gas fire back to coal

[desrob]

is it the norm to use a chair brick to reduce the builders opening to accommodate a coal fire from a ilfe fire

 

[mountainman]

If I remember rightly, a chair brick is there to absorb heat from the fire and reflect it into the room, not have any influence on the chimney flow.

 

[AWheating]

If I remember rightly, a chair brick is there to absorb heat from the fire and reflect it into the room, not have any influence on the chimney flow.

it will normally form part of the throat so it does influence flue flow and also ventilation requirements if i remember correctly.

 

[AWheating]

is it the norm to use a chair brick to reduce the builders opening to accommodate a coal fire from a ilfe fire

part j of the building regs has some guidence on solid fuel installations.

 

[mountainman]

I stand erected!

 

[AWheating]

I stand erected!

i have just done the hetas course so alot of this is fresh in my head. They showed use a video of how a builder would knock out a fireplace and brickup the chair brick, throat forming lintel etc.... for a open fire installation. sadly the video was from the 1970's, but i guess that was when demand for this type of thing was at its highest. With the current high prices in gas and electricity i can see alot more being put back into use.

 

[Pipes Plumbing]

This can either be really straightforward or a complete pain in the rear depending on the state of the existing chimney once the gas liner is pulled out...

As has been said already, the chairbrick will form part of the throat, along with the throat forming lintel, you'll have to check these are in place and correctly spaced.
Make sure the gas liner has been pulled out, and that the chimney is in good condition.
Carry out chimney tightness and flow checks to make sure there is no spillage either from the openng or along the entire chimney length.
If i's a building that had a solid fuel fire before, have a good look outside the chimney to look for staining of the brickwork, this can give you some really good clues that something isn't as it should be and needs investigating! This has saved me hours of messing in the past...

The amount of ventilation for an open fire is HUGE at 50% of the throat area (hence why they're so inefficient compared to stoves, loads of warm air gets dragged up the chimney too). Make really sure this is in place, the risk of CO from solid fuel is so much higher than gas or oil but many people don't realise!

Oh yeah, CO detectors fitted in the same room as the appliance are now mandatory too.

Part J will provide you the other info

Good luck

Stu