To change my gas fire to a open one?

[Catzeyess]

Live in a 1920's house with a proper chimney. Currently a gas fire in there with an iron basket. We got a gas man in who said the gas was unsafe and sealed it up. Went to a fireplace shop and they quoted us £500 to replace just the gas mechanism and £1000 to put a log burner in.

Would I be unreasonable (and possibly set the house on fire) if I called a chimney sweep, made sure the chimney was safe. Get rid of the gas pipe and have a real basket fire with a guard?

If you want a fine coating of black dust over everything every day: go for it.
Been there. Never again.

I'd go for one of those wood burning stove things otherwise most of your heat disappears up the chimney.

We did this, best thing we ever did (currently snuggled up with DC & DH in front of the real log fire watching Harry Potter & eating up the remains of the Christmas chocolate), and it's made such a difference to the feel of our rather bland living room. Go for it. I haven't noticed black dust at all (and we have cream walls and sofas & white shelves!)

Go for it, I'd love to do the same. Won't the people who install the log burner check and clean the chimney?

Alas, no, unless you want to waste £££. With open fires, a lot of heat is lost up the chimney. Also, a lot of coal sold in the UK is shipped from China, and the mines there have appalling safety records.

These people are selling their product (and I have no connection with them), but what they say in a general way makes sense www.jetmaster.co.uk/open-fires/features/ You will find similar info available elsewhere.

Depending on where you live, and whether you have access to a moderately priced supply of logs, a wood burning stove WITH PROPER FLUE will be (fairly) expensive to install but should turn out to be much more effective and hopefully more economical, measured say over 5-10 years, than an old-fashioned open fire.

Otherwise, if you have gas, have you considered a combi-boiler? www.which.co.uk/home-and-garden/heating-water-and-electricity/guides/how-to-buy-the-best-boiler/combi-gas-boilers/

Am really sorry to be saying all this; there have been times in my life when I could never have afforded any of the above options, so I am very sorry that you have problems. Have you investigated - via local authority or some such, NOT via cold-calling companies - any local schemes that might help subsidise heat improvements for old buildings? I know, for eg, that Glasgow has had some...

A real log fire is a great source of heat, (I think carbon neutral) a bit of work but lovely. I'd love one but I live in a flat and have no chimney.

We put an open fire in, no regrets here. If you are getting soot on things then you have a problem that needs sorting. We get lots of heat out of it and so many people have given us wood that we can't burn it fast enough :)

It takes 2 minutes to clear the ash away ready for next time so hardly a major effort. We get the chimney swept each year and that is only around £40. It also looks so much nicer than a wood burner, they are ugly things and I wouldn't allow one in my house.

Get a log burner.

We have one and it's awesome. Loads of heat, cheaper than the ch, virtually no mess. And ours isn't ugly ;)

3 neighbours have installed woodburners. Now everything stinks of smoke, we can't leave windows open and there's ash all over the cars. Bloody antisocial things, far from cost effective and hard work to boot! Replace the gas fire and be done with it.

(Currently having this argument with DH.

I disagree that most of the heat from real fires disappears up the chimney. My parents have a real fire in one room and a gas fire in the other, the real fire pumps out way more heat. I've never noticed any soot either.

In my home I only have one fireplace so have a gas fire as it's more convenient. If/when I have two fireplaces one of them will definitely be a real fire though. Nothing matches them.

Thanks for all the input!

Ahh I'm so tempted. Since we would have to get he chimney swept both ways I might get get a chimney sweep in and if they say it's safe, get rid of the gas and see what the open fire is like. If I don't like it then we could always install a woodburner (or reinstall the gas) later on.

The local farm sells smokeless logs really reasonably (and tbh the farms are always burning stuff and you can smell smoke regularly near our house)

Whatever you burn you need to check you don't live in a smokeless area or you could have a lot of expense putting it back.
A good job your gas fire was found to be unsafe, anything could have happened.
Firstly, I would get a specialist to look at your chimney and make sure all is safe for your choice of fuel.
I disagree that the heat goes up the chimney and is wasted, our house was as warm as toast.
It can be hard work if you rely on it as your main source of heat though and disposing of ash/ can be tiring.
We found that we were always emptying the tray and sometimes it wasn't always cold at this stage. Not good when you drop a bit on your carpet neither.
You can get lots of black dust if you use it all the time.

I love love love my real fires. Light two every night. Have only lived without real fires for a few years f my whole 40yr life, and missed them so much. Do it.

Open fires are fiddly and inefficient... and make the room colder when they're not in use, as the cold air comes down the chimney. I'd go for a gas fire or log burner every time.

Nothing beats the crackly cosiness of a real fire either.

We've had both open fires and log burners (well multi fuel burners to be precise).

Open fires are lovely, very atmospheric, but are not nearly as efficient at generating heat as log burners. If you want to use it as your main heat source then I'd go for a log burner. The only disadvantage is the space you need for storing and seasoning logs.

We never had any issue with soot with open fires though.

I owned an old cottage with an open fire and i have to say it was one of the best and one of the worst things about the place!

Good points:

• sitting in front of a real fire just cannot be beaten. Goes without saying.
• Romantic, cozy, mesmarising, welcoming, seasonal, 'in touch with nature' sort of feeling,
• the smell of the wood and kindling in the house,
• the golden glow in the dark room,
• the warm chimney running up through the bedrooms,
• the pure blast of heat you get from a real fire warms a room up in moments,
• you can chuck paper and any other rubbish to see the flames change colour on the fire instead of trailing out to the bin

Bad points:

• you MUST clean the hearth out every day or every other at least otherwise the ash builds up and makes lighting the fire hard. And starts to looks shit.
• The ash is often still hot until lunchtime the next day so you need a good and sensible routine to dispose of it all.
• The wood and kindling has to be gone and got, lugged into the house and stored or stored somewhere dry and bought in as and when you need it.
• there will ALWAYS be bits which pop out and singe whatever is nearest to the fire. Be it the edges of chairs, rugs, carpets, wood floor.
• there will always be a certain amount of dirt associated with the fire.
• there can be a cold draft down an open chimney if the fire's not lit.
• the cat can set fire and smoulder if she sleeps to close and a spark shoots out. Singed hair smells awful!

(the last point is true and happened often enough for us not to panic about it but instead sit and argue about who was going to get up off their arse and extinguish the cat. The cat would sleep through the whole thing. No harm done)

Oh you can't beat it, we had an open fire and changed it a few years ago to a multi fuel stove which has a back boiler in it, so it heats all the rads in the house too. We use a man made smokeless fuel which gives out great heat, a scuttle of this coal every day is all we use, maybe a half scuttle more in the winter time. No soot on furniture etc, if there's soot, there's a problem. Expensive to install as floor boards had to be taken up for pipes but it really has paid for itself as our only source of heat previously was oil which was so expensive.

And our stove is not ugly either!

I've just checked we are in a smoke control area. Does that mean we can burn any smokeless logs or are there only certain kinds which are allowed?

We replaced our open fire with a multi-fuel inset stove.

You have to have the correct flue and it will need to be installed by someone who can give you a Certificate but it is much better then an open fire for us.

Mind you, it does need emptying out each day and you need to be able to store all the kindling, coal and logs.

We have a real fire and are in a smoke control area. We use smokeless coal and wood. I love my fire.

If you're burning smokeless fuel rather than wood then you're losing the environmental benefit (wood is carbon neutral). You'd be far better of getting an approved stove fitted so that you can burn wood.

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We have an open fire. Used to be gas. We love it. Its a cast iron one with a back so when its not lit we shut the damper. No loss of heat from the radiators.