Gas Fire energy rating considerations

sophiekearns

I was looking at changing the fireplace in a house I am renting out to a gas fire. My preference was the coal effect open fronted gas fire (the one with the fake coals in the grate). However when I went enquiring aout this I was told it would be a disaster from an energy rating point of view. Apparently a regular fire is regarded as 30% efficient and the only thing worse was this type of gas fire which only scored 20% efficiency.

I was recommended to go with a condencing gas fire (I am not sure what this is). Girly question coming up ! Does it look like a fire ??? Is there a glass front to it ? does it need a chimney ? Aparently that is 90% efficient.

Anyone know what precentage a regular gas fire in a closed unit (glass front) would get efficience wise ?

Thanks

Sophie

311

List of fires for you ,just click on the name of the fire to get small details .
Basically compare your input KW ,with output KW
If the input is 6KW and the output is 3KW ,it's 50% effecient
http://www.focalpointfires.co.uk/focalpoint-fires-user-manuals.asp

fmcc

Hi Sophie,
There are several types an inset that goes in againest your concrete fireback and is realy for decoration about 20%.
A radiant fire that replaces the concrete back with a ceramic one or sometimes have these back housed in a box called a hotbox/thermobox about 50%.
A convector (condensing refers to gas boilers) that radiates heat like above and also convects it about 65-70%.
Lastly glass fronted like an e box grom Gazco does both of the above at about 78%.
Balance flue are also glass fronted and used where you dont have a chimney 80-82%.

Lastly are you on natural gas or lpg?

sophiekearns

Thanks guys,

fmcc, I am on mains (natural) gas.

I looked up the Gazco inset fires you mentioned - http://www.artisan-design.co.uk/gazcoinset.htm

It seems they come glass or open fronted. Would open fronted be less efficient be less efficent as a rule? I would have a preference for open fronted.

Do you know if the efficiencies you mention below taken into account by the BER or does that just go with defaults like decorative insert 20%, glass fronted 50% etc ? I am wondering if it would give the BER would default you back to 50% even if you had a declared 75% efficient fire.

I am familiar with the condensing boiler which can be 90-92% efficient but I was recommended to get a condensing gas fire ... is there such a thing ? Apparently they are regarded as 85% efficient in BER and the only thing regarded as more efficient is a flueless gas fire. I have a chimney though so I probably wont go that route. I am sure it would be much more costly.

fmcc

Hi sophie
Open fires are always less effiecent they may look nicer but you will pay for it in fuel bills. Also the market is changing more and more are asking for glass fronted.

Not sure exactly how they would affect your BER but a glass fronted should score higher than an open fronted. At the end of the day your BER affects your heating bills so the better the less you pay.

There is no such thing as a condesning gas fire condensing gas boilers trap the condensation usually escaping up the flue in a boiler and take the latent heat from that vapour and use it as part of heating the boiler. There is no way a gas fire can do that but it was probably mixed up with a convecting gas fire.

Flueless is 100% efficient but will give some condensation into the room ( think supersers of old) and by law need two 4" wall vents one at high and one at low level to give sufficient ventilation.

311

First time I've done this ,but both posters here write the exact same way ,it's uncanny.:rolleyes:

fmcc

Hi 311 if its uncanny cos i was trying to paraphrase sophies questions.
I presume the mods here can check ip addresses so if i was asking a question and answering it they would deck it pretty quickly but feel free to report it all the same. Usually spammers will have the same join date as well where as I joined a few months before sophie. I make no bones about it I am here to try and get business for myself but not in an underhanded way. If someone wants to contact me because of what i wrote they can and have via pm. i made the mistake of putting my companys website on a differnt thread and got a slap for it so will only by pm now when asked for it.