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gas fire conversion


jools100
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i have a couple of coal effect living flame gas fires that look very nice but cost money to run. i'm after some advice whether they can be converted to open fires and if so contacts for the work to be done. this is a short term option because eventually want to get a stove or two fitted,:confused1: one possibly with back boiler to run heating and water:confused1:

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you would need to get the gas supply to the hearth cut off. I would say check the flu liners and see if their solid fuel rated before fitting wood burning stoves for efficiency sake. You can buy them with back boilers.

 

That's my advice but then what do I know, except that at a push, anything can be converted to an open fire.

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i have a couple of coal effect living flame gas fires that look very nice but cost money to run. i'm after some advice whether they can be converted to open fires and if so contacts for the work to be done. this is a short term option because eventually want to get a stove or two fitted,:confused1: one possibly with back boiler to run heating and water:confused1:

 

I'd suggest skipping the open fire stage and going straight to stove. You'll avoid the additional expense and the disappointment of how much fuel an open fire burns for so little heat.

 

Stoves with back boilers tend not to be very good for central heating as they output too much heat to the room and not enough to the water. Go for a proper boiler stove such as an Aarrow (now Arada) Stratford instead. The stove manufacturers' sites mostly have examples of how the plumbing should be done, the stove/flue liner sales sites have instructions on how to line the flue. You can easily do the flue liner yourself but you may be best to get a plumber to do the pipework depending how much needs to be added/modified in your existing installation.

 

Do your homework and make sure you understand what needs to be done and what stove you want to use before you start. My experience of stove shops and plumbers has been that they want to sell you what they are used to/profit most from etc rather than what you need or want, and any apparent qualifications or approvals such as HETAS are no guide to actual competence.

 

If you want to heat your house with a stove more cheaply than mains gas you will need to buy softwood 'cord' (ie, lengths of tree trunk) by the artic load, saw and split these yourself and store the wood in a very well ventilated place for a year or at least a good summer before burning. You will need to buy a decent chainsaw and log splitter and be prepared to do a lot of hard work. I love it as it keeps me out of the house and in or at least near my sheds, but your experience may be different.:thumbup1:

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i have a couple of coal effect living flame gas fires that look very nice but cost money to run. i'm after some advice whether they can be converted to open fires and if so contacts for the work to be done. this is a short term option because eventually want to get a stove or two fitted,:confused1: one possibly with back boiler to run heating and water:confused1:

 

We did this just before Christmas. The plumber just tapped off the gas supply , took the fire out and we then put a grate in its place, simples :biggrin: not a great deal of heat but it looks nice.

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If you want to heat your house with a stove more cheaply than mains gas you will need to buy softwood 'cord' (ie, lengths of tree trunk) by the artic load, saw and split these yourself and store the wood in a very well ventilated place for a year or at least a good summer before burning. You will need to buy a decent chainsaw and log splitter and be prepared to do a lot of hard work. I love it as it keeps me out of the house and in or at least near my sheds, but your experience may be different.:thumbup1:

 

You have it all right there in your post Mr Spruce but I beg to differ on the softwood issue. Having run my house on wood for the last 15 years I've learned to leave softwood out of my log piles. I find it has little calorific value, is double the physical labor and tars up your flue.

 

I currently have a Tiba Boiler. Fire engine red. I use it for cooking, heating and hot water.

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You have it all right there in your post Mr Spruce but I beg to differ on the softwood issue. Having run my house on wood for the last 15 years I've learned to leave softwood out of my log piles. I find it has little calorific value, is double the physical labor and tars up your flue.

 

I currently have a Tiba Boiler. Fire engine red. I use it for cooking, heating and hot water.

 

Morso use softwood (PINE) to test stoves for extreme temperature durability.

 

The Scandinavians who know a thing or two about stoves burn a high proportion of softwood. As its easy and fast to replace then soft wood is where the future is.

 

Perhaps the softwood you used was not dry enough, then you will get tars and excess soot.

 

A

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Morso use softwood (PINE) to test stoves for extreme temperature durability.

 

The Scandinavians who know a thing or two about stoves burn a high proportion of softwood. As its easy and fast to replace then soft wood is where the future is.

 

Perhaps the softwood you used was not dry enough, then you will get tars and excess soot.

 

A

 

Hi Alcycidon,

Scandinavians know everything about burning wood for sure. I reckon they inherit the knowledge somehow like it was instinctual.

Pine is fast growing that's for sure and I think it most probably will be a "fuel of the future" I just didn't find it worked for me. It burns too fast for one. I like to keep a fire in the grate overnight. Seasoned or otherwise it does seem to contain more tar. I have a 25ft high flue which seems to exacerbate tar build up.

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You have it all right there in your post Mr Spruce but I beg to differ on the softwood issue.

 

I can't see that hardwood would be any cheaper than mains gas.

 

Having run my house on wood for the last 15 years I've learned to leave softwood out of my log piles. I find it has little calorific value, is double the physical labor and tars up your flue.

 

I've learned quite the opposite. Softwood is much cheaper, easily available and has about the same calorific value as hardwood by dry weight. It's lighter, easier to cut and split. I wouldn't be able to lift decent sized hardwood rings onto the splitter so I'd need to source small diameter hardwood meaning more cutting or cut shorter rings meaning more waste and more cutting. Softwood burns well in bigger lumps than hardwood meaning less time and effort splitting.

 

If your flue is tarring up the wood is not dry, your flue liner needs insulating, you're letting the fire smoulder or a combination of the three.

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I can't see that hardwood would be any cheaper than mains gas.

 

 

 

I've learned quite the opposite. Softwood is much cheaper, easily available and has about the same calorific value as hardwood by dry weight. It's lighter, easier to cut and split. I wouldn't be able to lift decent sized hardwood rings onto the splitter so I'd need to source small diameter hardwood meaning more cutting or cut shorter rings meaning more waste and more cutting. Softwood burns well in bigger lumps than hardwood meaning less time and effort splitting.

 

If your flue is tarring up the wood is not dry, your flue liner needs insulating, you're letting the fire smoulder or a combination of the three.

 

My flue is very well insulated and I take care to promote proper combustion.

However, I found that softwood produces a substance in the smoke called creosote, which is partially burned tree sap. Creosote is highly flammable. Burning softwood will cause it to build up on the inside walls of my flue until it reaches a point where the flue catches fire. It's happened here 2wice. My house is entirely built from larch, I don't want to burn it down so I switched burning to hardwoods and the problem was solved.

 

Furthermore, generally speaking I found hardwood logs tend to be much more dense than softwood logs therefore they burner hotter. Given two similar sized and seasoned logs, one hardwood and the other softwood, the hardwood log is generally heavier and produces more energy than the softwood log. You therefore need fewer hardwood logs to produce the same heat output and because they take longer to burn the refuelling intervals are longer as well.

 

Softwood and hardwood both come for free here, so given the findings above, I switched.

Edited by Al Baker
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