They should be completely banned nationwide unless you live on at least a 4 hectare property.
The electricity grid may not yet be able to handle the sudden influx in demand that replacing them would cause. Once electricity prices come down due to renewables naturally it would make no economic sense to use a wood-heater anyway.
I’m not so sure above how firewood cost is calculated on that page.
I’m in a rural area, and see people collecting & delivering firewood to their elderly parent to subsidize heating costs. To the recipient, that heating cost is $0. If the person collecting also heats with firewood, I could easily see true costs at sub $1000/yr to supply themselves and their parent.
Health bodies such as Asthma Australia and the Australian Medical Assocation want state and territory governments to ban new wood heater installs and phase out the existing ones in residential areas. But governments appear reluctant to impose such a ban.
If a ban is out of the question, then can we at least tighten the requirements on new installations (e.g. https://www.homeheat.com.au/wood-heaters/certified-wood-heaters/) and provide subsidy programs? As far as I can tell there is only one active one and that’s in the ACT: https://www.energy.gov.au/rebates/wood-heater-removal-program (Armidale NSW did have one but applications have closed.)
See also https://asthma.org.au/about-us/media/switch-from-woodfire-heaters-for-healthier-heating/
I remember in one of his books, Dr Karl recalls knowing when winter started because the ER suddenly fills up with kids fighting for their lives.
Does he not own a calendar?
A work colleague had a funny story about wood fires.
His neighbours had a wood fire, and every winter they’d load up on wood and it would be billowing smoke.
One summer the neighbours had a tree go down in their backyard. Beauty! Free wood! They had it chopped up and stacked by their house. There was enough for years!
What they didn’t realise is the white ants liked that setup too. They got into that, and then destroyed the wood in the house. Some of it structural.
It cost them many,many thousands of dollars to have the wood ripped out and replaced.
Workmate hasn’t seen a wood fire since. He suspects the fireplace was also ripped out, or an electric/gas heater was installed.
This is about as credible as the ANU study that said dozens of people were being killed in the ACT every year. It’s a study commissioned, and written by the every people who have already decided that wood heaters are bad. If we are banning wood heaters, then we should ban fossil fuel cars as well. What a joke. This just stinks of “take away my privileges for my own good Daddy”.
If we are banning wood heaters, then we should ban fossil fuel cars as well.
This, but unsarcastically. It’s 2025 and people are still buying huge 4WD diesels to drive through the city to the office.
If we are banning wood heaters, then we should ban fossil fuel cars as well.
The article specifically mentions that fewer deaths are attributable to vehicle emissions than to wood heaters:
The Centre for Safe Air at the University of Tasmania estimates long-term exposure to wood-heater smoke causes 729 premature deaths every year in Australia, which is more than the deaths attributable to emissions from the national fleet of 20 million vehicles, or from energy generation, or even bushfires.
Come on, this study is extremely poorly done. For starters, the lead researcher has been advocating to ban wood heaters for over 15 years, and has never done a study that has found anything that high mortality rates. Second, they assume that there is a blanket level of a PM2.5 percentage air pollution caused specifically by wood heaters evenly over Australia. This means that they are assuming an even wood heater pollution level (at a rate that is not scientifically backed, and whjile they may try to justify it, the reality is that it is pulled out of their arse) over the whole country. It is not based on actual measurements taken, there was poor and biased methodology of coming to this level. It does not take account of seasonal variations, or the fact that wood heaters are more common in areas with lower population density. The population functions they use rely on research done in North America and Europe, populations with different health concerns and living conditions. Populations, which have a higher level of air pollution and consistently worse air quality.
I will admit, that yes there is obviously health concerns from wood heaters. But this study has serious methodological concerns, heavily relies on insufficiently modeled methodologies, with poor input numbers, and worst of all is potentially biased by the people who wrote it have long standing advocacy positions. It’s like asking Exxon Mobile to make a study on the health impacts of fossil fuel cars.
The article specifically mentions that fewer deaths are attributable to vehicle emissions than to wood heaters:
Calling bullshit on that number…
Traffic pollution likely causes more than 11,000 premature deaths in Australia a year,
You have a cat converter on your coonara?
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Yep, need to get a hot blazing burn then it’s fairly clean (and efficient). Smaller wood is better – just keep loading it in.
Trouble is, no one ever listens. They throw on massive logs then crank the airflow right down for the lovely slow burn through the evening, then wedge in the biggest piece they can find and close the airflow “so it’s still burning in the morning” (*smouldering).
Masonry heater or don’t even bother.
It’s barely practical to run a typical modern Australian wood heater efficiently because they can’t store the heat of a blazing hot efficient smokeless burn.
Come on, this study is extremely poorly done. For starters, the lead researcher has been advocating to ban wood heaters for over 15 years, and has never done a study that has found anything that high mortality rates. Second, they assume that there is a blanket level of a PM2.5 percentage air pollution caused specifically by wood heaters evenly over Australia. This means that they are assuming an even wood heater pollution level (at a rate that is not scientifically backed, and whjile they may try to justify it, the reality is that it is pulled out of their arse) over the whole country. It is not based on actual measurements taken, there was poor and biased methodology of coming to this level. It does not take account of seasonal variations, or the fact that wood heaters are more common in areas with lower population density. The population functions they use rely on research done in North America and Europe, populations with different health concerns and living conditions. Populations, which have a higher level of air pollution and consistently worse air quality.
I will admit, that yes there is obviously health concerns from wood heaters. But this study has serious methodological concerns, heavily relies on insufficiently modeled methodologies, with poor input numbers, and worst of all is potentially biased by the people who wrote it have long standing advocacy positions. It’s like asking Exxon Mobile to make a study on the health impacts of fossil fuel cars.
