What kind of fire would be best?

[Blankiefan]

We have an old disconnected gas fire in a 1920s fireplace. I'd like to put in a replacement. I'm thinking either a real fire, an updated gas fire or a woodburner. Any thoughts?

We put a woodburner in, haven’t regretted it. It’s a new one that is up to spec, only burn kiln dried wood. It’s warm and cosy and I love it.

But you have to have space to store wood.

We have a woodburner and I love it.

Are your woodburners in traditional fireplaces? Does it look ok?

Ours is in the recess in the chimney breast. At the moment it has a simple wooden surround the previous owner put in, but we are planning to replace it with a beam above.

We have a gas stove , it’s more for the look than actual use and it looks brilliant . An actual wood burner was out of the question due to my asthma and chest problems .

Wood burners need depth to sit in -you might struggle and a wood burner may need to sit out a bit and might look odd. We replaced a gas fire but our fireplace was ugly so we took it back to brick increased the recess depth and rebuilt the fire with a new surround. This cost ~ £3k. Take a photo go to a big stove shop and ask them.

Your fire place is lovely. I would look for a gas fire that complements it. As pp sais take a photo and measurements with you..

If that's an original fireplace in a 1920s house, I would keep as much of it as possible. Do you know whether it was originally gas? How practical would it to reinstate?
Personally I would choose gas or real based on practicalites ( is hearth /chimney suited for solid fuel, is there a gas supply nearby).

I suspect you would have to remove at least the tiles for a woodburner.

Your home is extremely unlikely to be built for compatibility with a wood burner. When built it would have been coal or similar.
The chimney would now need lining, which would be expensive. Modern building regulations would be invoked by the change from gas to a wood burning stove, the rule mean depth which probably means knocking out backwards, and maybe a larger hearth forwards..

Beautiful fireplace! We’ve got a similar original 1930’s fireplace that I wanted to put a long burner in but couldn’t find one small enough so we put a stove in another room. Your fireplace opening looks a bit wider than mine so it might be worth you looking at inset or cassette stoves.

We have a property of similar age with a very boring modern surround and a humming electric fire in the sitting room so are pondering the same thing. Since you've got the lovely original surround (which you should not rip out) I suspect the most practical thing is to replace the gas fire with a more modern one. I've been looking for images of stoves in period properties but they all look like BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz's photo which is a bit rustic looking for our house.

Ours is in a recess with the original Victorian ornate mantle. The fitter was really helpful and had lots of pictures of previous installations.
He also suggested moving the ornate mantle to another room and putting something different in but we wanted to keep it so he made it work.

A gas replacement feels like the best path. Thanks for the input.

I used to have a gas fire which looked like yours. Now have a wood burner. They knocked out a big hole in the chimney breast to fit it in, obviously there was the depth for that in the chimney. But it had been bricked/plastered up at some point.

I’ve seen some nice log burners in modern houses where there isn’t a chimney, and they jut out from the wall with a visible flue but that’s the feature.

But gas fires are more environmentally friendly.

This sort of thing.

I once had a fabulous gas fire that looked exactly like a real open fire. It didn't look fake at all and sat in the original victorian fire surround. When it had been lit for 10 mins the coal things glowed like real coal and the fake but very very realistic logs crackled. It was amazing! It was already there when i moved in so i don't know where it was from but i have never forgotten it.

Wood burner is best but I'm not sure you'd get one small enough for that space unless you went inset.

Go electric, no maintenance issues.

You can get really tiny wood burners- we’ve been looking at the Hobbit Stove which is made to fit in small fire places. I’m not sure it would go with your surround to be fair and gas might be a better option all round, but just wanted to point it out for people looking for small stoves!