
Heating with wood – a catastrophe for the climate?!
Around 11 million fireplace stoves in Germany are heated with wood. But how sustainable is heating with wood really? Eco-checker Katharina gets to the bottom of it all and explains how harmful wood burning actually is to the climate.
Climate sin: burning wood
Heating with wood sounds like a cozy evening at home. The climate balance is often overlooked. Anyone who heats with wood automatically produces a lot of soot particles when burning wood. These particles are a major burden on the climate because they are carried very far and can sometimes even be found on the snow and ice surfaces in the Arctic. Due to their dark coloring, they reflect less sunlight and warm up more, which causes the ice surfaces to melt more quickly.
When it comes to the ecological footprint, things also look bad when heating with wood: the high number of soot particles makes domestic heating 3,200 times more harmful to the climate than CO₂ emissions.
However, heating with wood not only harms the climate, but also us humans. When burned, pollutant emissions that are harmful to health are released. The fine dust emitted can lead to, among other things, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases or cancer.
What about the pellets?
Heating with pellets is very popular. In 2021 there were around 570,000 pellet heating systems in Germany. The pellets are made from sawdust - a waste product of the wood industry that is created when tree trunks are sawn. These are dried in ovens and finally pressed. Due to the low moisture content of the pellets of around 10 percent, fewer pollutants are produced when burned in a home oven.
The pellets have another advantage: they burn much more evenly than conventional firewood. When shopping, it's worth taking a look at the seals: quality classes like ENplus stand for sustainable production that uses industrial waste wood and chemically untreated used wood.
How can you heat as sustainably as possible?
The most climate-friendly alternative to pellets and logs is the heat pump. If you already have a stove at home and want to heat as climate-friendly as possible, you should definitely take a look at the seals when buying wood. The FSC seal and the Naturland seal stand for controlled and ecological forestry.
Anyone who relies on regional firewood is also doing the environment a favor. Treated wood or even waste does not belong in your home oven. Firewood should have a low moisture content. This value can be determined using a wood moisture meter.
When heating, you should also pay attention to the correct air supply: at the beginning the fire needs a lot of air, later a little less. Anyone who equips their oven with a so-called particle separator is also doing something good for the environment. This filter is installed in the chimney or at the chimney mouth and can provide ultrafine particle reduction rates of up to 90 percent.
Source: SWR Marktcheck / Ökochecker SWR – Author: Julia Müller, Moderation: Katharina Röben
Further links
• BMEL (2022)
• NABU (2022)
• German Environmental Aid (2022)
• Guide from UBA
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