Wood burners more costly for heating than gas boilers, study finds
By Paul Homewood
No S**t Sherlock!
Wood burners are a more expensive way to heat homes than gas boilers or heat pumps, research shows.
A study found that as well as causing significant health and environmental dangers for the home’s occupants and their neighbours, it is at least 15% more costly to heat a home using a wood burner rather than a gas boiler.
Rachel Pidgeon, of the charity Impact on Urban Health, which focuses on health inequalities in cities and which funded the study, said air pollution from wood burning in the UK had doubled over the past decade, with serious consequences for people’s health.
“This research dispels the myth that wood burning is a cheaper energy alternative whilst shining a light on the toxic effect it has on the air we breathe,” she said. “It’s vital that urban communities understand the connection between burning and the air pollution it creates.”
There was a 40% increase in sales of wood burners between 2021 and 2022. Research shows that more affluent people, attracted by the aesthetic appeal of a fire, are driving that increase.
However, a growing body of evidence highlights the environmental and health damage caused, with scientists saying that people who burn wood are subjecting themselves – and their neighbourhoods – to high levels of the most dangerous small particulate pollution, PM2.5, which can work its way deep into the body, causing a range of severe health issues including heart disease, strokes, asthma and cancer.
Last year, a study from Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, found that even “eco design” wood burning stoves produced 450 times more toxic air pollution than gas central heating, while older stoves, now banned from sale, produced 3,700 times more.
Another study found that wood burning in homes produced more small particle pollution than all road traffic in the UK.
The latest research, carried by Global Action Plan for Impact on Urban Health, found that the perception among the public was often that wood burners at least offered a cheaper source of energy.
The pollution from wood burners has always been obvious to sane people. After all our ancestors decided hundreds of years ago that it probably was not a particularly good idea, though an improvement on burning dung I suppose.
But the climate change fundamentalists decided a long time ago that CO2 emissions were a much more important consideration than people’s actual health.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I’ve used a wood burner for years with no ill effects. It is cheaper than gas in my experience, it can also heat the water. It does need to be properly maintained of course and the wood burnt should be well seasoned. Your last comment was totally unnecessary, and you should look at the suppressed research (if you can find it) that suggests that pm 2.5 emissions do not contribute to respiratory problems. It is quite different to the harms from burning dung on an open fire in a hut.
I was referring to the last comment about wood burners above.
Yes. No evidence (only allegations) has ever been presented and verified that PM2.5 have caused any harm to human health. Its all made-up horse droppings. Read ‘Scare pollution’ by steve milloy. He exposes the whole scam in detail.
Rachel Pidgeon and people like her just love to villify wood burners.
Truth were told she is the sort of person who only needs one whiff of burning wood and she is masking up and complaining and shutting her windows!
Actually good wood dried and seasoned gives off a sweet odour that most people actually like. Mankind has even burning wood forever. There is nothing quite like it on a cold winters night. Half the world still burns wood and it is essential for their survival.
She had better not try to take my fire away from me . .
Wood burners are fine but they can not replace open fires.
The near-infra-red light from open fires is essential to restoring our general health in the modern world, because we have become almost troglodytic. Not all light is the same!
Somebody round me burns coal and I love that smell on a still evening. I burn a few briquettes myself.
My stove – admittedly a small one – has a full length window in the door so I get some lovely infra-red warmth when sitting on the sofa. Means that I get warm soon after lighting it even while the room is still warming. Allows me to put the CH on hold if I am out of an evening but having set the fire I can be warm soon after getting home.
A quarter of the world still burns dried dung.
No idea how that smells.
Rachel Pidgeon and people like her just love to villify wood burners.
Truth were told she is the sort of person who only needs one whiff of burning wood and she is masking up and complaining and shutting her windows!
Actually good wood dried and seasoned gives off a sweet odour that most people actually like. Mankind has even burning wood forever. There is nothing quite like it on a cold winters night. Half the world still burns wood and it is essential for their survival.
She had better not try to take my fire away from me . .
Having spent most of my life working with wood, part of it in a workshop with a wood burner, I now suffer from eye, nose and throat problems. I’ve had 3 procedures on my eyes to help with the pain. Woodsmoke effects me after a few seconds and the pain can last for up to a week. Apart from pm 2.5s, wood burning gives off pollutants such as nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde. The sweet smell you mention is most probably benzene, which is cancerous and is used in insecticides and weedkiller. Don’t tell me that wood burning is harmless. I’ve known 3 people who have died from eye cancer because of it. If you think it is safe , perhaps you could keep it to yourself by blocking up your flue pipe for a couple of weeks.
Your neighbours might well thank you for it.
