The Mrs was looking at these last night.
I think they are more a feature than a source of warmth.
Looking at one of these for our conservatory, they certainly look like a good idea, no flue/chimney stack needed etc.
Anyone have any real world experience, ease of use, cost?
The Mrs was looking at these last night.
I think they are more a feature than a source of warmth.
We have one that we got a few years ago. We sat it on the grate in an open fire and there was very little heat came off, it was a feature to us.
We’ve had one in our lounge since 2005. Well, it started out as a BioGel fireplace but I made some changes to it last year in order to convert it to BioEthanol fluid as the gel is hard to get now and fairly pricey.
I disagree with the comments about little heat. We need to keep our lounge door open otherwise the room gets rather toasty.
I can see that if you did put it in an open fireplace then sure, you’d lose heat… as these are not meant for a fireplace that vents up a chimney.
Bought ours from gelfireplaces.com… it’s this one https://www.gelfireplaces.com/index....mart&Itemid=57
I do think the gel burns for longer (1ltr lasted about 2hrs compared to about 1.5hrs with the fluid)… the fluid takes about 10mins to settle in to a nice yellow burn… it’s quite a blue flame to start with.
Generally we only use it a few times a year in winter as our central heating does the business.
Andy.
Last edited by gorrie; 2nd September 2022 at 15:54.
I dont have one but am planning to get one soon when we redecorate our lounge. Having already researched one thing that came up several times was not to create too big a feature fire as it would put out too much heat. Sounded like that was a more common mistake than not getting enough heat.
Not quite the same thing but I have a bioethanol camping stove and it very effectively boils a kettle in just a few minutes.
We did a contura 51 rated at 5kw but it is rather large and pushed out a lot of heat. Probably needed slightly smaller, but really don’t like the look of smaller ones.
Most of the time it’s off, so needs to look right then too. Brother in law has one that holds about 2 logs, it’s tiny.
Price of bioethanol seems expensive, presumably meths would work?
We had it in a previous home.
It was a feature for us, but we used it rarely - when we did it gave off enough heat to heat the lounge comfortably. I guess it depends what size you go for.
I would say it is a neat solution to get flames in your home without need for chimney installation. Would consider it again if the situation arose.
We have one in our Snug (bought last year), which is normally quite cold in the Winter due to poor insulation and it gives off a lot of warmth. We need to turn it down sometimes.
It's a 'Le Feu' fireplace, ceiling mounted. So it's a feature and also a source of heat.
You need premium bioethanol really (we use e-NRG) and 1 litre burns for about 5 hours I'd say. We wouldn't use it every day.
Smokeless and virtually odour-less and can heat a small room quite nicely.
Last edited by The Hack; 3rd September 2022 at 10:24.
Thank you all for the replies, food for thought 👍