What can you burn on your open fire

P-J-D_2

If you are not in a smokeless zone, what is OK to burn in an open fire? Would treated wood (ieg. furniture) be bad for me or local animals?? Any suggestions for cheap stuff you can burn to keep warm are welcome!! :-D

peterod1

Witches - if you can find any

muckybutt

If you go down the route of burning ANY sort of wood ensure it is completely dry, wet / damp wood when burnt will cause tarring up of the chimney and you then run a higher risk of chimney fires.

SailorSam

peterod1 wrote: »

Witches - if you can find any

Oh in that case you can have my sister.

highrisklowreturn

Everything and anything.

OptionARMAGEDDON

Dried animal dung allegedly.

Rolandtheroadie

Treated wood can also gum up the chimney (sleepers, telegraph poles,wood for fences and decking etc if pre treated).

Ben84

Open fires and solid fuel burning is bad for the air quality. Despite the popularity of open fires, even now, there are many smokeless zones because of smog and smoke build up when many are used at once. They are not sending just clean air up the chimney. In most areas which haven't gone smokeless their effects are much more diluted as less people rely on them, but diluted pollution is still pollution and weather conditions can allow it to build up in the surrounding area. The trouble is different people are affected at different limits. If you have neighbors anywhere near by then I think it important to consider that some of them are very likely to have asthma or possibly even something like lung disease. At the most extreme I have been briefly hospitalised because my neighbor's wood burning affected my asthma - despite their protests it was just a little bit of smoke.

Suggestions like burning everything and anything do make me cringe. Everyone needs to breathe air and people with wood burners and open fires in populated areas do tend to produce more than their fair share of pollution already, so swapping to really dirty stuff like painted/creosoted wood or composite wood and particle board that is full of glue is not a great idea.

So, if you have neighbors I think the best cheap stuff to burn is gas.

A._Badger

Ben84 wrote: »

Open fires and solid fuel burning is bad for the air quality. Despite the popularity of open fires, even now, there are many smokeless zones because of smog and smoke build up when many are used at once. They are not sending just clean air up the chimney. In most areas which haven't gone smokeless their effects are much more diluted as less people rely on them, but diluted pollution is still pollution and weather conditions can allow it to build up in the surrounding area. The trouble is different people are affected at different limits. If you have neighbors anywhere near by then I think it important to consider that some of them are very likely to have asthma or possibly even something like lung disease. At the most extreme I have been briefly hospitalised because my neighbor's wood burning affected my asthma - despite their protests it was just a little bit of smoke.

Suggestions like burning everything and anything do make me cringe. Everyone needs to breathe air and people with wood burners and open fires in populated areas do tend to produce more than their fair share of pollution already, so swapping to really dirty stuff like painted/creosoted wood or composite wood and particle board that is full of glue is not a great idea.

So, if you have neighbors I think the best cheap stuff to burn is gas.

Do you drive a car? Use a bus or a train?

Russ123_2

i only ever burn house coal and maybe the odd bit of wood, although i do know people who will burn everything and anything on there open fire and havent had any issues with there chimney.

With regards to smoke produced. When i light my fire i often see smoke produced from my chimney swirling around the neighbours house and there garden, i don't give it a seconds thought, because when they light there open fire, often my garden gets quite smoggy! no one has complained!

If anyone is wondering the roofs are quite low on these old properties so when a few people have there fires lit smoke quite readily swirls around the street, i imagine it looks like a scene from the 1800s

With the popularity of open fires and old housing stock here through winter all you can smell tends to be the burning of coal, i quite like the smell.......can't say i have ever heard of anyone being hospitalised because of it...................

Swipe

It does make it a pain if you have a nice white conservatory though and you end up having to keep cleaning it every month because the neighbours keep burning unseasoned wood and other crap on their fires.