hole in wall gas fire, do i legally need to install a hearth?

stolt

as per header, had a gas fitter come round today to price up fitting a hole in the wall type gas fire and he mentioned that we must have a hearth fitted. However we like the look without it. Is he legally obliged to fit one when installing a gas fire?

Doozergirl

Yes I think he does.

You can use glass for a hearth so it's not all bad, you can still have an attractive one. I think you can even just lay it on the floor - it doesn't actually have to fixed.

stolt

Doozergirl wrote: »

Yes I'm sure he does.

You can use glass and stuff so it's not that bad.

arrgh really, just wanted the floor to run straight upto the wall. Its not as if we are having coals in the fire and they coudl fall out, just the ribbon gas burners so nothing to fall out. I wonder if its something that could be put in that i can take out after hes gone thereby hes done his job?

chaddythebear

Just sit it on the floor, and as you say when his van is at the bottom of driveway, stick it in a cupboard

stolt

chaddythebear wrote: »

Just sit it on the floor, and as you say when his van is at the bottom of driveway, stick it in a cupboard

yeah thats what i was hoping that i could do.:beer:

nearlyrich

Is this a new requirement? Our fire is only 3 years old and we have no hearth and we were not told we needed one when we bought the fire. The brochure for the fire showed the fire with no hearth and just looked here and there are loads without hearths.

stolt

its strange my missus said the same thing. some pics in the brochures show hearths some dont!!! i only though they would be useful if you were burning logs or coal.

nearlyrich

Ours is a glass fronted fire with coals so nothing to drop out, the main reason we went for it was to create more space in the lounge so a hearth would defeat the object.

stolt

nearlyrich wrote: »

Ours is a glass fronted fire with coals so nothing to drop out, the main reason we went for it was to create more space in the lounge so a hearth would defeat the object.

yeah we were going for the glass fronted but have been told today that they would need to build a chimmney breast in the lounge so again defeats the object of what we were trying to do, and the hearth as you say is the same plus they dont look that nice compared to simple clean lines.

ic

There are certain measurements that have to be satisfied, depending on how close the fire is mounted to the floor decides whether a heath is needed. My hole-in-the-wall fire came with this information in the instructions - I don't have a hearth, nor do my parents. In both cases we went for this style of fire place to free up the space.

stolt

just been relaying this to my missus and apparently he told her that glass fronted fires dont need hearths just open fronted ones... I dont suppose either of you have had the gazco studio fireplaces fitted have you?