Flueless gas fire are more efficient than conventional flued gas fires

(24/05/2006)

Flueless gas fires are the most efficient fires on the market today, according to independent research commissioned by Burley Appliances. A flueless gas fire (Burley model 4240) and conventional flued gas fires were tested in real life situations. The results indicated that a flueless gas fire produces up to 12 times more heat per kilowatt than a flued gas fire.

During the tests the Burley flueless gas fires produced predictably high heat outputs. These appliances are 100% efficient, putting all the heat into the room and not up the chimney.

By contrast a flued living flame gas fire (with a quoted efficiency of 58%) was less than 30% efficient and a flued decorative flame effect fire ( with a claimed efficiency of 25%) only gave an efficiency of below 8%.

The tests indicate that to produce 1kW of heat from a flueless gas fire, a flued living flame gas fire would need to burn over 3.0kW of gas and a decorative gas fire would need to burn 12kW of gas.

“The reason the actual efficiencies measured with the flued gas fires are so much lower than the efficiencies claimed is because manufacturers test them in a laboratory, under unrealistic conditions” commented Steve Barson of Burley. “As many consumers base their buying decisions on running costs and damage to the environment, we feel they are being misled by the current method of testing. A comparison would be to buy a car that the manufacturer claims will travel 60 miles to the gallon and discovering that it will only do 20 miles to the gallon.”

Related categories:  Energy Conservation   Flues and flueing   Gas and electrical fires 

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