Bio ethanol fires / burners

[Nickfromwales]

Excerpt from a previous thread. A member asked..... 

 

Following on from discussions regarding the desirability and availabilty of low output room sealed wood burners I have been looking at the alternatives.
I need something that will satisfy our desire to have a "real fire" while at the same time having a controllable output of around about 2kW.

Has anyone looked at using bioethanol burners as a compromise solution in this situation ? 

Do I need to make any special allowances for flue-less fires in the house or should a standard MVHR system be able to cope ? Are there any building regs to consider ? 

Edited May 20, 2016 by Nickfromwales

[Nickfromwales]

The first reply was.....

A standard MVHR should provide enough ventilation. There's no toxic flue gases from burning bioethanol, it's probably the cleanest burning fuel there is. There will be some CO2 though, plus a bit of water vapour, but not enough to worry about with the amount of ventilation BRs requires. As a rule of thumb, then the CO2 and water vapour output from a bioethanol stove will be about the same as a few extra people in the house, at a rate of around 80 to 100W per person. So a 1kW output stove would be a bit like having ten extra house guests, something the ventilation system should deal with OK.

If you opt for CO2 or humidity sensing in the MVHR extract duct, then the MVHR will automatically boost its rate if it detects an increase. 

[Bitpipe]

We've made provision for a bio-ethanol fire in a 'faux' fireplace in the living room but the smallest (and it is really small) still generated up to 3KW which is way too much. 

I'll probably end up fireproofing the area and have candles...

[ToughButterCup]

9 hours ago, Bitpipe said:

[...]  bio-ethanol fire in a 'faux' fireplace in the living room[...]

I've seen German living rooms with a massive flat-screen TV showing a roaring fire on a continuous loop. Talk about naff.

[Nickfromwales]

Some uber contemporary fireplaces / burners have an lcd TV at the rear which do just that. In a stove or fire I supposed they look pretty neat, but on the wall as a TV........  Not so sure 

[Bitpipe]

Now it's been formed it looks fine as a feature alcove, will probably stack with nice round logs as a 'homage' to the timber frame.