Fireplace on short wall of long room or flueless fire

[howmuchyousay]

Help me out here, and bear with my descriptions

Our sitting room is 22 feet long and 13.5 feet wide (6.7 x 4.2m).

One long wall has 2 large bay windows on it and the door into the room is roughly half way along the other long wall.

There is a fireplace immediately next to the door (not ideal) on the long internal wall. However, the fire man (as opposed to fireman) assures us that this is illegal as there is no direct upward link to the chimney (they have put a pipe in at 90 degrees).

So, our options are

• to keep the fire there and have a flueless one. The downside of this is that we will have to have an airbrick somewhere in the room.
• to have a balanced flue fire and either of the 2 external short walls.

I would rather have a balanced flue but I'm worried about the layout. I would have to have 'zones'. This is the adult room so no good having toys at the back.

I hate decisions!

Avoid flueless. The vapour given out when the fire is on has to go somewhere, which is why I've heard people in the trade describe them as "wallpaper strippers". They work using a catalytic converter, and if you've watched water dripping from a car exhaust...

Also an air brick will cause draughts. Go for the balanced flue option. No chance of moving the door I suppose?

Yes, I'm not keen on them either but not sure why.

I think we're going to go for a balanced flue on the short wall and have to do something clever with the layout.