Pros and cons

Nothing's nicer than toasting yourself in front of a cosy fire. Using a woodburner to heat your home means you're not captive to energy companies and their ever-rising prices – and you can still be warm if there's a power cut.

Burning wood is carbon-neutral because it's a renewable resource, but burning it cleanly is the key to making it enviro-friendly.

By burning dry wood in a clean-burning woodburner you win 3 times over:

• Wood is a sustainable heating fuel.
• You get more heat from a clean-burning (non-smoky) fire.
• Cleaner burning means fewer smoke particles lodging in all our lungs.

If you burn wood carelessly or burn wet wood you can create a health hazard through ultra-fine pollution lodging in people's lungs. Modern woodburners can burn much more cleanly than older models. But our tests have shown that clean burning only occurs if the fire is carefully tended – and with the right-sized dry wood.

Air pollution from woodburners is a serious problem in many areas – not just in Christchurch and Nelson. The Ministry for the Environment estimates that about 30 urban areas exceed the standard for ultra-fine-particle air pollution.

Smoke particles are measured in microns: one thousand microns equals a millimetre. It's the fine (10 microns or less) particles in smoke that, when inhaled, can lodge in the lungs and cause respiratory diseases.

Check your local air quality

Regional councils monitor air quality every day and most put the data on their websites. The following cities and towns have monitoring data live on their regional council websites:

Tauranga, Rotorua, Whakatane, Te Kuiti, Tokoroa, Taupo, Hamilton, Putaruru, Reefton, Rangiora, Kaiapoi, Christchurch, Ashburton, Timaru, Waimate, Geraldine, Alexandra, Clyde, Cromwell, Arrowtown, Ranfurly, Central Dunedin, Mosgiel, Milton, Invercargill, and Gore.