Quote to install gas fire

Mrsmarshall

I have a gas fire in place and bought a new fire and surround to replace the one that's there. I had a gas safe engineer out to quote for the install and when he was out he found nothing but problems. He performed a smoke test which passed (the smoke went up the flue and out the chimney, he said this was my only saving grace apparently) but he said my chimney is dangerous and needs a flue liner, new chimney pot and the builders entrance needs to be made smaller. So far he's quoting a minimum of £1.5k to carry out this work but do I really need it done if my chimney passed the smoke test?

He didn't look up the chimney or go on the roof to check the chimney pot so I am not sure how he could possibly know all this, all he done was a smoke test. To be honest the whole time he was in he was also trying to sell me a new central heating system. I can't help but think that he's trying to bump up the price of installing my fire to make me think I'd be better off with central heating which means he makes more money.

Either way my fire needs to go in so I'm looking for a bit of advice on this please.

Also can I have the surround and fire fitted but not hooked up to the gas line? I'd have the gas line capped off and just use the fire and surround as a feature, is this a possibility? If so this is the option I'd be going with along with the central heating.

Any advice you can give would be great.

Clive_Woody

Definitely get more quotes and advice. Without more information it sounds like the first guy wants to do as much work as possible.

Be prepared to be find out that all the work listed may actually need to be done but get some more people in and see what they say before making a decision.

teddysmum

Last year, I was quoted £50 to remove my old fire and fit the new one, including new pipe from the side of the fireplace to the fire. this was from a Gas Safe local tradesman, who came to rescue (free of charge) a bird which had fallen down the chimney.

System

teddysmum wrote: »

Last year, I was quoted £50 to remove my old fire and fit the new one, including new pipe from the side of the fireplace to the fire. this was from a Gas Safe local tradesman, who came to rescue (free of charge) a bird which had fallen down the chimney.

Yes I paid around this as well.

my mum paid £300 but that included the fire!

BuildingFife

Sometimes openings do require altering but unless the gas engineer took the fire out he wouldn't know this.

The pot you can sometimes tell from the ground but only if it has obvious cracks otherwise he is definitely chancing his luck.

A liner will ALWAYS be recommended for gas fires but it isn't essential, this is mainly due to the chances of fumes coming back into the room if say a brick falls down the chimney & blocks the flue output something you really wouldn't know until it went wrong, although any gas appliances should be installed with a carbon monoxide detector in the room so even then you should be covered before its to late.

We would highly recommend you getting other quotations as even including a liner this is higher than our usual quotations.