I can't speak for the UK as a whole, but for London specifically I'd bet this is the actual reasoning 95% of the time: Energy costs and general fearfulness make for a good narrative, and they...
I can't speak for the UK as a whole, but for London specifically I'd bet this is the actual reasoning 95% of the time:
“People enjoy sitting in front of a fire,” he said. “You can shut the curtains, light a fire and it doesn’t really matter what’s going on outside. People have a glass of wine, the fire’s alight, they read a book. I guess they switch off.”
Energy costs and general fearfulness make for a good narrative, and they really are having a big impact on a lot of people's lives - but if you've got a working fireplace in London that means you (a) own a house, (b) an entire house, that hasn't been subdivided into flats in the last 100+ years, (c) and it's been well maintained enough that whole time that it still has intact period features today. Think Brooklyn Brownstone, or Bay Area townhouse, if you're coming from a US perspective.
It's not absurd super rich territory or anything, but it's comfortably upper middle class. Software developer married to a doctor, that kind of vibe. The kind of people who, not to put too fine a point on it, happen to have a magnum of champagne and a picture from someone's recent ski trip on the mantlepiece when the NYT drops in to take photos.
[Edit] I mean no shade by that, BTW. It's a lovely cosy way to set up the living room if you can! I just don't want people getting the impression that it's some kind of Victorian-era recession indicator. The lines outside the local food bank, on the other hand... :/
According to the National Association of Chimney Sweeps, demand has been bolstered by high energy prices, the popularity of wood-burning stoves and an international climate that has prompted warnings that electricity supplies could be vulnerable to attack by hostile states like Russia.
[...]
“People are thinking, ‘Let’s have a backup, let’s have a fire, let’s have a stove in case the electricity goes off,’” said Martin Glynn, the president of the chimney sweeps association, whose membership has risen to about 750 today, from about 590 in 2021. “If you have the ability to burn logs or smokeless fuel, you can keep cooking and have some heating. There is a big increase in demand and people are reopening their fireplaces.”
[...]
In Britain, the profession seems safe for another generation, judging from the enthusiasm of Tom Joslin, 19, who joined Mr. Firkins as an apprentice 14 months ago, after leaving college and trying catering and bar work. His youthful appearance causes clients to jokingly ask if he will be climbing into the chimney.
...i'm in central texas, so we don't burn much more than a half-cord most years, but our chimney sweep was nonetheless surprised to see that we do indeed make full use of his services every two or...
...i'm in central texas, so we don't burn much more than a half-cord most years, but our chimney sweep was nonetheless surprised to see that we do indeed make full use of his services every two or three seasons...firewood's a niche market and thus not cheap here: about $200 per half-cord, seasoned, split, and delivered, although it can be had more-cheaply if you shop around, season, split, and haul your own wood...
...just by dumb luck we finished the last of our firewood stock and had another half-cord delivered the last week in january 2021, which our neighbors mocked at the time but we completely burned the second half of that february...
Wow, I didn't realize how big of a span the pricing covers. I paid $600 two years ago for mixed cord half madrona (local hardwood) and half pine. The source of the wood is what the firefighters...
firewood's a niche market and thus not cheap here: about $200 per half-cord, seasoned, split, and delivered
Wow, I didn't realize how big of a span the pricing covers. I paid $600 two years ago for mixed cord half madrona (local hardwood) and half pine. The source of the wood is what the firefighters cut down in the local national forests, so it's not like they're running a tree farm or something.
Growing up my family burned wood a lot of the time to heat our home in the winter to save money in the Fall and Winter and I honestly never knew the price of wood. My dad would often offer to cut...
Growing up my family burned wood a lot of the time to heat our home in the winter to save money in the Fall and Winter and I honestly never knew the price of wood. My dad would often offer to cut up and haul away a tree for a family friend/acquaintance if they needed one removed, which meant my brother and I would go with him to help. Once we got home we'd then have to split and stack the wood.
Seeing how much you're paying for it, and looking up the price in Oregon where I grew up I saw it can range from ~200-500 depending on the type of wood I'm guessing we probably helped my parents to haul and burn thousands of dollars over then years. My parents even have a picture of my brother and standing in front of a felled tree when I was ~3 with both of holding us holding a hatchet.
...pretty much everything we burn is seasoned oak, but some of our more premium suppliers also offer select hardwood species to bougie restaurants, hotels, and residences...
...pretty much everything we burn is seasoned oak, but some of our more premium suppliers also offer select hardwood species to bougie restaurants, hotels, and residences...
...our current supplier is also our arborist; firewood is his side gig but most of the firewood sources we've used harvest it from clearing property... ...i've harvested some lightning-strike...
...our current supplier is also our arborist; firewood is his side gig but most of the firewood sources we've used harvest it from clearing property...
...i've harvested some lightning-strike deadfall on my own from the adjacent hill country preserve, but hand-splitting dense oak is hard work and so our suppliers i think are reasonably-priced for what they offer...
Where I live (rural Victoria, Australia), a wood stove is generally the cheapest way to heat your home. For people who can afford them, reverse cycle A/Cs are gaining in popularity, especially as...
