Gas fires in Bedrooms / upstairs rooms?

[Brian Reay]

While out at a social event last night, a friend related part of his days events to me.

He lives in an old farm house and had, until yesterday, gas fires in several bedrooms fitted to the fireplaces. I assume they've been in place some years, I'm sure the house has been in the family for a very long time.

Apparently, during a routine check, he was advised the fires were unsafe as gas fires were not permitted upstairs in bedrooms. He had them disconnected and removed.

I've never heard of this regulation.

No flu tests were done etc- so the matter wasn't related to CO etc, at least in terms of the fires having malfunctioned/flus being blocked.

Anyone familiar with this situation?

[John Rumm]

Probably because it does not exist...

BS 5871-1:2005 would be the place to look, and that does not have much to say on bedrooms beyond how to calculate the typical heating load.

You can't have an open flued boiler in a bedroom, and there are advisories about fittings things like fan assisted heater in bedrooms due to the noise implications.

However a properly fitted and flued fire should be fine.

Its possible it was a very old fire installation without a proper sealed closure plate...

[Robin]

It may be that something was mangled in transmission. Gas fires are fine in bedrooms if they meet the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations. They require, broadly

a. room sealed if more than 14kW

b. flame failure device or the like if not over 14kW and not room sealed

[Brian Gaff]

No idea, but both our upstairs bedrooms have the remnants of gas fires in them, and when I was young can recall them being used. Made to fit straight into the chimney as it went up in the corner of the rooms from downstairs, they were always a source of draughts and when the gas was taken out we glued lino over the holes. Brian

[Brian Reay]

That makes sense.

Which is what I would expect.

If nothing else, what happens in 'bedsits' and 'studio flats' etc.

True, although as I understand it, the fires weren't inspected beyond being seen. I suppose they may have been a particular type which are deemed to be not compliant with current rules.

Thank you, and others you responded.

As Robin commented, it is possible 'something got mangled in transmission'.

A little academic now, the fires were removed and, I believe, the plan is to rely on electric ones (they have central heating as well, I assume the fires were used for 'top up' heating).

[Max Demian]

Only modern namby-pambies would leave the gas fire on when they are in bed. Bung another blanket on.

[spuorgelgoog]

Just been reading a book about post-war working-class housing, and it suggests that a cottage can have a fireplace in one bedroom for use as a sick-room.

The other bedroom does without.

I can't remember the actual recommended temperatures for rooms (which were in deg. Fahr.) but they were certainly a lot more bracing than we'd expect today.

Owain

[Max Demian]

"Sitting down" temperatures were recommended to be a minimum of 65°F, similar to modern recommendations of 18°C as a minimum - though I doubt that the people who recommend this would put up with it. 70°F was always reckoned to be a lot more agreeable, equivalent to 21°C.

Actually these were never considered to be needed in bedrooms, which would usually be unheated.

Many houses up to WW2 had fireplaces in all the bedrooms, though I expect only people with servants would have used them, and then only when dressing in the morning. When I was young it was rumoured that fires would be lit if anyone got sick, but I guess I never got sick enough.

[David]

Interesting stuff.

Our 1896 house had fireplaces in every room.

Our 1930s houses; one (4 bed detached) we can't work out if there were fireplaces upstairs that had been blocked up, the other one (3 bed semi) certainly had fireplaces in the two main upstairs bedrooms (when we extended we found some of the joists partially burned through around the fireplace). No chimney near the little bedroom.

Childhood house ('30s or 40's?) showed no signs of an upstairs fireplace at all.

So from personal experience I can't see a pattern.

I do recall it being bloody freezing upstairs in the childhood home, with ice on the inside of the windows and an electric fire if someone was sick.

Electric blankets were a godsend.

Cheers

Dave R

[Max Demian]

"All electric" houses were the vogue from the 30s. Then they got their first electric bill.

In the 60s newly built houses just had a coal fire in the main living room and that was it.

[Brian Reay]

I thought central heating was the norm in the 60s, even if just in a basic form.

I lived in a 1950's built house (probably mid 50s) as a child and it has a coal fire in the sitting room which heated the hot water and two radiators- one in the main bedroom and one in the kitchen. The second bedroom was unheated.

We moved to a 3 bedroom version, of similar vintage, which had similar heating arrangements.

Then to a flat built in 1967 or so and it had electric under floor heating in the sitting room and hall.

I recall some houses being built near us in the 1960s which had central heating- blown hot air- and even cavity insulation via polystyene sheet, bits of it used to blow around the area.

[John Rumm]

Same with my childhood home - similar vintage.

Our current place (again similar age) was only built with two as far as I can tell.

Out 1956 semi had fireplaces in 2 of the three beds, and both downstairs receptions originally. Only one remained in the main living room by the time we got there.

Yup same, minus the electric fire!

[S Viemeister]

My grandparents' 1930s house just had a coal fire in the living room. Granpa put an electric towel-warmer in the bathroom, but that was it for the heating. My late-1700s flat had a coal fire in the main room - the bedroom fireplace had been converted to gas. Both were in Edinburgh.

The family home in Sutherland had a fire in the kitchen/diner, the living room, and little ones in two of the upstairs bedrooms. Built in the late 1800s, rebuilt in the 1930s.

[DJC]

My experience: houses up to 1920s, a fireplace in every room. From the mid 19th century when mass produced cast-iron fire surrounds and grates became the norm the bedroom fireplaces tend to be small and designed to be filled with hot coals from the main fire elsewhere rather than maintained all day. From 1930s the bedroom fireplace disappeared. My childhood home, built

1957 but a scaled down version of the standard 1930 semi, had fireplaces in the two ground floor rooms but not in the bedrooms. My father paid extra for an additional electric socket in the main bedroom and an electric fire. Hot water heated by a back boiler to the coal fire. Central heating not installed until mid 60s: still coal fired by a back boiler and enclosed stove. Then went to gas back-boiler in 70s.

[Vir Campestris]

Our house had a fire in the main room, and that was it.

(Early 18thC peasant's cottages. There were two, with one upstairs and one downstairs room each. They are now joined.)

Andy

[dr.s.lartius]

Unsophisticated. Country gentry just bung another dog on.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Rules are to be ignored. I received a free ceiling fan from an idiot who listened to someone saying they couldn't have one in the same room as a gas fire. The fitter refused to repair/replace the fire until the fan wasn't there, as it "might blow the flame out". If it was me, I would have taken the fan down temporarily.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

On Sat, 24 Feb 2018 12:54:05 -0000, David wrote:=

How did you survive? If you believe the modern s**te, you should all ha= ve died of hypothermia, whatever that is. Clearly we've forgotten what = "warm blooded" means.

-- =

An old black-and-white photograph of a man milking a cow was sent to a p= hoto-finishing company. The man was sitting behind the cow, and all that was visible of him were= his legs and feet. A note accompanying the order read: "This is the only picture I have of = my great grandfather. Please move the cow so I can see what he looked l= ike."

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Then economy 7 was invented.

-- =

A woman storms into her boss's office with this complaint: "All the other women in the office are suing you for sexual harassment. "Since you haven't sexually harassed me, I'm suing you for discriminatio= n."

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Daft name for it really. If something electrical is on fire, it's broke= n.

-- =

Koalas feed their young through their arse.