Wood stove on more often due to high gas prices

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ANP

NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 00:00

Nearly one in three people with a wood-burning stove said last year that they used more fuel than before. This is reported by the Central Bureau of Statistics. The main reason was the high gas price.

The Netherlands has 1.2 million households with a wood-burning stove. CBS asked people between February and April last year about their heating behavior in the previous twelve months. 30 percent said they had started burning more.

High gas costs were a factor, especially for people who have less to spend. More than a quarter of households with “low prosperity” and a wood stove said they felt forced to burn wood to heat their house on cold days. This was less of an issue for people with more money, namely 7 percent of respondents.

By the way, not all stove owners used stoves anymore. 19 percent say they have burned less wood. Almost half of this group says they burn less to protect the environment.

Utrecht removes wood stove

The municipality of Utrecht discourages wood burning because of the air pollution and health problems it causes. That is why people have been able to have their wood stove removed since 2021. A subsidy of 1,500 euros is available per household. For households that have less to spend, this can amount to 4,000 euros. According to the municipality, 250 of 19,000 stoves (including flue) have now been removed. The subsidy scheme runs until 2025.

Timber dealer Gerrit Verhoef from Schoonrewoerd also notices that there is great interest in wood. “There are quite a few customers who are losing weight, but I also see plenty of new faces here. Our turnover has been increasing for years. And I also hear from the stove stores that they have sold a lot of wood stoves in recent years. If you have a good stove and clean wood, and you burn it correctly, I don’t think there is much to worry about.”

Verhoef has been in the wood industry for forty years. He knows some examples of “people from the city” who no longer come to him: “They say: ‘I’m going to stop burning, I’m still being portrayed as an aso in the neighborhood. I don’t feel like that.'”

The price of a cubic meter of firewood is now 125 euros. “That price has indeed risen considerably. But what is not becoming more expensive? It is also because biomass power stations are buying up wood. They pay a good price for it. That is of course competition for us. This makes it a bit more difficult for us to obtain wood and that drives the appreciate.”

National ban

For the chairman of the Clean Air Committee, Fenna Swart, the increase in wood burning does not come as a surprise. “The people who are affiliated with us clearly notice that more fuel was used in their neighborhood last year,” she says.

The organization would like to see a national or European ban on burning wood. “The idea that you can burn wood properly is really nonsense. It is now clear that the ultrafine dust released when burning cannot be filtered. We also know that the air pollution it produces is associated with numerous health problems. .”