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No smokers in my neighborhood, but people use their goddamn fireplaces too much and it’s kinda impossible to get fresh air in winter evenings and often during t
by WA 8mo ago
No smokers in my neighborhood, but people use their goddamn fireplaces too much and it’s kinda impossible to get fresh air in winter evenings and often during the day. Not sure how to train them. And unfortunately, there are too many. Burning wood should be forbidden in residential areas. It’s similar to smoking in restaurants, except you can’t escape them.
- its_ubuntu 8mo ago[flagged]
- WA 8mo agoGood neighborhood = keep your emissions low. Be it sound, light, or smell. These rules apply to almost all public places. If you want to be loud, burn shit or have floodlights, move to a place outside of the city.
- its_ubuntu 8mo ago[dead]
- sejje 8mo agoFive miles from pavement, and my air quality is perfect 365 days per year. I hear some gunshots during hunting season, echoing across the valley, but they'd be drowned out by the frogs singing--they're way louder. Wait until these guys start telling you you don't need a truck.
- its_ubuntu 8mo ago[dead]
- technothrasher 8mo ago> I hear some gunshots during hunting season I don't mind the gunshots near my house during hunting season, because I have good neighbors. Those shots mean my freezer is getting stocked with venison.
- sejje 8mo agoI live far enough out that the gunshots are usually people hunting NFS land. A huge swath of it borders my property, as I'm the last house up the road on my mountain. I don't mind 'em at all, though. I think it's locals, just folks I haven't met. They keep it clean and they go up far enough I can't hear anything besides the rifle crack.
- blazers777 8mo agoi see both sides, having lived with both super sensitive and petty neighbors, and also inconsiderate, loud neighbors. There are definitely sensitive people who have either misophonia rage, or PTSD from something, and they can't handle normal levels of city noise. on top of that, some apartments simply allow smoking inside. If they always use the balcony, they're really doing you a favor. if you are worried about emissions, you really have to think about cars and refineries and jets, and even restaurants. These are incredibly out of control when it comes to pollution and disease. in my experience, if you're buying machines and building devices, and your target refuses to play that game, then it's clear who the adult is, and who the child is.
- adsteel_ 8mo agoMy romantic views of wood smoke hit reality when I first camped in Canada's Banff-Jasper national parks, where you could buy unlimited firewood for the night for $5. Everyone bought it, it seemed. Trying to breathe downwind of a campground was a rude wakeup call. It should definitely be restricted in denser residential areas. I can't imagine some of the towns in Germany or Poland where residents depend on wood fires for heat.
- schrectacular 8mo agoWhere they depend on wood for heat they are more likely to have efficient stoves that completely burn the wood. Smoke coming out of the chimney is "firing for the crows" and wasting fuel.
- sejje 8mo agoPeople should just make better fires. A good fire doesn't release much, if any smoke. It burns it up instead. A good woodstove is worth the money.
- sevensor 8mo agoPeople have romantic ideas about heating with fire and burn the most awful green wood in their fireplaces, stinking up the whole neighborhood. I understand burning bad wood because you have no options -- I witnessed a chimney fire or two as a kid that resulted from burning too much wet pine -- but I cannot fathom the mindset of someone who does it recreationally.
- sejje 8mo agoMeanwhile my neighbor is burning wood he stacked eight years ago. Some of it precious, too. Like black walnut.
- robocat 8mo agoThe stink remains even for efficient fires. Smoke is often correlated of course. I'm in Christchurch, New Zealand which gets winter smog,. The city council enforces rules and woodburners need to meet strict emission standards. They regularly tighten the rules so that if you want a woodburner you need to replace it every 15 years or so. But they do still smell. The rules have radically improved the air quality here and we now get much less smog than when I was a kid. Outright banning open fires and coal years ago made a big difference too. I'm not sure what happens if you don't follow the rules. A neighbour can make a complaint and there will get taken seriously and I believe they have a van sometimes checking too. Although I've personally never heard of anyone actually getting caught.
- DiggyJohnson 8mo agoI cannot fathom making this comparison.
- j-conn 8mo ago100% agree, many people don’t realize just how harmful wood smoke is. It’s also the main source of pollution in the Bay Area during the winter. Unfortunately energy costs are high enough here that people resort to burning wood to save money, so collectively beneficial policies are likely to face resistance (understandably). The purpleair map has been awesome to at least make the problem visible. I hope they are using it to aid enforcement on spare the air days.
- its_ubuntu 8mo ago[flagged]
- f33d5173 8mo ago> Did you notice how they have banned and demonized tobacco, but the lung cancer rate keeps increasing? No, I noticed the opposite. They demonized tobacco, and lung cancer rates went dowm precipitously.
- its_ubuntu 8mo ago[dead]
- tzs 8mo agoRates are down massively compared to where they were before the significant drop in smoking. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10752493/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10752493/
- its_ubuntu 8mo ago[flagged]
- defrost 8mo ago> a full 1/3 of lifelong smokers never develop any kind of cancer, That's "true" in the sense that it's the CVD (Cardiovascular disease) and COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) that are way more likely to take them out first. Lifetime Smoking History and Cause-Specific Mortality in a Cohort Study with 43 Years of Follow-Up https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4824471/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4824471/ Sure, you absolutely can be 98 years old sucking back on a deathstick, just like you might find yourself screaming "suck it" as you take home that giant lottery cheque with some winnings. Pachinko's a hell of a game .. but still the house wins.
- carey 8mo agoThe atmosphere above Christchurch, NZ tends to form layers in winter that trap the smoke and make this worse, and new fireplaces have been restricted to clean-burning log burners and dry wood by law. It seemed like the biggest change in air quality in recent years came from the tragic earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 knocking down all the unreinforced-masonry chimneys, though.
- doctorwho42 8mo agoWhy would anyone burn anything but dry wood in their indoor fireplace...
- jstanley 8mo agoBecause all they have is wet wood and they want to light the fire. If you had dry wood to hand of course you'd use that in preference.
- sdeframond 8mo agoBurning wood is acutally forbidden in many cities in France for this very reason.
- GJim 8mo ago> people use their goddamn fireplaces too much and it’s kinda impossible to get fresh air in winter evenings Not a problem with a properly designed HEATAS approved wood burning stove and properly seasoned beach wood. Being daft enough to buy an inefficient, unapproved stove and/or and burn unseasoned green wood is ridiculous. Not to mention its illegal to sell small quantities of unseasoned firewood in Blighty; large amounts to season yourself are fine. EDIT: If you disagree with the above, then get off your arse and write a rebuttal saying why! Downvoting simply because you disagree (rather than because the text doesn't add to the conversation) simply turns arguments into a popularity contest and is turning this place into another Reddit. (A statement of fact, no matter what the old HN guidelines say about Reddit).
- namibj 8mo agoWell, it's not the burning of the wood as such, but the lack of flue gas treatment. I too wish we had much stricter imissions rules for fires in residential areas.