Is stevejay a chatbot?
“Having spent most of my life working with wood, part of it in a workshop with a wood burner, I now suffer from eye, nose and throat problems.”
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
“I’ve had 3 procedures on my eyes to help with the pain.”
Argumentum ad Miserecordiam.
“Woodsmoke effects me after a few seconds and the pain can last for up to a week.”
I recommend you stay away from wood smoke.
“Apart from pm 2.5s”
2.5 is bullshit. See elsewhere.
“wood burning gives off pollutants such as nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde”
Liar. As noted elsewhere, toxicity is in the dose. Mere presence of NO, etc, is ABSOLUTELY MEANINGLESS.
“The sweet smell you mention is most probably benzene, which is cancerous”
It has cancer?
“and is used in insecticides and weedkiller”
So what? It dissipates quickly. Insecticides and weedkillers are authorized for human use.
“Don’t tell me that wood burning is harmless.”
M’kay. But it is.
“I’ve known 3 people who have died from eye cancer because of it.”
Ahhh . . . back to the Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.
“If you think it is safe , perhaps you could keep it to yourself by blocking up your flue pipe for a couple of weeks.”
People who disagree with you should be killed? You are a dick.
“Your neighbours might well thank you for it.”
I have one neighbor who uses his fireplace all winter. We all love the smell.
Is he a bot? He is full of shit, and spouts all sorts of sillyass fallacies. He has no argument against wood stoves, just bullshit. Sophomoric bullshit.
I get the timber free, except for my own labour, so it is a great solution and a good stand-by for when THEY cut off my gas and electricity: I can keep my family alive.
The whole point of all of the Global /Warming fraud is to destroy the economy of Western nations .
So the Marxist / Socialists do not want people to have anything cheap or efficient , and if that kills anybody from the cold they will like it even better .
During the lockdown , with about 80% less traffic on the roads , PM 2.5 showed no difference , although they tried to keep that hidden .
https://airqualitynews.com/cars-freight-transport/pm2-5-pollution-did-not-decline-during-lockdown-in-scotland/
So it pollution was not anything to do with vehicles . And Government air quality figures show that air pollution has reduced by 75% over the last 50 years . So the point of this latest propaganda is more control and taking more money from the people .
Never mind Rachel Stoolpigeon.
I have a good stock of well seasoned timber, felled from correct forestry management (OK to plant native species at metre centres but they must be thinned out), lengthed and split.
Air pollution?They can’t even demonstrate major health problems from diesel pm2.5s.
Bollocks.
Much more entertaining and truthful to watch than the telly.
Och its the Ashes! and I’m not playing cricket either. But did they take into account all the heat generated in preparing the woo d for the fire?. You get 3-4 times as much back out – we all know t hat, and it helps the Ceilidh atmosphere going too in the winter., Aye, but its the Ashes, maan, the ashes. Aye the ashes – cleaning the stove on a windy or draughty day. What did Burns say? All the best intentions of ….
It’s not about carbon dioxide, it’s about control. They can’t handle us collecting our fuel and then heating our homes without them knowing about it.
They can’t bear the thought of anyone having something cheerible in our homes
Prof Chris Witty? We are all going to believe him of course!!!!!
It’s amazing to think that all us ageing boomers living to great ages to the detriment of the NHS were growing up in the pre-clean Air Act era when the main source of heating for most of the country was low grade bituminous coal burnt in open fires and most of the industry ran off steam engines driving all kinds of machines via steam generated by tens of thousands of Lancashire boilers that were fired up every early every Monday morning and all the trains were pulled by steam locomotives, isn’t it?
I experienced the last great smog in Manchester in 1965, you could stand under an orange street lamp and not be able to see it, the city was closed down for three days.
And now the odd wood stove is apparently an existential hazard to millions of people…
It’s nonsense, alarm bells always ring when an activist/campaigning group finds a study and that study gives them exactly the result they wanted.
I remember that Manchester smog. I was at technical college. The traffic was at a standstill so no bus to get home. I walked the eight miles.
When it appeared I had just come out of the pub and had to walk home too.
My route entailed walking along the canal towpath and finding a bride, so a ten minute walk took two hours.
Not “bride”, “bridge”!!!
Phew, you had us all worried for a moment then!
Elf n safety gone crazy
Are there any health statistics for that very polluted period?
Don’t know.
However, there large numbers of sexagenarians, octogenarians and nonagenarians who survived the pollution and are still alive to tell the tale – despite all the exaggerated claims about pm2.5, NoX and the like!
