Newhouse Farm

[Canadian Sheepfarmer]

Well now you mention it Billy I did notice Heiner's several missing body parts, presumably from bizarre chainsaw accidents? - perhaps wooding and drinking are not mutually exclusive?

[Billy Rhomboid]

Don't you believe it. My current in-laws are Slovaks, and every time I have accompanied them on tree-felling expeditions the outing has started with polishing of a bottle of slivovitz - usually at 6AM between no more than 4 people, and every time we stop for a break, more slivo is passed round as a chaser to beers.
Hunting trips follow a very similar pattern.
No fun in handling guns, axes and chainsaws unless you have consumed at least 20 units of alcohol before breakfast.
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Carpe Cerevisi

[Canadian Sheepfarmer]

Now this is becoming fascinating Billy. A far more interesting political and ethical debate could be had by all, I think, discussing your trawl around Europe for marriage partners. How many more have you kept quiet about?

[All of my exes live in Texas by the way. ]

[Billy Rhomboid]

Well there was the French one, and... although I we risk drifting off-topic here.

I saw it as doing my bit for European Union.
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Carpe Cerevisi

[Canadian Sheepfarmer]

[karena]

i didnt give up any thing i was born in the country and have always lived in rented houses. The current one has no mains gas supply there is oil central heating but it has never worked as the landlord has never got round to fixing it and that doesnt matter because we cant afford the oil + i always thought it was the worst for being green.There is an open fire with an unlined chimney and no cowell. last year we used a combination of a calor gas fire and electric fan heater - this year the calor gas has gone up to beyond our means.
I would love a stove with or without windows because i think they are far more efficient than the open fire but geting local sourced wood wouldnt happen short of a passing hurricane taking out some trees and i cant afford a stove, chimney liner etc anyway - so no stars for me whatso-ever It will have to be the open fire or the fan heater probably a combination.
as the fan heater isnt adequate for when we,re just sitting, we get frequent power cuts and unashamedly yes the fire offers more comfort.

[solar bud]

We have a woodburner and live on a terraced housing estate in a market town in the North.

The reason for getting one was really part of a project to see if a 100-year-old terraced house could be kitted out for sustainability in a manner which would be replicable.

Our wood comes from a local tree surgeon, who would otherwise have to put the wood into landfill. Most local authorities produce large quantities of waste wood every year from their standard tree operations, and the wood which doesn't get chipped and used as a mulch quite often goes into landfill, producing the inevitable methane emissions (which admittedly could be burned to produce electricity from landfill, but are not always captured).

Now, using this waste wood in clean-burning wood stoves certainly produces co2 emissions, but as the trees grow back, this is generally regarded as a closed cycle and therefore 'carbon neutral'. The use of wood as a fuel will replace the use of natural gas in homes, which will in turn cause the market price of gas to fall. This in turn will result in the large electricity generators using more gas to generate electricity instead of coal. Gas is a much cleaner fuel for electricity generation, with lower carbon emissions too.

Old terraced homes, commonly found in towns and cities, are ideal for woodburners because a) they have a chimney, and b) they use the heat efficiently as it heats up the fabric of the building, and as all the houses adjoin each other they keep each other warm. Of course, thick loft insulation and either internal or external solid wall insulation are desirable and increase the efficient use of the heat.

In many local authority areas are patches of neglected woodland - they are neglected and unmanaged because the local authority does not have the money to spend on it. However, thinning out these woodland areas would produce significant quantities of wood fuel. If there was increased demand for such wood fuel from woodburning households in terraced homes, the local authority could generate an income from the sale of wood fuel which could pay for the sustainable management of these woodland areas. Properly managed woodlands not only produce useful wood fuel, but are actually better for biodiversity than neglected, unmanaged woodlands.

Are woodburners green? Not always. But I think they can definitely be part of a 'green' solution, not only to our energy security problems and sustainable, clean energy supply, but their use can actively contribute to the better management of urban woodland areas and thus improved habitats and biodiversity opportunities.

Having said all this, we converted our heating to 100% wood (and solar power), but I think if I was doing it again, or renovating a terraced house for sale, I would have kept the gas central heating and simply installed a room heater wood stove, which could be used for heat and cooking during a power cut, would require less fuel and would still offset the use of gas, as long as a room thermostat was installed as a part of the central heating system.
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Solar Bud
http://greencottage.burysolarclub.net
http://www.solarbud.co.uk

Wine, women and song are so expensive now that I never have any money left over for luxuries . . .