Power flue/balanced flue gas fires

TomsMom

We are renovating a house which was originally a small cottage but now has a few extensions. In the living room the chimney is now quite a way from the fireplace due to the fireplace being moved when lounge extended. The previous owner had a gas fire connected to the chimney which we have had removed. However, we've been told that new regulations wont permit us to install a new gas fire as it is too far from the chimney.

We don't want an electric fire and have been looking at gas fires with balanced flues and power flues which we understand can be used in properties without chimneys as the flue can go directly out of the back of the fire through the brick wall.

Our walls are made of stone which are about 2' thick and our gas fitter thinks it might not be possible to fit one of these fires due to the thickness of the wall.

Does anyone know if it's possible to get an extension to these flues which will enable us to have one of these gas fires?

Canucklehead

Hi
http://www.fireplacemegastore.co.uk/no-chimney-power-flue-gas-fires/brilliant-fires-advantage-c4-powerflue-gas-fire/index.htm You need to scroll down to the 'notes'.

Not much of a fitter if he can't find /doesn't know if the flue can be extended:rolleyes:
Corgi Guy.

PS Does his ID card (or his registration details on Corgi site) include 'gas fires')

PPS.

Is this Steve (?) the gas who did the boiler on your blog?
The pipework from the boiler looks absolutely awful, and notching joists from underneath is bad practice.

TomsMom

Hi Canucklehead, thanks for that.

PS Does his ID card (or his registration details on Corgi site) include 'gas fires')

Yes, it does, we've checked. However, even though he is certificated for installing fires he doesn't normally do them, he mainly does central heating so presumably that is why he didn't know much about balanced flue fires so we'll forgive him that one.

The pipework from the boiler looks absolutely awful, and notching joists from underneath is bad practice.

I'll explain and you can tell me if there's still a problem.

The notches in the joists were already there from the previous owner who's made a complete pig's ear of every job he did in the house (you wouldn't believe some of them!) - hence the major renovation works. Cutting new notches in the joists somewhere else would have weakened them even more so Steve used the existing ones in a damage limitation exercise, I think the pipework in the ceiling may even be the existing stuff.

The pipes at the top of the boiler have been angled over to avoid the joists above. We asked for the boiler to be as close to the corner of the room as possible as it is so big and it's least intrusive in that position.

We asked our builder (both he and his foreman also do plumbing work) to check and see if they were happy with it and we did get the thumbs up from them.

Would be interested to hear if you think there are any problems which we could address before ceiling and remaining finishing works are completed in the utility.

Many thanks.

TomsMom

Hello Canucklehead

Forgot to mention, the pipes at the top of the boiler were also angled as they are to be hidden either behind boxing or the wall may be plasterboarded.

Any further comments on my reply above would be much appreciated.

27col

Where can we see this blog that is referred to by Canucklehead. It helps us to get the full picture.

Razor

Your fitter is like a lot of us, we fit far more boilers than fires, most Corgis have to double check everything when installing a fire thats why a lot pass the job on to an engineer that specialises. Not sure why he couldn't find out about the flue extensions though?

At least you are going the right way and not fitting a flueless timebomb!

Was going to tell Canuckehead off for being picky but having seen the pics it doesn't look great it will probably work fine though.

If you are fitting this boiler to an old system it will be worth fitting a magnaclean filter or similar, these have come down in price as theres a new model coming out, I would also like to see a drainoff fitted above the boiler. Is there a scale inhibitor fitted?

TomsMom

27col wrote: »

Where can we see this blog that is referred to by Canucklehead. It helps us to get the full picture.

http://westbroke.blogspot.com/

The picture of the boiler is on Sunday, 5 October, you'll have to work back to find it, on page 3 I think.

Would welcome your comments.

TomsMom

Razor wrote: »

Your fitter is like a lot of us, we fit far more boilers than fires, most Corgis have to double check everything when installing a fire thats why a lot pass the job on to an engineer that specialises. Not sure why he couldn't find out about the flue extensions though?

I don't think he's fitted a balanced flue fire before so probably didn't know about the extensions. He didn't have time to look into it, it was just a question we threw at him whilst he was doing the CH work as we'd only just found out ourselves that it was possible to have a gas fire without a chimney.

Was going to tell Canuckehead off for being picky but having seen the pics it doesn't look great it will probably work fine though.

Can you tell me what's not great about it? I've had another word with the builder and he seems to think it's OK. We'd rather know now if there's something not right.

If you are fitting this boiler to an old system it will be worth fitting a magnaclean filter or similar, these have come down in price as theres a new model coming out, I would also like to see a drainoff fitted above the boiler. Is there a scale inhibitor fitted?

It is being fitted to an old system but parts of it are being renewed. All the upstairs CH pipes are new and the downstairs pipes are being moved to be hidden as it was all surface mounted. There were lots of pipes surface mounted down walls too and these have been moved whilst walls are being done.

There is a drainoff fitted underneath the boiler. Not sure about the magnaclean filter and scale inhibitor, we'll ask next time he comes.

Razor

Thats a fair answer regarding the fire.

I just don't like installs where the pipes appear to be thrown in from A to B with no care taken over the routing, in my mind pipes go vertically or horizontally! As yours needed to fit between the joists I would've used double sets to keep things as neat as possible, whether it's going to be seen or not! Also there appears to be no pipe clips?

As I said I'm sure it will work but it's not for me, thats the sort of job that was expected when I did maintenence for housing associations nowadays I'd rather take a bit of pride in things and I couldn't have left it like that; probably just my Aspergers!

TomsMom

Thanks Razor. That picture was taken whilst installation work was still in progress. I'm pretty sure adequate amount of pipe clips have been used as the builder checked before ceiling was plasterboarded to make sure there would be no clanking/ticking of pipes when CH is on. In fact, builders are camping out at the property and using the CH when they get up in the morning and have commented how quiet the boiler is.

Good to know you take a pride in your work :T , I am pretty much a perfectionist when it comes to things I do but have to have a certain amount of trust in others when they are doing jobs I know nothing about.

I appreciate your comments.

27col

I have just read the blog. Interesting project. It occurs to me that notching a joist from below is a hard way to do things. The picture of the boiler installation is a bit dark so I was not quite sure what I was looking at. Best of luck with the project.