I don’t know but I’m 74 and still reasonably healthy despite many smogs and working in industry in conditions that wouldn’t be allowed now – asbestos from brake dust and black diesel smoke mainly, because I worked in a truck factory. And everyone smoked back then too in the factory and offices, plus I’m an ex-smoker. The problem seems to be that we can now measure down to millionths.
Junk science writ large. Every sentence can be picked apart.
‘Wood burners are a more expensive way to heat homes than gas boilers or heat pumps, research shows.’
So? What’s your point? Gas boilers are cheaper than heat pumps, so should heat pumps be banned?
People are freely picking what THEY want, not what you want, for THEIR reasons, not yours, you communist creep.
Absolutely so! Mar 23, 2021 Astronomical cost of decarbonising housing
GWPF Head of Policy, Harry Wilkinson, speaks to TalkRadio’s Julia Hartley Brewer about a new parliamentary report that suggests energy efficiency improvements required to meet Net Zero will cost £18,000 per home across 19 million homes – £342bn in total. And that’s before you add the cost of replacing gas boilers with heat pumps!
I’ve seen many folks sitting around a fire roasting marshmallows and singing songs. They must be “deniers”. 97% sure of that.
I am fortunate to have free kiln dried wood. Cheaper than my oil, although I have mostly been able to time my purchases of that to keep the cost below what gas might have been had I had a supply. Still need to use the oil, as only a couple of rooms have woodburners – but they do a great job of making a room cosy and taking the load off the CH. Don’t live in a city, so no risk of higher pollution levels.
I have noticed that in the last year in the Adelaide Hills that burning wood has been increasing. Research doesn’t show that more affluent people are driving that increase, rather those who find the increased cost of electricity (and no mains gas supply)** a hindrance to being warm. The local sellers of wood logs are doing a roaring business.
The local supermarkets now sell packaged briquettes in 4 kilos, supposedly for BBQs although there are also wood briquettes.
** both electricity and gas now cost more (and will keep becoming more expensive) due to State & Federal Govt. being Green. Victoria has banned mains gas supply to new houses while stopping new gas. They have also banned people taking wood in the forests, even from fire trails. A hot summer will mean bad fires.
” A hot summer will mean bad fires. ”
My limited understanding is that Aboriginal Australians used to routinely burn the bush to control the bush before the Europeans arrived. Some of the historical bush fires in Australia have been substantial e.g. 1974 – 1975.
Yes, although the aborigines wanted to make it easier to ‘flush out’ prey and make it easier for them to move about with the undergrowth cleared away.
There were bad fires in Victoria in 1851, 1898, 1926, 1939, 1962, 1969, 1977, 1983, 2009 and 2019, mostly in areas with lots of trees. The State (Labor) government has tried to stop the forestry industry, failed to keep fire trails free and allowed undergrowth to run wild. Even dead wood isn’t allowed to be used. So a fire will take off rapidly.
I doubt if anyone has an accurate figure on the average cost of wood for woodburners, there are too many unknown variables re: supply of wood. The only certainty re: supply of wood is that it grows on trees.
“…wood grows on trees.”
I pick the low-hanging stuff in early spring. Mixed with rocks and lichen it is delicious.
Do include the price of the pickup truck to haul it?
The link in The Guardian leads to this…………
‘New campaign to shine a light on uncomfortable truth about wood burning
(18/10/23)
We are launching a new campaign – Clean Air Night – to shine a light on the uncomfortable truth about wood burning.’
The link from the above goes to this report:
Click to access 14972_Finalreport-BurninginUKhomesandgardens-1.pdf
It was published in 2020 and so data used predates that and it contains no cost comparisons but does highlight the variety of places people get their fuel from. No sign of where they get there ‘more expensive’ claim.
Kantar Research glossary of terms for wood burners in the UK item 2…BAME
Black and Minority Ethic! Strewth, surprised they didn’t include Brexit, Covid and the MMR vaccination whilst they were at it. How much bullshit and bollocks can you shoe horn into a report on burning wood?
+1.
But don’t forget they use the word-count to justify their enormous fees.
I gather the average cost of heating last winter was £500/month, my house in rural France cost €480 for the ENTIRE winter season. Their math seems a bit crap.
” I gather the average cost of heating last winter was £500/month, ”
Are there definitive figures? Oftec (trade organisation) :
https://www.oftec.org/consumers/heating-cost-comparison (June 2023)
Data extracted from Sutherland Tables, which appears to be a subscription only source, who describe themselves as ” Sutherland tables is a reputable and established source of independent and impartial information on domestic heating costs. ”
Gas central heating for most homes in the UK must surely have been a lot cheaper a couple of years ago, before the price madness.
