What are the options for an old dormant gas fireplace and pipe?

[NewspaperTaxis]

This fireplace may have been used over 50 years ago but not since then - I assume it uses gas rather than propane as a) It's in an urban/residential area and b) There is no propane tank anywhere!

We are looking to redecorate this room, which still has the 1930s 'skirting boards' they had back then - which means raising the plug sockets to go above the new skirting boards etc Also, you can see the thin wire heading into the fireplace from near the plug socket, which would also have to be raised.

I'm a bit stuck with the pipe coming out of the wooden floor boards - there used to be a carpet cut around this but I can't see how this is meant to carry on, esp if we have thin wooden veneers on top of the floorboards, would a Gas Safe Registered engineer be able to readjust this somehow?

It's a faff because we are getting the painters in and that forces us to take action about this fireplace, which has long been dormant, to see what we can do about it. Does anyone have any ideas?

errr, why are you putting wood veneers on top of your gorgeous floorboards? Just get a rug.

does the skirting need replacing? Not just a sand and paint?

yes, any gas engineer can remove the pipe

A registered gas engineer will cap off the gas and remove the unwanted pipe work safely.

I agree. Get your floorboards and skirting sanded and they'll look stunning.

But isn't the pipe necessary to get the fireplace working again? That's what we are looking to do.

We wanted normal skirting boards because these look like cake icing and gather dust. We've had them replaced in the hall.

Fair point about the floorboards, though they would need some work doing on them to look good, and it's not well insulated. They don't look gorgeous at the moment, for decades they had carpet on them, covering paint flecks.

The gas pipe looks fine, its a standard set up with a restrictor elbow to limit the gas flow and a 3/8 inch pipe to the fire.

If you are having a new fire fitted the gas engineer fitting it will test and adjust the flow restriction for the new fire when they commission it - and keep the floorboards

If its a 20s/30s house I’d take a good look at the whole floor before going down the sanding route. Houses at that time were generally built with “builders wood” floors to sit underneath parquet and carpet in living rooms or tiles in halls and kitchens and as you say - not insulated.

I’m in a house of that era (Arts and Crafts style) and the floorboards are not items of beauty. We had to lift and relay the original woodblock layer when renovating and they were certainly not the lovely wide, thick, oak boards of an earlier house and they were draughty as hell. We put an extra layer of insulation on them when relaying the floors and the difference was dramatic.

The gas man will be able to alter the pipe to suit whatever set up you choose for your gas fire. I'd get that sorted before you deal with your flooring, tbh, especially if it's an old pipe (might not meet today's safety standards).

Also, when I had my gas fire, I needed an air vent in the floor near the outside wall that couldn't be covered, although I'm unsure if that was because it was a cheaper option than putting a vent in the wall. Gas safety standards might have changed since then (about 15 years ago) and will certainly have changed since the 1930s!

OP, if you are adamant about the skirting boards, take them out carefully and sell them. They will be in demand from people restoring their homes.

I didn't realise anyone would have a hunger for them, @Tortephant Surely if we sold the house the first thing folk would want is to replace them? I'm not trying to be a philistine or anything, I just don't see the appeal. Admittedly back in the day, before cavity walls, or central heating, they were like that to stop damp gathering from behind furniture placed up against the walls.

Does anyone want to have those in a place, restoration or not?

If you lift and strip the paint from the skirting boards (I do take the point about dirty icing), what’s underneath?

And don’t touch the fireplace, what I can see looks gorgeous.

Absolutely. It’s a huge industry.
First many people like the style, second they suit many houses and bring balance to rooms, third there are plenty of people restoring and conserving homes. By that I don’t mean not updating and having a home fit for purpose, but genuinely keeping or restoring character and feel and features.
there are also thousands of homes without cavity walls and so on.

Just done some research OP, £55-70 a metre from a specialist, £25-35 buying private eg direct from you.

In the 1970s many people ripped out picture rails, dado rails, panelled doors, fancy spindles, cast iron fires etc from Victorian houses. In the 1990s all anyone wanted was the original features back!
Fashions change and tastes are different.

I am of the opinion that you should keep what suits a particular era of house.

I just don't understand how these old skirting boards could be repurposed given that they're measured to fit - I mean so long as they are longer then I guess you could shorten them, I don't know.

We are keeping the fireplace but the colour is unhelpful because nothing much goes with it, most paints make it look the room look like a pub or some kind of thing.

Still don't understand how the thing is actually meant to work, do you turn a lever on the pipe coming out of the floor, then light the grate with a match? Like turning on the gas on a stove?

You’ve bought the wrong house! This is never going to feel a home to you.

Rather than trying to make this something it isn’t, look to move to something that suits you more.

or embrace what you have and maximise its style and features.

'Bought the wrong house'! I grew up here. I inherited it.

Anyone else would change all this and turn it around. For instance, it has Artex on the walls, I can get on with it, it looks okay and we are painting over it - but most people would plaster the walls flat first.

I can come round to those old-style skirting boards but a) Most people wouldn't and b) Art Deco-style skirting boards wouldn't look out of place, we had them put in the Hall and it looks great, it's a real improvement.

I've never seen those old skirting boards anywhere else ever.

That may be the advantage of having parents who never spent money renovating the place but on that basis they wouldn't have installed central heating in the late 1970s.

Builders who come round here talk fondly of starting from scratch and gutting the whole place - I can sometimes see their point but we don't have £200K to throw at it anyway.

What I can see of the fireplace, it looks lovely @NewspaperTaxis, far more characterful than the crazy paved one that came with the Georgian cottage we purchased in 2024! Loads of colours would work with it without it looking like a pub, imo.

However, the combination of that cake-icing artex and the fireplace could give the feel of a pub (especially if you have beams too!) - I'd need to have the artex skimmed, then I'd be choosing a period colour from Farrow & Ball/Little Greene etc (colour matched if you don't want to spend that much 😉) for the walls and joinery.

I have to agree the skirting isn't great - it's like a fatter version of the mid 1960s stuff we have and are gradually replacing with more appropriate boards. Awful. When we had a house that had been extended in the art deco period, the skirtings they'd used were thankfully still lovely tall ones.

“Most people” “anyone else”

OP these statements plus your previous comments show you have no concept of alternatives.

some people, yes.
scrap the skirting, it’s your choice. I totally understand you will change it, I simply suggested you sold it or gifted it as like it or not, there is value in it. And that industry is extensive.