Living Flame Gas Fire or Central Heating??

gillm66

Trying to plan ahead for the colder months and OH and I were chatting the other night about it.

We have a living flame gas fire in our lounge (approx 4 years old) and I was saying that come the winter evenings I thought it would be cheaper to have just that on rather than the central heating for the entire house. OH thought the central heating would be cheaper -any ideas on what would be the cheaper to run?

Any advice would be much appreciated. Many thanks

christabell

I believe that the gas fire produces little heat, as most of it goes up the flue...do you know how much heat the fire put's out?

gillm66

It does seem to throw out a good heat christabel - and the dog always heads straight for it when on!!

SwanJon

Central heating is meant to be much more efficient than the living flame fires, as christabell says, most of the heat goes up the flue.
I've been told that they use up to 3 times as much as the old style gas fires for the same heat put out into the room.

gillm66

Thanks for that Swanjon - OH will be pleased when I have to tell him he was right and I was wrong :rolleyes:

SwanJon

Sorry!
Sitting round a radiator isn't as nice though.

markbloke

There's a lot of things that aren't as nice in front of a radiator compared to a roaring fire....

tanith

I didn't think living flame gas fires were actually to heat a room , more for the affect....... we have one but as we also have an open plan living room it wouldn't keep the house warm enough without the heating on as well... These days with the cost we rarely put it on which is a shame... its certainly nice to come in to a roaring fire even if its not actually that warm...

tobykim

Just swapped my open front gas fire for one of the new valor inset ones with a glass front 89% efficiency, corgi fitter told me when we got our old fire serviced last that we were losing heat up the flue, I thought it also seemed expensive to run so we'll see how this one goes

savemoney

My living flame fire wasnt bad it convected the heat out much more efficiently than the previous fire we had