Treated wood burning

lagi

Just had my stove fitted and was obviously advised against burning treated and painted wood as it would not be good for the flue liner.

But if you had an unlimited free supply, i just wondered how long it would take if liner was regularly swept for it to do enough damage to warrant replacement?

If damage would be 20 years or so, then it might be economical.

(only interested in this answer, not health and safety, environment, etc.)

Just trying to answer some pub talk.

Greenfires

It would probably depend on what sort of stuff you were burning, but as an example, smokeless fuel can destroy a liner for a woodstove inside three years.

I'd also hope that someone would report anyone doing anything like this - treated wood can produce some very unpleasant chemicals and toxins that I certainly wouldn't want my kids running around outside breathing in. Personally I think it's about as selfish as you can get - the "offender" may be nice and warm and probably won't notice any smells or anything sat in their front room - but they're basically sticking two fingers up at all their neighbours and saying "screw you - I don't care if I'm poisoning you"

lagi

3 years was what i was after, as the price of a liner and fitting would seriously not be economical.

Thanks.

(remember we werent' discussing health and safety, purely hypothetical how long a liner would last.)

highrisklowreturn

Remember he said smokeless could do that. My sweep does a house, where the owner gets all his wood from a scrap dealer and burns everything - he said it's as clean as a whistle.

Greenfires

so is the inside of a barrel of methanol - but you'd regret it pretty sharpish if you drank it...

A._Badger

lagi wrote: »

3 years was what i was after, as the price of a liner and fitting would seriously not be economical.

Thanks.

(remember we werent' discussing health and safety, purely hypothetical how long a liner would last.)

Three years is very much a worse case scenario with a poor quality liner and highly sulphurous fuel burned badly.

Greenfires

Perhaps not poor quality Badger - but certainly the wrong quality for the application. Boiler stoves are always harder on a liner than dry ones, and if the liner is the wrong spec to start with - "there could be trouble ahead", to quote the song.

Ectophile

It's illegal to burn many kinds of treated wood because of the toxins that would go up the chimney.

It's interesting to see how many people will campaign against municipal incinerators, with their tightly controlled pollution levels, but are happy to burn any old rubbish in their own homes.

Nottheotherkevin

Hello
Looking through this forum as I'll be needing to change my own solid fuel heating appliance and looking for info.
Now I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing but before we get too precious about what a person may burn on their stove lets look at the exempted appliances listed on DEFRA's website.
This is the list for England smokecontrol.defra.gov.uk/appliances.php?country=e Sorry can't post with links please add http a colon and two forward slashes to the front of the address above. Now start to look at the industrial appliances. Licensed to burn plastic coated timber, plastic, chipboard, plastic coated chipboard, polypropylene, nylon and rubber foam backed carpets.
Not sure how all of the above are made clean burning but all are examples of fuels allowed in exempt appliances.
Which of the above would you choose to live next to as opposed to someone who burnt a bit of treated wood?
Not saying that burning treated wood is right, more a question on how some of the above is approved and how some non approved coated timber burning compares.
Anyone with technical knowledge?

Greenfires

Industrial appliances work at much higher temperatures than a domestic stove. The extra heat means that the various unpleasant compounds are broken down to their component elements - some extremely toxic compounds are basically common atoms like carbon, oxygen and hydrogen just arranged in a particular way. Break down those arrangements and you have some pretty harmless stuff coming out of the stack instead of nasties. The thermal oxidiser we have at a place I work has all sorts of sensors on and lights to indicate that "waste incineration directive conditions are being met". So to answer your question - I'd rather my kids played out next to one of them than the household burning anything they can get their hands on!

Leif

I asked on this forum about burning tannalised wood (fence posts and the like) and I was told they contained arsenic, so don't. As Greenfires says, industrial ovens are hotter, so they can burn plastics, whereas a home stove will produce dioxins and other poisons.