Does anyone have a biofuel fireplace?

[mobear]

If so, do you like it? We’ve been put off a wood burning stove because of the pollution they cause inside and outside the home, so are considering a biofuel fire instead.

As an ornament, you mean?

How will the room actually be heated?

Have you got a working chimney?

We're planning to get one - we had a gas fire as extra heat / ornament but it's no longer possible so will try this out in the new year. Need work done first to make fireplace suitable.
I was surprised that you need the room to have a certain volume to make it safe - we have large rooms but it only just passed.

Following with interest. We are looking to install one in an open plan living-dining-kitchen space, purely for ornamental purposes. It won’t be a heating source, and we have a multi-fuel stove in a separate living room, so we don’t need any heat output from it. Would be keen to hear opinions from people who have one already.

We've got one & never use it. It was supposed to give out no heat so we were told it could go under the TV. It does give out heat (not much!) and we don't want to damage the TV. I also didn't like the smell. We now put candles where the flames would come out & they look just as pretty. Save your money.

We have one, we used it in our old house where we did not have a chimney. Fairly effective in a smallish room. You can buy fake flues if that is your think. Fuel is about £2.30 per litre lasts about 3 hours on a good burn. Looks good. They have gone up in price quite a bit. I think I paid £550 for one that is now £999. Great if you can't have a wood burner. Ours is now in our dining room.

We have one. The surround is a repro Victorian, often mistaken for original, but the bio ethanol tank is hidden in the grate. The chimney breasts were removed all the way up years ago, the house is a very standard victorian terrace so the room didn’t look right to us without the fireplace, and it was either bio ethanol or something we could never light. It does get hot, not wood or coal hot, but still kicks out a good amount of heat. If you buy high quality fuel there’s a slight smell when it first lights but it quickly fades and isn’t unpleasant as such- just imagine a very large fondue burner! The TV is mounted above but recessed. The heat doesn’t travel that far up.

We do. It's quite pretty but expensive fuel and doesn't really give out much heat. The flames are quite small too.

If we stay in this house then I'd go for a gas real flame next time.

@PigletInABlanketJohn We’ll have underfloor hearing but the one I’m looking at is 3W which is the recommended output for the room size.

We’ve got a working chimney but we’d need to have it relined if we went with gas or a wood burning stove.

Thanks for all your replies! Opinions seem a bit mixed. This is the one I was looking at: chesneys.co.uk/alchemy-bioethanol-fires/alchemy-fb18

We have one but don't bother with it lately (we have a baby, soon to be toddler so it's hard to use it safely now). It does provide some heat but I don't love it.

3kW is remarkably high for an alcohol burner. I see it burns 0.5 litres per hour, so I suppose it generates more water than that.

What does the alcohol cost per litre?

@PigletInABlanketJohn It seems to vary enormously but ballpark £2-£6 per litre depending on bulk and quality.

You'd need quite a lot of ventilation to take that much steam out.

@PigletInABlanketJohn I was hoping to cap the chimney but maybe in that case it would be better left open.

The manual says the room must exceed 25m3, and:

“Bioethanol combustion releases carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O). The combustion requires oxygen, therefore the area where the fireplace is positioned, should have adequate ventilation with air bricks/vents or any other means, to allow enough fresh air to ensure one room volume change of air per hour.“

We have recently bought that exact fire and I love it. It’s in a big open plan room so no heat really generated but it feels very cosy and adds lovely atmosphere.

We have no chimney above it and builders/building regs said this was fine.

Lovely atmosphere and water vapour.

@EndlessDust How big is the room, if you don’t mind me asking? The room we’d be putting it in is around 4.5x3.5m.

I’ve not observed any water vapour at all. And we have left it on for 7 hours at a time.

But the room is large - c.7m by 7m

this sounds crazy- one room's volume of air change per hour is very draughty and it doesn't even warm you up! You should put one of those balloon things in the chimney and stand a tasteful pot of dried twigs and flowers in the fireplace.

We have one- we got it for temporary use whilst we saved up for a wood burner (we live rurally) but will stick with the bio ethanol fire now.
it produces a lot of heat, nearly as much as our other wood burner in a different room. Very cosy.
I think this is cos I used an old cast iron wood burning stove from the tip, and just put a 2 litre burner box in it, with some ceramic logs! The cast iron gets really hot and retains the heat very well- much better than steel which most of the bio ethanol fires are made of.
also we have a stove fan on top to move the heat round, which definitely helps.

We don’t have extra ventilation btw, haven’t noticed water vapour

Each litre of alcohol produces about a litre of water when it burns, so I suppose it must be escaping somehow.

@Twoshoesnewshoes that’s good to know as they have a version of the bio ethanol fire that goes in a stove. I’d dismissed it until now, but what you say makes sense!

I’ve got three - two in my living room, and one in my bedroom. I light the living room ones during the day if it’s cold, as I work from home, and refuse to heat the whole house when I’m alone during the day. One litre of fuel, split between the two will burn for approx. 2 hours, and emits a nice level of heat.