A Senate Committee has made some recommendations after taking a look at the safest and cleanest ways to use a wood-fired heater in the home.

Suggestions include allowing councils to use bans, buy-backs, minimum efficiency standards and other mechanisms to manage the use of wood heaters. As a method of heating, the traditional hearth has come under fire recently; it is blamed for making a disproportionate contribution to air pollution, and making asthma attacks more frequent for sufferers.

The Greens Party initiated Senate Community Affairs References Committee is the result of 13 recommendations made in the report of its inquiry titled the ‘Impacts on health of air quality in Australia’. 

Other suggestions included a new level of emission and efficiency stipulations on any newly-installed heaters, and further industry and regulatory bodies considered.

The Senate Committee report said: “Wood heaters are used elsewhere in the world in a safer manner which provides a more appropriate balance between the needs and desires of individuals and the community at large.. the committee notes that local environmental conditions can have a significant effect on the polluting consequences of wood smoke and that it can therefore be appropriate that local planning regulations impose specific conditions to reflect those environmental conditions.”