For someone who can’t last 2 hours without a cup of tea solid fuel stoves have a huge benefit of a supply of boiling/ nearly boiling water from the kettle on top. That saves the cost of heating the water from cold. It can also double as a slow cooker. Benefits not added to the equation.
The downside is the less than rapid start up in the morning
I’d have another instead of a heatpump
With my Thornhill wood burning stove (looks and works like an AGA) I load some good logs last thing at night and the coals are still alight in the morning ready for a fresh log. The kettles on top are still piping hot, but I need to keep them to being only a 1/4 on hob to stop them boiling over night. Wood burning is the cheapest and most efficient (I have my own tree and wood supply) and it saves money on Gym fees since using an axe is a good exercise I partake in. Now where are some XL protestors for me to exercise my axe on!
There remains no evidence whatsoever that PM2.5 are harmful. There’s no known biological mechanisms and all the studies suffer from the Exposure Fallacy, very low RRs and apparent P hacking. PMs in the UK are now around 20% of the level they were in 1970 but we cannot show any improvement in health due to that.
My burner costs nothing to run. Wood is harvested from my small holding or scavenged. It heats a 5 bed home very nicely, cooks baked potatoes, warms stew and is great company with an old Charles Dickens movie.
Try doing that with a heat pump.
Please see my comment (and article on which I commented) here:
And rubber particles from EV tyres isn’t a hazard? If I was only getting 10K miles from a set of tyres on my old Diesel I’d be crying!
I was late to the party and replaced my open fire with a wood burner last year. It is remarkably more efficient, burning fewer logs whilst providing more heat and the need for heating elsewhere in the house is much reduced. I will be disappointed if the Stasi tax and or restrict the supply of kiln dried wood.
I live on the edge of a village being the last house on the gas main. Near neighbours have variously oil, LPG, Economy 7 (yep still!) , 2 have heat pumps that they seriously regret installing but all bar one have separate wood burners (as do I).
The one exception has an eastern European made wood burning range cooker that also supplies hot water and central heating. They harvest their own wood locally at the only cost of their own labour. In winter their total energy bills are actually lower than summer when the use LPG for their other cooker! The house is always wonderfully warm and the kitchen hosts the regular delight of a whistling kettle announcing time for a brew.
“The study found that when a household used a newly installed, Defra-approved wood burner for 20% of its heat, the yearly cost, including installation, was £2,028-£2,204 – 24% more than running a typical gas boiler.”
I had a load of seasoned logs delivered last year and it supplied my wood burner for the entire winter. It cost £160 which was about average for the area. My stove cost just shy of £4000 installed and will probably last in excess of 15 years. It only heats one room but that is about 20% of my heating requirement. Where they get their figures from I can’t even begin to guess.
What the article doesn’t mention of course is the energy security a stove brings me which was a big reason I bought one in the first place. At least I’ll be able to heat one room when the blackouts come.
A yearly cost for installing a stove??? I had mine put in last December and am not reinstalling it this year. I had the chimney swept during the summer.
I spent the summer felling unwanted trees and pruning back others to put together what I think is at least 6 cubic metres of wood. As to drying it – the trick is to split it down straight away to open it up. No need to wait 2yrs, wood I cut even in September is already measuring as ready to burn having been stacked in full sun and subject to drying wind as well. The stack is under cover and now has tarpaulins in place that on good days I take down to expose the stack. I have a 6 acre woodland an hour away which I have yet to extract anything from.
No comments were allowed on this article by the Gruniad but I bet it upset lots of their readers.
All of my wood is free, apart from my labour and chainsaw costs. It seasons for two years in a dry environment. I rarely put the gas boiler on apart from when extra heat is needed at very cold times. As for the particulate claims, most of that is unproven and just the usual shrill from the anti’s.
Unproven? No. It has been proven FALSE!
Steve Milloy at junkscience.com has been all over it for years.
Well for what it’s worth, you can’t huddle around a gas boiler can you!
It’s funny how we managed with open fires before central heating came along. We got up in the cold wearing a thick dressing gown then went down and lit the fire. We didn’t seem to suffer so bad …
In the legendary winter of 1962/3 my dad would lift the “deepening” bar on the Baxi Burnall (with back boiler), load up with extra coal, close up the dampers and tip ash over the top. The fire “kept in” overnight and, he claimed, it never went out for 3 months.
The hot water tank from the back boiler was in me and my brothers bedroom with a small radiator on the circuit in mum and dads room. Overall the house was quite warm and we always had hot water. Amazing what could be done on one CWT of coal per week even in extreme conditions.
Charlie Flindt wins the thread.
It really infuriates the green fascists, that wood (literally) grows on trees and is almost completely impossible to tax, and that wood-burners can’t be controlled or managed centrally by them and their mates.
