Low-impact living by Jane Powers
"Níl aon tintáin mar do thintáin féin." Indeed, as the saying goes, there is no hearth like your own hearth, and the special contentment that is to be had gazing into the flames flickering within it. But even primitive pleasures such as this can - alas - be detrimental to the environment.
Peat, the quintessential Irish fuel, is a non-renewable resource. Once it's taken out of the bog, it's gone for good - or rather, it takes a few thousand years to re-accumulate in usable quantities. In Irish bogs, peat builds at the rate of one millimetre per year, so it is not a sustainable fuel. And coal, of course, takes hundreds of thousands of years to form.
Both peat and coal produce carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions when they burn. Peat, per calorie of heat, off-gases more C02 than coal.
So where is the fireplace romantic to acquire his reverie-fuelling flames and embers? Well, from wood. Wood takes five to 20 years to grow to burnable bulk, it emits less sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides than fossil fuel, and it is "carbon neutral". This means that it absorbs the same amount of CO2 when it is growing as it releases when it burns. So, as long as timber continues to be replanted in the same quantity that is burned, it's okay to use it as a fuel.
Or rather it's okay to use dry wood as a fuel. Burning wet wood is an ecological no-no. For a start, much of the heat that it generates goes into actually drying the wood and making steam, rather than creating warmth. But more important is the fact that damp timber burns at a lower and less efficient temperature, thus producing a range of noxious substances, including particulate matter (smoke), PACs (polycyclic aromatic compounds) and nitrous oxides.
Wood felled in late autumn and winter contains the least moisture. It should be stored under cover for a year before being used. When the bark begins to lift off, and when splits appear in the logs, they are ready for your fire.
Finally, the old-fashioned fireplace is a spectacular waster of heat, with as much as 85 per cent of it whooshing up the chimney. A good stove, on the other hand, may lose only 20 per cent. Hearth philosophers who require the nurturing sight of flames should choose an appliance with a window.