take a car's catalytic converter and fit it onto a fireplace's stovepipe? It seems like it should be a simple fix for lowering the amount of soot that gets out

Not sure why you're downvoted, but yes! Modern wood burning stoves can come with catalytic converters [0], which can make the stove burn more efficiently as well as lowering emissions.

Generally the stoves are designed specially for this. The stove burns hotter and may have a second combustion chamber. DIYers welding in the catalytic converter from a car is not the norm and not expected to be safe, but I bet there are some hackers who have made it work.

[0] https://ambassadorfireplaces.com/the-difference-between-cata...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com