The AHHA believes that it serves a valuable social function in Australia in addition to the benefits of direct employment. About 1.5 million Australian households use firewood for heating. This provides an important social benefit through low cost heating and improved thermal comfort. In most rural areas and smaller towns firewood offers the lowest cost energy source for domestic heating. The industry also provides about 9,500 jobs, many in areas of highunemployment.

In most rural areas, split, dry firewood is available for $140 to $150 per tonne. If people collect their own firewood, the cost is simply their own time and perhaps some fuel for transport and a chainsaw. Thus, the efficient wood heater offers people throughout rural Australia, including towns and small cities, a chance to heat their homes economically, at running costs far below any other energy source. The health benefits of the improved thermal comfort that this allows are difficult to quantify, but are almost certainly large and should not be overlooked. Colder homes mean more sickness.

In the large cities, only natural gas and heat pumps offer heating with running costs comparable to firewood, and this is because of the high price of firewood in these areas (eg. $150/t in Sydney). Heat pumps have a high capital cost and so are only available to some sections of the community. The majority of families cannot afford initial costs of $5000.00 to $10,000.00 for home heating. For the section of the community with access to lower cost firewood (outer urban areas), this offers the lowest running cost even in large cities.

By way of example, a poorly insulated home (as many lower income families must contend with) requires about 350 MJ of heating on a cold day to maintain acceptable indoor temperatures (18°C during the day and 12°C overnight). This would require about 40kg of firewood (total cost $2 if wood $50/t), 100kWh of electricity ($10 at 10c/kWh), or 9kg of LPG ($9 at $1/kg). It is clear that the only way lower income families can maintain acceptable comfort levels for the whole of winter is by using low cost firewood. Surveys have shown that this ability to keep homes warm that were otherwise considered cold and uncomfortable is one reason for the popularity of woodheaters.