New Gas Fire should save ££££££

moonrakerz

ziggyman99 wrote: »

I think your figures are flawed. If the fire has a heat output of 3.1kW you are going to pull approx. 3.2 m3/hr of air from your home. That air will possibly come from adjacent heated rooms, displaced with cold air from outside. That will have a significant effect on the OVERALL efficiency. Effectively it will cost you twice to run your fire. Once for the gas the fire is burning and once to re-heat the room(s) that have been cooled as a result of the fire being on. Obviously this doesn't happen with a room sealed boiler or gas fire.
Personally I would forget the gas fire and replace the boiler, ensuring the radiators are correctly sized so you don't need a fire. Fires (any open fire, gas or coal) can never be justified on efficiency. You should only buy them because the offer a focal point and that certain coziness.

If you are going to start nit picking down in the weeds you should also consider the cost of the fire £350 ish against a new boiler at £1000 ish (or more).
Also the visual effect of a fire make you feel warmer, anyway.

The OP IS on the right track. I took my present house back to bare walls (5 yrs ago) and refurbished it. Included was a new gas fire (only about 50%).

As I am now retired and having nothing better to do I spent a considerable amount of time (over the first winter) running the fire and/or the C/H and monitoring gas consumption. The most effective way, by far, to heat the house (3 bed det, well lagged !) was to run the C/H for a bit in the morning and a bit before bedtime using the (now relatively inefficient) fire to heat the lounge with some heat escaping into the rest of the house, for the rest of the day.

It is blindingly obvious that it was cheaper to heat the room I was using rather than heating an additional 3 bedrooms + bathroom which I wasn't using !

Obviously if all the rooms are occupied you heat all of them - in my case and the OP's this wasn't the case - it is madness to heat them all day !

ziggyman99

moonrakerz wrote: »

If you are going to start nit picking down in the weeds you should also consider the cost of the fire £350 ish against a new boiler at £1000 ish (or more).
Also the visual effect of a fire make you feel warmer, anyway.

The OP IS on the right track. I took my present house back to bare walls (5 yrs ago) and refurbished it. Included was a new gas fire (only about 50%).

As I am now retired and having nothing better to do I spent a considerable amount of time (over the first winter) running the fire and/or the C/H and monitoring gas consumption. The most effective way, by far, to heat the house (3 bed det, well lagged !) was to run the C/H for a bit in the morning and a bit before bedtime using the (now relatively inefficient) fire to heat the lounge with some heat escaping into the rest of the house, for the rest of the day.

It is blindingly obvious that it was cheaper to heat the room I was using rather than heating an additional 3 bedrooms + bathroom which I wasn't using !

Obviously if all the rooms are occupied you heat all of them - in my case and the OP's this wasn't the case - it is madness to heat them all day !

So which part of letting the OP know why I think he's wrong is nitpicking? This site is about money saving, hence the name and hence my comments. He also said that a new boiler might be next on the replacement list, hence my suggestion he goes for that instead. Of course you don't heat the rooms if there not occupied. I never suggested that. All I said is using a fire is inefficient. And it is. Period.
The German Passivhaus standard does not allow even a letterbox or catflap because of desire to control the number of air changes in the house. Air changes mean loss of heat and that costs money. Fires, gas or coal, create air changes and as such cost money. That's a fact. How much is hard to quantify because of the enormous number of variables. A coal fire can be as much as -20% (in)efficient. Yes MINUS. i.e. you pay for the coal AND heat it drags out of the house. A gas fire is going to be less but still significant. This isn't the 90% efficiency of the fire i'm talking about. That relates to how much of the heat created by the fire ends up in the room.

Oh by the way, a home built to Passivhaus standards can cost as little as £70 a year to heat.

amibovvered

moonrakerz wrote: »

It is blindingly obvious that it was cheaper to heat the room I was using rather than heating an additional 3 bedrooms + bathroom which I wasn't using !

Obviously if all the rooms are occupied you heat all of them - in my case and the OP's this wasn't the case - it is madness to heat them all day !

You don't need to heat unoccupied rooms - I have thermostats on all radiators (can't offhand remember how much it cost me to have those fitted but I'm not one to fling money around so it wouldn't have been very much!) and unused rooms have the therms turned right off and the doors firmly closed.

uptomyeyeballs

I don't have the option of building a new house to German standards. A new boiler is out of my price range at the moment. My current fire is condemned as dangerous. I don't have a choice but to replace it if I want to use it this winter.

I'm pretty confident, using my knowledge of how much I currently heat my own house, that it will be significantly less, because it will allow me to change how long and how hard I run my inefficient boiler/radiator combination. For example, i'll only be running it through 4 radiators instead of 6 when it is on.

Let's wait and see what is measured.

uptomyeyeballs

Fire installed today. I did a 1 hour consumption test. It used 0.1 units of gas, which is 3.2 kWh.

HappyMJ

uptomyeyeballs wrote: »

Fire installed today. I did a 1 hour consumption test. It used 0.1 units of gas, which is 3.2 kWh.

I think you'll find it's actually 3.9kWh as stated in the manual.

http://www.valor.co.uk/docs/963_Hf_Dream_Hf_Petrus_Instal_and_Owner.pdf

savemoney

I am tempted to get a gas fire to replace my old coal fire its a modern fire just want a gas fire that is a insert

uptomyeyeballs

HappyMJ wrote: »

I think you'll find it's actually 3.9kWh as stated in the manual.

http://www.valor.co.uk/docs/963_Hf_Dream_Hf_Petrus_Instal_and_Owner.pdf

Excuse me?

I use a gas meter. It's a method my supply company use too. It's quite accurate. Usage to 2 decimal places (more precision than is required when submitting a meter reading) was actually 0.07 units of gas.

Your incorrect assumption was that the fire was turned full on. It wasn't, it was set to minimum, which is how it will mostly be run I think, after feeling the difference it made to the room.

The fire will allow me to change the way I heat my house. It will result in me using considerably less gas than before in my opinion.

Hope this helps.

Pincher

Have to say that I am with Amibovvered on the turn the radiator off when you are not using a room idea. I am also not too keen on running a gas pipe into the living area.

Having said that, I did fancy a fireplace in the ground floor lounge,
so I took out one radiator, and put in a Valor Hydroflame DREAM GOLD Model 870. It shares the DREAM Fascia with the gas Homeflame, so it looks the same. It's a fanned wet radiator, with a 1.5kW electric heating element if you need it.

So I ended up with wallspace for a bookcase unit, and spruced up the old (real) fireplace. No need to change the boiler, operating on whatever efficiency the boiler is already at (condensing Band A). So far so the same.

The difference is:

1. No unsightly gas pipe running along the outside of the house.
2. No potentially dangerous gas point inside the house.
3. No flue poking through the wall.

I still need an annual service and gas safety inspection for the boiler and cooker, but not for the fireplace.

The only advantage the Homeflame has is in the event of gas boiler failure. I will be using an electric 1.5kW heating element, whereas the Homeflame will still be using the cheaper gas.

mjmal51

Pincher
The Hydroflame looks very interesting, never seen anything like that before. If you used an existing fireplace how did you go on for the depth of the unit?
I have an existing coal effect electric fire in the fireplace (there when I moved in last year and never used) and the Hydroflame looks a lot better.
http://www.valorelectric.co.uk/valor/website.nsf/getproduct/3053014802EC776D802576EB0040A726?OpenDocument&nav1=consumer&nav2=product