Where I live (rural Victoria, Australia), a wood stove is generally the cheapest way to heat your home. For people who can afford them, reverse cycle A/Cs are gaining in popularity, especially as solar panels become more common (plus they can do cooling in the summer), but the wood stove is still king, especially for people on tight budgets.
Our most common local tree (the manna gum) burns efficiently and grows like a weed. If you're willing to do your own wood splitting, you can get a year's delivery of wood in a single truckload for a reasonable price. If you can't afford to buy wood, all you need is a chainsaw and a trailer to collect your own firewood by the side of the road (manna gums regularly drop branches, often 6-12" in diameter, which take decades to rot away).
It's a completely different story in the city, however, where wood transport becomes very expensive, where most people don't have room to store wood in bulk, and where regulations about woodsmoke come into effect. I've seen some older houses in the city that have fireplaces (generally nonfunctional or retrofitted into gas heaters), but it's very unusual to see new builds with hookups for wood stoves.
I can't say anything about London, but here, wood stoves seem like more of a posh thing in urban areas, even if they're the economical option in the boonies.
Without getting too close to doxxing territory, I hope you and your loved ones are safe from the recent (/ongoing) bushfires! I know a number of people in my workplace who work remotely from...
Where I live (rural Victoria, Australia)
Without getting too close to doxxing territory, I hope you and your loved ones are safe from the recent (/ongoing) bushfires!
I know a number of people in my workplace who work remotely from towns/regional cities throughout the state had to evacuate, but luckily everyone I know managed to get through mostly unscathed.
It feels like that scary weather of Black Saturday and Black Summer all over again, with already a handful of days over 40°C and we’re barely half way through summer so far. Stay safe out there!
(Posted from an air conditioned office in Melbourne CBD, but grew up in central Victoria, so while I’m far removed now, I still understand how scary things can get and how quickly the wind can change)
Archive link for those who don't have an NYT subscription: https://archive.ph/utALr Great article, thanks for sharing /u/skybrian... Those in the States, what is the cost of firewood these days?...
Great article, thanks for sharing /u/skybrian... Those in the States, what is the cost of firewood these days? We have a fireplace in my house but outside of the first cleaning when we purchased the house, we've never used it. That is mainly because that first year after we cleaned it, we learned that firewood would have been almost as expensive as central heat but with central heat you could at least heat the whole house and not just that one room where the fire place was.
Do you have a fireplace, or a wood burning stove? The efficiency on fireplaces is abysmal, something like a single digit percentage if I recall correctly. Wood stoves on the other hand both burn...
Do you have a fireplace, or a wood burning stove? The efficiency on fireplaces is abysmal, something like a single digit percentage if I recall correctly. Wood stoves on the other hand both burn more of your wood, and capture much more of the heat before sending it up the chimney. Depending on your floor plan, you could absolutely heat whole house with one.
Not evenly, the stove room will be a sauna, but that's what open floor plans are for right?
It's generally pretty doable to have a wood stove installed in a fireplace. There are some ridiculously efficient wood stoves on the market today — upwards of 80-90% (compared to a fireplace's...
It's generally pretty doable to have a wood stove installed in a fireplace. There are some ridiculously efficient wood stoves on the market today — upwards of 80-90% (compared to a fireplace's 10-15%).
They're not a perfect replacement for central heating, since they are slower to warm up and cool down, and you can't regulate them to a thermostat. But they can definitely cut down on heating bills during the coldest parts of winter, depending on the local price of firewood, the local price of electricity/gas/whatever your central heating runs on, and your home's insulation (central heating is particularly ineffective in drafty homes).
Some wood stoves actually do have the ability to be regulated with a rheostat. I've not clear on all of how it works, but they control a fan's speed to manage airflow based on the temperature of...
Some wood stoves actually do have the ability to be regulated with a rheostat. I've not clear on all of how it works, but they control a fan's speed to manage airflow based on the temperature of the stove. It doesn't replace keeping the fire fueled, but does allow for more granularity in the room's temperature.
I can't speak for the UK as a whole, but for London specifically I'd bet this is the actual reasoning 95% of the time:
Energy costs and general fearfulness make for a good narrative, and they really are having a big impact on a lot of people's lives - but if you've got a working fireplace in London that means you (a) own a house, (b) an entire house, that hasn't been subdivided into flats in the last 100+ years, (c) and it's been well maintained enough that whole time that it still has intact period features today. Think Brooklyn Brownstone, or Bay Area townhouse, if you're coming from a US perspective.
It's not absurd super rich territory or anything, but it's comfortably upper middle class. Software developer married to a doctor, that kind of vibe. The kind of people who, not to put too fine a point on it, happen to have a magnum of champagne and a picture from someone's recent ski trip on the mantlepiece when the NYT drops in to take photos.
[Edit] I mean no shade by that, BTW. It's a lovely cosy way to set up the living room if you can! I just don't want people getting the impression that it's some kind of Victorian-era recession indicator. The lines outside the local food bank, on the other hand... :/
From the article:
[...]
