Real Flame Gas Fires

[besoin_conseil]

Hi,

I've got a real fireplace in my living room (I used to do real fires with coal and wood), but it's a bit messy so i am thinking of installing a real flame gas fire. I have gas central heating in the house and it's possible to go under the house (ish) so i believe it would be possible to bring a pipe/gas supply near the cheminy and install some gas heater with fake coal -with a real flame (some of them look quite good i believe). I would therefore keep the fireplace as it is but just bring a gas supply (there's already a whole in the floor board.

I wanted to know if someone has done this already and how much it costs roughthly and are they happy with the results?

Thank you

T

[Roger Mills]

Yes, they're fine - and can look quite realistic if you get a good one.

We've had a Cannon Caress (not sure if you can still get them) for 15 years or so, and are quite happy with it.

I don't know about current models, but when we bought ours different models varied considerably in efficiency - with most of the heat from some going straight up the chimney. The Caress was one of the most efficient ones at the time (early 1990's) - having a built-in heat exchanger/convection system to extract as much heat as possible from the products of combustion. Even so, it's only about 50% efficient - far less than a modern gas boiler.

The gas supply was easy for us because we were replacing a back boiler system with a boiler elsewhere and a gas fire where the boiler had previously been.

I would recommend sizing the radiators in the living room to provide the vast majority of the required heating capacity, and just using the gas fire as a 'top up' in very cold weather, or on cool spring/autumn evenings when the main heating may not be on - or at times when you want it as a central focus in the room. [It's often more exciting to watch than the telly! ]

[Ed Sirett]

A unit which uses less than 7kW of gas will not require any purpose provided ventilation. Provide the chimney draws correctly.

The gas pipe can be done in 10mm microbore unless the run is very long.

There are such a lot of rules and regs about the chimney I can only point you to BS 5440-1 which will have the exact info.

The actual fire is easyish to install - usually a couple of screws and bending some microbore.

Seriously there is a lot to consider from the regs (plus, of course, that by the book there is paperwork which will cost you more than a low end trapezium grate burner!).

Task No. 1 is to get the chimney swept.

Task No. 2 is to simultaneously find a registered fitter and a suitable fire which are happy with each other and your house. This is by far the hardest part. On average I refuse to fit about 50% of customer purchased fires on unsuitability grounds and/or a bad chimney. If I get involved early on the non-starters can be strangled at birth and the unsuitable appliance purchases avoided.