So they’ll move heaven and earth to get them banned. Any old nonsense is grist to their mill.
Furthermore Peter you can run a car and/or generate electricity on wood, either on Syngas or from wood distillation (Methanol).
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/01/wood-gas-vehicles-firewood-in-the-fuel-tank/
https://sciencing.com/make-wood-alcohol-through-distillation-7762993.html
I recommend everyone who can to buy up a mall patch of woodland for future energy security and no I am not joking.
Correct. But there’s more . . . wood stoves give people the ability to heat their homes independent of government (mis)managed energy markets.
The issue isn’t wood stoves; it’s freedom.
The Guardian article is communist artillery to soften up the public (“How many fools does it take to make up a public?” – Chamfort). With full approval of the Guardian, who freely give aid to the commies.
The details aren’t very important, it’s the headline.
‘Wood burners more costly for heating than gas boilers, study finds’
The Guardian et al tell the public that so that when the government bans wood stoves, the public will think, “Well, they cost more, anyway.”
While the public should be thinking, “Wood stoves are none of your f*&^ing business!”
Don’t ban wood stoves; ban the government.
Correct!
I spent my career assessing the toxicity of pharmaceuticals, agrochemical and industrial chemicals. There are two fundamental principles:
1. There is nothing which is not a poison.
2. The difference between a remedy and a poison is the dose.
Unfortunately there is a persistent misconception about toxins – the idea that there is no safe dose. This idea is contrary to the second principle.
I am deeply suspicious of the supposed toxicity of particulates; yes breathing in wood or coal smoke is very likely to be as toxic as smoking cigarettes and is certainly best avoided but to be affected by the smoke you need a significant frequent exposure.
The survey upon which this story is based is utterly biased. They only surveyed wood prices in South East London, they included the cost of installing and maintaining two stoves in a house (adding £1500 each to the supposed cost) and the very lowest fuel cost they came up with £1400 for a year.
My stove was £280 to buy from France and £150 to have it fitted 20 years ago, I buy in bulk and split and season myself, and the most I’ve ever paid in 20 years of doing this, is £380 earlier this year for 4 cubic metres.
I only know of one person who regretted having not one but THREE woodburners installed in his house, George( allways crying for the camera) Monbiot, I mean how big is his house? Larger than Chris (bird sniffer) Packhams I’ll wager.
Anyway like most folks in large detached houses miles off the gas grid I have 3 (or 4 if I choose freezing to death). Wood, Oil, or have my trousers pulled down by EDF. I’ll take my chances with the particulates thank you.
I must admit to having a large woodland which I have managed (taken wood from) for over 20 years, it doesn’t look ant different.
Its good excersise, good to be out in nature and free.
I must add to that 9before I accused of being chainsaw happy maniac) that I only clear dead, deseased or fallen timber, I also create wildlife habits wherever I have been working and have also planted many new trees including this year 30 odd oaks.
The people writing the article may have purchaced their wood from a firm near leafy sevenoaks who somehow manage to charge eyewatering sums for their wares.
£180 for a grab bag or £860 for what looks like a twin wheel transit truck in the picture. I use very roughly a grab bag a week (a wheel barrow each day) so I suppose you could make it expensive if you wanted too.
Cheerio for now chaps, must through another log on.
I can get a tranny truck load for under £200 near Canterbury. Of course if you are in Islington or leafy Lewisham, it might be different but to base a national story on that experience is just fraud.
Indeed it is! and scaremongering as well.
I would rather enjoy the smell of burning wood and forego the pleasure of a few more years drooling into a cup in a care home in Weston-super-Mare.
The whole of Africa relies on wood and yet the western world wants to sell them renewables when they stand on barrels of oil which would give efficient cheap energy which they desperately need and want. See Apocalypse Never by Shellenberger
? Vast areas don’t have trees.
Dried dung is widely used.
Living in a small village, my only wood costs are the replacement chains and battery charging for my mid-sized battery chainsaw. Many folk (and my parish Council) are willing to donate the wood from small-medium dead trees you can remove for them to save the cost of a tree surgeon.
…Oh, and the cost of annual chimney sweep for the wood burner, which is much less than one month of my utility (g+e) bill.
When Gamecock used to use his fireplace extensively, he’d occasionally get the fire very hot to burn out any buildup in the chimney. Sweep never needed.
I used to sweep my 3 chimneys myself.
Its easy, just need a set of drainrods with a brush attachment on top (available in B&Q and last forever). An old vacuum cleaner, dustpan and brush, and bucket is the rest of the kit. I dont do the sweeping anymore as I trained up the wife, so she does it now while I sharpen my chainsaws.