[...]
...i'm in central texas, so we don't burn much more than a half-cord most years, but our chimney sweep was nonetheless surprised to see that we do indeed make full use of his services every two or three seasons...firewood's a niche market and thus not cheap here: about $200 per half-cord, seasoned, split, and delivered, although it can be had more-cheaply if you shop around, season, split, and haul your own wood...
...just by dumb luck we finished the last of our firewood stock and had another half-cord delivered the last week in january 2021, which our neighbors mocked at the time but we completely burned the second half of that february...
Wow, I didn't realize how big of a span the pricing covers. I paid $600 two years ago for mixed cord half madrona (local hardwood) and half pine. The source of the wood is what the firefighters cut down in the local national forests, so it's not like they're running a tree farm or something.
Growing up my family burned wood a lot of the time to heat our home in the winter to save money in the Fall and Winter and I honestly never knew the price of wood. My dad would often offer to cut up and haul away a tree for a family friend/acquaintance if they needed one removed, which meant my brother and I would go with him to help. Once we got home we'd then have to split and stack the wood.
Seeing how much you're paying for it, and looking up the price in Oregon where I grew up I saw it can range from ~200-500 depending on the type of wood I'm guessing we probably helped my parents to haul and burn thousands of dollars over then years. My parents even have a picture of my brother and standing in front of a felled tree when I was ~3 with both of holding us holding a hatchet.
...pretty much everything we burn is seasoned oak, but some of our more premium suppliers also offer select hardwood species to bougie restaurants, hotels, and residences...
...our current supplier is also our arborist; firewood is his side gig but most of the firewood sources we've used harvest it from clearing property...
...i've harvested some lightning-strike deadfall on my own from the adjacent hill country preserve, but hand-splitting dense oak is hard work and so our suppliers i think are reasonably-priced for what they offer...
Where I live (rural Victoria, Australia), a wood stove is generally the cheapest way to heat your home. For people who can afford them, reverse cycle A/Cs are gaining in popularity, especially as solar panels become more common (plus they can do cooling in the summer), but the wood stove is still king, especially for people on tight budgets.
Our most common local tree (the manna gum) burns efficiently and grows like a weed. If you're willing to do your own wood splitting, you can get a year's delivery of wood in a single truckload for a reasonable price. If you can't afford to buy wood, all you need is a chainsaw and a trailer to collect your own firewood by the side of the road (manna gums regularly drop branches, often 6-12" in diameter, which take decades to rot away).
It's a completely different story in the city, however, where wood transport becomes very expensive, where most people don't have room to store wood in bulk, and where regulations about woodsmoke come into effect. I've seen some older houses in the city that have fireplaces (generally nonfunctional or retrofitted into gas heaters), but it's very unusual to see new builds with hookups for wood stoves.
I can't say anything about London, but here, wood stoves seem like more of a posh thing in urban areas, even if they're the economical option in the boonies.
Without getting too close to doxxing territory, I hope you and your loved ones are safe from the recent (/ongoing) bushfires!
I know a number of people in my workplace who work remotely from towns/regional cities throughout the state had to evacuate, but luckily everyone I know managed to get through mostly unscathed.
It feels like that scary weather of Black Saturday and Black Summer all over again, with already a handful of days over 40°C and we’re barely half way through summer so far. Stay safe out there!
(Posted from an air conditioned office in Melbourne CBD, but grew up in central Victoria, so while I’m far removed now, I still understand how scary things can get and how quickly the wind can change)
Archive link for those who don't have an NYT subscription: https://archive.ph/utALr
Great article, thanks for sharing /u/skybrian... Those in the States, what is the cost of firewood these days? We have a fireplace in my house but outside of the first cleaning when we purchased the house, we've never used it. That is mainly because that first year after we cleaned it, we learned that firewood would have been almost as expensive as central heat but with central heat you could at least heat the whole house and not just that one room where the fire place was.
Do you have a fireplace, or a wood burning stove? The efficiency on fireplaces is abysmal, something like a single digit percentage if I recall correctly. Wood stoves on the other hand both burn more of your wood, and capture much more of the heat before sending it up the chimney. Depending on your floor plan, you could absolutely heat whole house with one.
Not evenly, the stove room will be a sauna, but that's what open floor plans are for right?
I have a fireplace in my house.
It's generally pretty doable to have a wood stove installed in a fireplace. There are some ridiculously efficient wood stoves on the market today — upwards of 80-90% (compared to a fireplace's 10-15%).
They're not a perfect replacement for central heating, since they are slower to warm up and cool down, and you can't regulate them to a thermostat. But they can definitely cut down on heating bills during the coldest parts of winter, depending on the local price of firewood, the local price of electricity/gas/whatever your central heating runs on, and your home's insulation (central heating is particularly ineffective in drafty homes).
Some wood stoves actually do have the ability to be regulated with a rheostat. I've not clear on all of how it works, but they control a fan's speed to manage airflow based on the temperature of the stove. It doesn't replace keeping the fire fueled, but does allow for more granularity in the room's temperature.