log and coal fires in Brixton

[Pip]

You can make one out of a gas bottle, but why would you be able to approve it yourself?

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

A stove. £500 upwards!

they're lovely and cosy they are

 

[WouldBe]

So I can make one out of an empty gas cylinder, and approve it myself, right?

You might be able to if you're Defra.

 

[toblerone3]

Indeed. The Clean Air Acts, the first of which was passed in 1956, were brought because of just that - the smog caused by huge amounts of coal, and to a lesser extent wood, being burned in domestic fires, in industry and on the railways. The 'great smog' of the winter of 1952 killed several thousand people (the contemporary estimate was about 4,000: more recently researchers have come to think it might well have been double that), and a great many other people died in less well known smogs and accidents caused by 'pea-souper' fogs.

Actually, I've just this morning read with some amusement of a group called the National Smoke Abatement Society, who used to demonstrate against major emitters of smoke. I ran across them in the memoirs of a train driver, who was actually roughed up by demonstrators outside Camden engine shed in the 50s. And we think environmental protests are something new!

The Smoke Abatement Society still exists!

Its now called Environmental Protection UK. It all began one day in 1898 when Sir William Blake Richmond, became frustrated by low light levels in the winter caused by coal smoke. He wrote a letter to the The Times calling for action, Sir William said "the darkness was comparable to a total eclipse of the sun".

 

[Roadkill]

The Smoke Abatement Society still exists!

Its now called Environmental Protection UK.

Now that I did not know. Cheers.

 

[Brixton Hatter]

i think you can buy "smokeless fuel" from some of the petrol stations round here.

funnily enough, even though there's restrictions on what you can burn in your fireplace, there isnt really any restrictions on garden bonfires. as long as you're not burning hazardous materials, and you dont do it regurlarly enough to be considered a nuisance, bonfires are fine.

 

[Giles]

Given that the various Clean Air Acts came in when almost everyone used coal and wood for heating, and given that now very few people do this: does anyone still walk around checking for smoky chimneys?

Do London councils still employ a "clean air inspector" or two, as they must have done way back when?

Or have they given up on the basis that so few people burn any kind of solid fuel nowadays?

Giles..