Gas & Electric Fireplaces

pete4pool

Hi All,

Looking for a bit of advice. We are planning on doing up our sitting room, and thought that should upgrade the fireplace as it won't site with the new design of the room.

The sitting room is small (3.5mx4.5m), there is a big rad in it that is heated by gas boiler. And it has an open fireplace at the moment. We would like the fire maybe 25 times a year as we only use the sitting room from 8pm to 10pm and its too late to light it then. But the room can be colder than the rest of the house due to the open chimney. So we think that if we close the chimney the heat of the room should be fine but would like to have something to replace the fire..

So we've been to 2 showrooms got a few ideas. The cost to buy and install is obviously important, but the long term running cost and use of the new fire is more important.

A) Eletric fireplace - We have seen a very nice modern eletric fireplace, its 2kW fire. We like this as its hassle free (no coal/wood/ashes/cleaning out etc). As we rarly use the current fire, this will bloat the chimeny and we can use this on the few occasions when its really cold.

Gas fireplace - When talking to someone at a showroom we realized we actually have a gas feed to the fireplace, so we could install a gas fire. The person at the showroom said if ye have the supply its a no brainer, as gas is more cost-efficient and they would always push gas. We like that gas also has hassle free (no coal/wood/ashes/cleaning out etc) but has the real heat of a fireplace.

C) Put in a stove - Need to replace everything as current fireplace is wooden. As you can tell we not really looking at this as think we wouldn't use it enough and prefer the no hassle options.

I've looked around and a few things I've noticed are :
+ Not many people sell gas fires any more.
+ I'm finding more posts about removing gas fires than people installing them.


So here is the information I'm looking for if anyone has any ideas or has or had a gas fire:

+ Why are people removing gas fireplaces?
+ As gas is cheaper than electricity why are gas fireplaces not as popular
+ What would you do in my situation?
+ Will either of these increase or decrease my BER rating?
+ Is there much maintenance in gas fires?
+ Any thing else i should think about.

Most gas fires being removed are better at heating birds bums than the room there in but the fires look pretty, decorative gas fires have given gas fires a bad name, you can fit gas fires that are up to 90% efficient which are a improvement on the 30-40% of a decorative fire.

The permanent ventilation required for a gas fire can put people of because they don’t like a airbrick feeding a draught into the sitting room(you can get fires that don’t need ventilation)

Gas fires require a service every year which is more of a safety check.

It can be expensive getting a fire fitted correctly.


If you aren’t going to use the fire often I would go electrical which means you don’t have the issue with the ventilation or fitting costs

pete4pool

Cheers Gary,

Ya electric prob a better option.