Help! Does anyone know anything about gas fires?

[TooManyUsers]

My fire started smoking on Sunday night. I let it cool down and removed the outercase and there is a burnt bit on the horizontal metal plate above the coals (perhaps due to something being pushed into or fallen into the outercase amid Christmas tree decorating) As far as I can see from the instructions there shouldn't be anything in that bit that can leak... It's above and in a separate compartment to the fake coal / flame bit.

Unfortunately I can't get a fire engineer to have a look til 5.1.15..., so far anyway...

Wondering if I can try to remove the burnt bit or if it's a bad idea?

I have pictures if that helps?

Do you have another means of heating the room? I seriously would not mess with the fire in the circumstances - wait for an engineer. You could always ask them to call you in the event they have a cancellation earlier then 5th Jan.

is it a room-sealed fire with a glass panel over the coals? Does it vent up a chimney?

From your description it does rather sound like some dirt or soot has fallen down the chimney, but faulty fires can be very dangerous, so the only advice can be to have it professionally looked at. A gas engineer should be able to test the flue to ensure that fumes do not leak into the room.

Hi, thanks for your replies. Yes it's got a glass panel over the coals.

There's one inefficient radiator in the room, but I could get an electric heater.

Maybe, I'll just have to wait til after Christmas as no-one else has got back to my messages.

This is the fire with the outercase off - it's a Bermuda baxi vp I think.

And a close up of the burnt bit

is it a Bermuda with a back-boiler behind the gas fire?

they are separate, so you can run the boiler with the fire off (or missing). I was surprised to hear that you can still get replacement gasfires to go on the front of a Bermuda. It is so old that most of them have (or should be) replaced by now.

With a glass panel it is abnormal for you to smell any smoke.

the burnt bit does look like some liquid or something melty has got in. Don't understand it. Do you have small children who might have poked something in? I hope it is not a part of the fire that has melted.

Yes to the small children, I'm blaming the youngest who's started cruising, though it's obviously my fault for not spotting him doing it...

I don't think there's a back boiler. It was in the house before us, but will have another read of the booklet.

I didn't really smell the smoke, my DH noticed it when he came back in. I wonder if some small plastic thing was poked in.

Thanks for your advice.

Thanks for your advice.