Flame effect electric fire - recommendations?

Hi,

I'm looking for something to replace the coal fire roomheater I've just taken out and I think I'd like an electric replacement as this is less work, and you can have the flame effect without the heat. Plus I'm not on gas so installing that would be a pain and be LPG.

So I'd like an electric inset fire with a good flame effect. And quiet. I brought home one from B&Q today and that's going back. The flame effect was quite reasonable but the noise of the fan to drive it was very noticeable. Unacceptably so .

I've looked at Dimplex but I don't like their mirror effect. This fire had translucent screen that in my opinion was less noticeable than seeing reflections, even if when off you could vaguely see the flames. Can you hear the flame fan on Dimplex or do they not use a fan?

So, any recommendations? Ones I should look at? Do any have quiet flame effects?

Reply to
Malcolm Reeves
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"Malcolm Reeves" wrote | So I'd like an electric inset fire with a good flame effect. And | quiet. I brought home one from B&Q today and that's going | back. The flame effect was quite reasonable but the noise of | the fan to drive it was very noticeable. Unacceptably so .

AFAIK all the electric 'fires' (apart from the plastic-coals-over-a-radiant-bar that were popular from the 1920s to the

1970s and were sold under names like Cozeetootsies Chatsworth or Burnzeekneees Brideshead, the 'posher' the name the naffer the design, aimed at the sort of household where the Radio Times was kept in an Ollde Worlde leather folder) use a concealed fan heater for heating, so you will get some fan noise whenever you use it for heat.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

Noise is always a YMMV issue but my mum bought one of these just before Christmas and the noise is not really noticeable at all. I think the flame effect is superb. It might be worth checking for something loose and rattling.

Reply to
Tony Bryer

I tried to buy one a couple of years ago and had great difficulty. Nowadays they all seem to be fan heaters and I wanted a radiant fire. I objected to paying an inflated price for a fan heater.

Reply to
robert

Except I was talking about just the flame effect on, not the fan for heating. The two are different.

It looks like I'm going this way so I'll give the B&Q one another go, perhaps it was just a duff one. I could also look at running the fan slower or an alternate fan.

BTW I looked at gas fires. Nice but no mains gas here so it would be LPG. I worked out that one 47kg bottle has the equivalent of 600 kWhrs and since each bottle costs about GBP 26 that's 4.3p per kWhr which is more than I pay for my electric!

And decorative gas fires are 50% efficient so that's almost 9p per kWhr. The minimum setting is about 1.5kW so 13p/hr just to have it lit. Say 6pm-10pm, for 6 months, that's GBP 95 running costs. And it is the best part of 1000 to install a gas fire (no proper fireplace, but there is a chimney).

Reply to
Malcolm Reeves

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