andrew wibbled on Monday 16 November 2009 20:04
Interesting. I did see that it was still likely to be used in telegraph poles and the like, not that one tends to harvest those for the fire...
I'm thinking the ash is the biggest problem - likley to get a facefull of powder brushing it up on a regular basis, and then to go and chuck it on the veggie patch and eat the results... Hopefully most of the smoke is going up the chimney (though pity the sweep).
Another victory for cheapness...
If anyone is still looking at this thread:
It was burned in a closed stove. Just two small bags, none left.
The stove is so efficient that there's very little ash - or smoke.
The metal salts wouldn't be soluble enough to get into the vegetables in any significant amount - and since we've already achieved our biblical spans all the future is a bonus :-)
As I said, very little smoke. We sweep our own chimneys but don't go onto the roof to do it ... the soot is contained and not ingested.
Bearing in mind everything which has been said we shan't look for more modern building materials which are likely to have been treated with anything. It doesn't seem necessary, there's a lot of wood around, lots of our friends have trees they want felling and are happy to keep the logs until we have space to season them.
Thanks to everyone who has offered polite replies.
Mary
Good to see you posting.
We seem paranoid about emissions.
When I were a lad, I had a wonderful time playing with mercury - you know that silvery exciting liqiud that you could splash about and then it would recombine!
On another group recently (US), I was trying to work out how terrifying these "nasty" lightless CFLs are due to their mercury content, (I've used them since the 70s when they costed a fortune but reduced emissions & £s paid to the ElCo ). From that dialogue, it would appear that the use of CFLs and the saving on electricity generation (based on their proportion of generation sources), the mercury issue roughly balances out.
Not having a functioning fireplace, roughly two years out of three, I have a wonderful bonfire in October that consumes the timber generated in our garden that I cannot shred for compost, though the larger fractions are freely given to neighbours who can use them.
Unlike our neighbours, we do not possess a "Compostible Bin" that we could place in the road for collection as all our organic waste (excluding paper and that above) is composted and used in the garden.
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