Hot Potato

The liminal interlude between Christmas and New Year that leaves many, like me, feeling torpid and disoriented. Foreshortened for us, though, by Covid-delayed celebrations, now completed, so I already have a sense of a turning-point.

It felt like the night the fire-door should be cleaned. Baby-wipes are remarkably effective (what do they put in them?!). On especially tarry areas, dipping the cloth in the cold ash of an earlier fire amplifies their effectiveness. I've never been able to decide if this is merely a physical effect - the ash being mildly abrasive - or if there is something chemical going on. Too late and too thoroughly revelled to research it tonight

The evidence for the morbid effects of wood-burning stoves (and pellet boilers) is stacking up like a log pile, and features again in today's fire-lighters. There are two related but distinct threats:

- the particulates released to the open air from the chimney

- particulates and multiple other combustion products released into the home when the fire-door is opened to reload

The first of these relates primarily to urban areas, which arguably lets us off the hook. The second applies to every home that runs one. I take this seriously

The perceived 'injustice' of this situation is that we, like many others, opted to install one to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and get at least some of our heat from a more sustainable source. We have travelled this road before in our diesel car

Humanity has burned a lot of logs in the million years or so since we started using fire. Have we been filling the air and our homes with particulates the whole time? Do modern housing densities and modern home design make it worse? I feel I need a bit more understanding before I stop cleaning the fire-door