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126 comments on Old Sunlight vs Ancient Sunlight -An Analysis of Home Heating and Wood

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Cornucopia on July 11, 2007 - 11:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

We heat our house entirely with a single woodstove. An imported Vermont Castings from your dear USA, excellent stove, 85% efficient. The house is 1900 sq ft, and our indoor temperature ranges between 21 C in the morning to about 25 C when we start up the stove in the afternoon. The bedrooms keep a nice 21-22 all day, as they are furthest from the stove.

And you can cook on the stove when we have blackouts.

We have our own forest, and also sell about five times our own firewood needs, all sustainable. Also about the same amount of lumber and paper pulp wood.

On the other hand our house is properly insulated as most Swedish houses are. It doesn't require much firewood to heat a house if it's insulated, and the temperature doesn't drop especially fast. Some heat is stored in the masonry chimney, but the rest is simply stored in the air and last long enough.

As for the nonsense on emissions, a modern stove like the Vermont (or a Swedish Nibe) produces very little emissions and very little ash as they burn clean. On the plus side for the Vermont is that it can be choked for higher efficiency and longer burn, and still not leave much ash or give emissions.

In fact, people who burn wood live longer and are healthier. One of the reasons is the excercise, another is that it's more common to live in the countryside and thus get fresh air, but also that anti-oxidants from the smoke is good for you.

Anyway, first measure is to insulate your house. We have almost a foot thick insulation in the walls and 1.5 feet on the roof, and high windows that bounce back the energy into the house instead of leaking.

In Finland there is a law stipulating that all single houses should have at least one wood stove or similar, as a backup if nothing else. Not so here in Sweden, although most do.

I know dozens of people who heat exclusively with a wooden stove, although it's supposed to be impossible and they are counted in statistics as using direct electric heat, and many, many more burning wood in a central heating furnace (usually with water tanks for energy storage and efficient burn).

But on the other hand, there's plenty of forest in Sweden, always has been.

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Swede on July 12, 2007 - 6:00am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Tell me more about the antioxidants in wood smoke, never heard about it.

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Cornucopia on July 13, 2007 - 1:29am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Here's the english summary of a Swedish report, funded by the Swedish Energy Agency. The complete report is available in Swedish here:

http://www.afabinfo.com/pdf_doc/fou_rapporter/AntioxidantrapportCTH.pdf


Summary
Increased residential wood burning has been questioned referring to environmental and health
hazards due to emitted smoke components. In this project, the presence of phenolic
antioxidants in wood smoke was demonstrated, presenting a more positive aspect on the
smoke.

The antioxidants are mainly methoxyphenols released from the lignin of the wood.
Dimethoyxyphenols from hardwood are the strongest antioxidants. At combustion
temperatures below 800oC and especially for smouldering wood the methoxyphenols normally
constitute the main fraction of the organic smoke components. Most methoxyphenols condense
on cooling and are present as particulate matter in ambient air. The phenolic antioxidants are
released together with almost as large amounts of 1,6-anhydroglucose formed mainly from
cellulose.

The assessment of components in wood smoke which are positive or at least harmless with
respect to health has met with great interest. The occurrence and proportions of specific
methoxyphenols in wood smoke of various origins have therefore been emphasized in the
project. Comparisons were also made with smoke for food curing, from newspaper burning and
from burning of forest biomass components.

Smoke from residential fireplace burning of hardwood in particular consists of a large
proportion of effective antioxidants and a low proportion of hazardous compounds. Residential
boilers with unsatisfactory combustion may produce a smoke with elevated concentrations of
benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. An environmentally labelled boiler emitted
almost negligible amounts of organic compounds. Wood pellets burnt in free-standing stoves
or in boiler burners emitted lower amounts of both antioxidants and hazardous compounds than
comparable firewood burning.

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Swede on July 13, 2007 - 10:06am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thanks, now it will be a real plesure to heat my house with wood.

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Mriswith on July 12, 2007 - 6:09am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

but also that anti-oxidants from the smoke is good for you

Are you sure about that? I thought smoke mostly contained free radicals, in the form of NOx.

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126 comments on Old Sunlight vs Ancient Sunlight -An Analysis of Home Heating and Wood

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