I want to have a gas fire installed in my sitting room. I'm very taken with the new type that doesn't require a flue for venting the burnt gases away. Has anyone on this NG any experience of such a fire? And the other thing is once upon a time if you wanted a new gas supply installed in a room you rang the gas board. Who does this sort of work now? Anyone know?
Peter
They do have disadvantages that would stop me having one. The first is that you usually need a 100cm2 ventilation grille fitting to the external wall or floor, no way do I want this draft coming into the lounge. The second is that they create condensation (mind you with all the cold air the vent lets in that would probably not be a problem).
You need a plumber who is GasSafe registered.
You also need one who is prepared to fit a flueless fire - some won't go near them with a bargepole (and neither would I).
Your reasons being? Please understand I'm not being argumentative, I just want to know something about these things before I make a decision.
Peter
I too was keen on having that type of gas fire fitted, not because of being flue-less (due to having a catalytic convertor) but because of their very high energy efficiency, but decided against when I found that I would have to have a 4 inch diameter hole drilled through an outer wall that would allow an arctic blast to enter the room so cancelling out most of the heat produced. So I had a Magiglo Ekos 16 inch fuel effect fire installed instead and have been very pleased with it, but it does require a flue/chimney breast. Any GasSafe plumber (used to be Corgi Registered) can bring a gas supply pipe into the room.
You are sitting in the room breathing the fumes from the gas fire. If the fire is working properly, and there's enough ventilation, all will be well. However, you are putting a lot of trust in it working properly.
With other types of gas heater, even if they go wrong, the toxic fumes will be ejected outside. It takes many things to go wrong before you get toxic fumes indoors.
There are some extra checks in a flueless fire such as an oxygen level tester to make sure the room doesn't start running out of oxygen (e.g. if you block the required vents to the outside because you don't like a cold draft when you're trying to heat the room), but even so, chucking the fumes into the room just feels wrong. OK, a gas cooker does the same, but you generally don't use one for hours, except the oven, and that's actually very low power compared with a room heater.
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