- A ban on all pre-packaged traditional bituminous house coal
- A ban will apply on loose sales via coal merchants at a later date
- Wood sold in single units under 2m3 (loose stacked) must have a moisture content of 20% or less – something we always recommended
- A national requirement for certified controlled sulphur content and a smoke emission limit on manufactured solid fuels (currently applies in Smoke Control Areas)
Therefore there is NO BAN ON STOVES
The legislation proposed is exactly as predicted and in summary seeks to ban the sale of wet wood in volumes over 2 cubic meters, ban smokeless fuels with more than 2% sulphur content and finally to ban pre-packaged bituminous house coal. There are different timescales for when these bans will come into place, but they start in one year’s time.
The exact wording is:
- Restrictions on the sale of wet wood for domestic burning, so that it can only be purchased in volumes over a specified cut-off point
- Applying a 2% sulphur limit and smoke emission limit of 5g per hour to all manufactured solid fuels
- Phasing out the sale of bituminous (traditional house) coal
Government recognises that a range of households have open fires or stoves and is not seeking to prevent their use or installation through these proposals. However, action is needed to reduce the amount of PM2.5 produced as a direct result of domestic combustion
Schiedel Chimney Systems, as part of the Stove Industry Alliance have agreed we welcome these changes and we’ve been fully consulted about them.
However, predictably and very damagingly some of the press have not reported this accurately and are expanding the Defra statement to include references to potential bans on wood burning stoves. The Defra statement does not make any reference to appliances and does not mention any possibility of a ban on wood burning stoves.
The SIA are contacting the worst offenders of misreporting in the press, such as Sky News on-line where a caption under a picture of a wood stove reads “Wood burning stoves will be phased out from next year” – which is factually incorrect and just very lazy editing.
We are aware that both the Telegraph and some other papers have also made reference to a possible future ban on wood burning stoves and the SIA will be following up on these and talking to the journalists / editors during the next week to try and correct them and make sure their understanding of Defra’s announcement is better than it is currently.
So, we finally have some definition to the legislation, which matches what the stove industry and chimney industry have encourages for a number of years.
- Click here to find our more on the Government Website.
- Click here to find out more about the Stove Industry Alliance
- Click here to visit the HETAS website
