To think living rooms done have fires anymore?

[OverTheHammer]

So I'm getting quite into interior design and am currently pondering how to do the living room. In my job I visit upto 20 houses a day and I've noticed that the younger, more modern folk don't have living room fires anymore.

We currently have one of those electric "stones on fire" glass wall pieces but IMO, that is dated now!

DH disagrees and says a living room needs a centre piece fire.

AIBU to think fires are "so last year"?

We have 2 log burners. Blissfully warm in winter!

I really see an open fire/log burner as a modern day luxury

I'd agree with this. We bought the house with one wood burner already there and had the second one installed last year and it cost 4 grand, but it is a large double door one as it is a large room. Basically you buy them to suit the size of the room and heat out put required for the space. They aren't cheap though no.

We used the new one all winter and I have to say there really is nothing nicer than sitting on a winters evening with the fire going. We had the open fire before hand obviously but it's really not as efficient and filthy to clean, the wood burner is so much more efficient and cleaner. And I personally think looks prettier all year round.

There is a required space clearance round them, so the op could still have her tv on the wall, and her installer would advice, I think it's a couple of feet, I can't recall..

Just because I love it, this is our inglenook fireplace. 😊 About 200 years old.

Maybe log burners are like cats: adored by their owners but a fucking nightmare for the neighbours.

In a way it can be better for a log burner if you don't have a chimney - you can put them on any wall if you keep the flue inside the house - going up through a bedroom [and heating that room too rather than outside] and out through the roof - no silver pipes to annoy the neighbours either.

You just have to make sure you have adequate fireproofing.

We don't have one.

We took the existing gas fire and fireplace out when we replaced the ancient back boiler held together with tape and wishful thinking with a combi boiler. The only time we had ever used the gas fire was when we couldn't use the central heating and even then, it wasn't safe to use with the kids around, even with a guard.

I have a fairly modern house and just had a log burner fitted. Fires make a room feel more homely imo.

Have lived in houses of various ages over the years, from 17th century cottages to new build. To supplement central heating (or instead of) weve had gas fires, open fires and now our first log burner.
To find a brand new house with a real chimney surprised us - and was a deal maker.

As modern homes are insulated to such high specifications these days, we don't use it too often (nor the central heating) but it is great in the winter - hot and attractive to look at. As these fires are DEFRA compliant, they are environmentally friendly and energy efficient.

I'd not be without one now.

In a way it can be better for a log burner if you don't have a chimney - you can put them on any wall if you keep the flue inside the house - going up through a bedroom [and heating that room too rather than outside] and out through the roof - no silver pipes to annoy the neighbours either.

This is exactly what we did, although the pipe going through the upstairs bedroom is so well insulated it doesn't actually heat it at all. But the pipework actually ended up costing more than the log burner itself. Worth it though.

I wonder about the houses that you all life in! My world is that of the council estate and small new builds. fires are a luxurious thing, for the period property, the large new build with lots of extra features or the odd renovation project where a modern wood burner has been put in.

I live in rural New England. Pretty much every house, no matter how small, has a log burner. When the electricity goes out (which is fairly often) you need a way to keep the house temperature above freezing so that you don't get burst pipes. It's also a very cheap way to heat your house especially if it's fairly small. We are surrounded by trees and we cut enough of our own wood to keep the rest of our heating bills pretty low even in winter.

It's 3 neighbours who all buy expensive seasoned wood to burn. Whatever it is it's my car that has a lovely layer of ash on it, I can't hang out washing in the garden anymore or open windows for fear of a house that stinks of smoke.

That's really odd. As I said up there, pretty much everyone round here has wood burners. No ash on the cars, no problem hanging out washing. There is a faint smell but nothing obnoxious.

We in a smokeless zone, so can only use special low-smoke stoves.

My husband is a HETAS registered stove installer.

There are no regs regarding how close a television is to a log burner. My husband is very fastidious though, and will only install a burner where the mantle protrudes out further than the television above it.

If there is smoke from a log burner and ash all over stuff inside the house then it has been incorrectly installed and shouldn't be used. When a log burner is closed nothing should be able to escape from it.

Many cheaper new builds don't have chimneys because of the cost. Structural chimneys are expensive to build and developers don't put them in if they can help it. But all of the fancier houses have chimneys and most have stoves rather than open fires. My husband has just finished working with a developer who has installed three stoves in every house he's built on this particular site. Each house is selling for £1.4m.

Wood burners are hugely fashionable, are you just in new builds and flats? I can't think of many houses without fires.

We have a woodburner in our sitting room, the house we're hoping to buy has three fireplaces and we're hoping to put a woodburner in the new kitchen.

Be Alert
I wonder about the houses that you all life in! My world is that of the council estate and small new builds. fires are a luxurious thing, for the period property, the large new build with lots of extra features or the odd renovation project where a modern wood burner has been put in

It's all relative - was brought up in a council house where the only form of heating was a coal fire. I dreamed of central heating!
Now in a privately owned large new build where a wood burner was possible - love it, and central heating is now just 'the expected standard' in most houses.

Has anyone here done anything a bit different with the space where their fire was once, in the chimney gap? We are short on storage so looking for imaginative ideas.

Love the inglenook fireplace above its amazing.

Used to live in a house with this stove in the kitchen. Would light it in the morning when it was so so cold (10 degrees or colder in the house) and it'd warm up the kitchen up lovely while I cooked breakfast on top. Never did get the hang of cooking inside the oven part though, was really hard to get the temperature right but cooking on the hot top was brilliant.

My house is 9 years old and has one of those living flame gas fires in the sitting room. Jolly glad of it in the winter too, and it makes a better focal point than a TV does.

I love my log burner. I buy seasoned wood. No ash, no smoke, no Chinese takeaway silver chimney.

It's an old house, had a gas fire here when we moved in. Removed that, knocked a hole in the chimney breast and put the wood burner in.

Newer houses are smaller so removing the fireplace saves space.
Nowadays people tend not to all sit in one room. They are entertaining themselves in bedrooms etc on phones etc.therefore you don't need a focal point as such.

We have a big old house with two living rooms, both of which have log burners in old, old fireplaces. In the winter they keep the whole house hot. They are beautiful.

Disagree Emily. My previous house was a tiny Victorian terrace with an open for in every room (including the bedrooms). Obviously a heating necessity in 1860. Current house is MUCH bigger and just has the one fire, so intended to be a focal point. And, yes, we do sit in the one room. No-one hiding out in bedrooms here!

I would never even consider a house without a working fireplace.

I've always assumed that they are not included in new builds because the rooms are too small and the builders want to cut the cost of construction to the bone.

I used to live in a beautiful Victorian flat. We had a gorgeous real fire in our front room, and a log burner in our kitchen diner I would say I'm fairly young. I'm back with my mum now, and she's got fires in both downstairs receptions, 2 in the kitchen/breakfast rooms and one in 5 of the 6 bedrooms. I wouldn't call my mum old either 😂

I think it's just to do with with the location, I live in an area with very few new houses and as a result the age of property lends itself to fireplaces.

I must say I'm very fond of a fire, when I first met DP he lived in a new newbuild, (finished in 2007) and it was the most clinical places I'd ever been in!

I grew up with a log burner in the living room and a rayburn in the kitchen plus storage heaters upstairs to top up the heat.

I currently have a log burner and a couple of plug in heaters for upstairs. Central heating is alien to me! I personally wouldn't
have it either! 😮

In my opinion a house isn't a home without a good fire! FYI I'm in my early 20s so others my own age would probably think I'm living in the stone age 😂