Selfsufficientish.com

Hello again,

We decided on a gas rayburn and got one second hand on ebay for £100. Getting it into the house was hard work but great fun - many stone steps, pulleys, curtain poles as rollers/wheels, levers, rope 3 guys and 3 girls all chipping in with imaginative ways to tackle the problem. Mission completed, cups of tea and jam dough nuts all round. Very nice.

Had a rayburn man round to give us a quote for installation and the options are either £1889 + £600 for scaffold for it to go in the chimney breast and up the chimney with chimney liner and sealer-y thingy bob. Or £1850 for it to go next to the chimney with a flue pipe going outside through the kitchen wall and up past the eaves of the house. Either way when you add the VAT it's more than £2000. We had no idea installation would cost so much and both feel like a right pair of muppets with this cute little rayburn standing waiting and coldd in our kitchen.

So we're going to ask someone else for a quote and compare and if it's roughly the same we'll be saving the pennies and having it installed in time for next winter. Though my partner is itching to find a way round coughing up the cash..

What's the question...? Has anyone fitted their own gas rayburn? How do-able is it? My partner can fit a gas hob and install a woodburner...is it much more complicated than that?... how unwise would it be to give it a whirl...?

Any ideas or suggestions would be very gratefully received.

Holly

Have you tried a corgi man, without the rayburn bit - I'm sure you must be able to find one cheaper .

Unfortunately AFAIK you have to have a proper gas-fitter to make it legal.

There's GA showing her age - but she's right. CORGI has been replaced by the Gas Safe Register, but it is illegal in the UK to connect any appliance if you are not on the GSR. But that, as far as I know, applies only to the connection and testing of the gas side - the physical installation of the Rayburn, the flue work, etc. can be done by anyone who knows what they're doing. As long as the GSR-qualified engineer is the last in the line (as he/she has to certify the installation), then the requirements are met.

Mike

The cost of the scaffold is probably unavoidable, unless the chimney is on the side of the house, then you could hire a tower for the day which will be much cheaper.
There are companies on the internet that sell the flue liners, about £20/metre, plus all the other bits you need.
Installation is not difficult if you are a bit handy, it will need a couple of people, but you should be able to do it for less than £500 (assuming a tower) including the registered plumber to connect the gas and certify the installation.
£600 for the scaffold seems expensive, unless it is very awkard to get to the chimney.

Mike

There's no gas within about 75 miles of here - so not much chance of keeping up to date. In fact they probably pipe it in nearer than you can use it to cook on

Thanks for your replies,

I've contacted some local GSR/corgi tradespeople (not specifically rayburn guys this time) for some more quotes. I'll keep you posted.

Does anyone think it makes any difference to heat loss where you put a rayburn? My two options are either in the fireplace or not in the fireplace - either way it'll have its back to the next door neighbour's house (terrace). Does anyone have any thoughts on whether it'd be good to have it in the fireplace - would the heat get absorbed into the bricks of the chimney breast and then radiate out or would the heat go up the chimney?

thanks

I did this in France, I put a wood burning cooker/stove in the fireplace - I thought it would look better - we didn't get an ounce (is that the right unit) of heat out of it. So we moved it to one side, with the flue going up and across and into the middle of the chimney breast - looked a bit naf but it warmed everyone beautifully (and its how all the locals had theirs).

Dear Herbalholly,

Is the builder quoting for knocking out bits of fireplace and insert an rsj to support the chimney as well? I hacked into the chimney to take the flue for ours and had a local gas fitter to do the techie bits. He told me that the internal workings of a gas Rayburn are exactly the same as installing a gas central heating boiler and were no real problem to fit, so don't let anyone try to blind you with pseudoscience,

Love and Peace
Jim

Thank you for your replies. It's a real help to have people to ask. I haven't had any further quotes yet. Good to know that the workings of a rayburn are similar to a normal gas boiler. Gutting to hear that all the heat might go up the chimney if it goes in the fireplace. It was a worry but we've put the rayburn in there for now (as yet unfitted) and have made the rest of the kitchen (gas hob, work surface and kitchen units etc) as we needed to get some cooking facilities sorted out. I hope that it's not all doomed to the heat going up the chimney... balls. It's set now that that's where it's going as my dad's made the work surface out of a stack of special wood that he'd been saving for donkey's years. To move the raburn would be to cut the work surface, and all his hard work, in half... doh! I should have checked back to this site before we made the final decision...
Anyone have their rayburn successfully in the fireplace?

My Gran!

She has a rayburn from approx 1947, and it's in her kitchen in the fireplace. It's log fired (Yes me and dad get summonsed with a periodical "runnin short o' logs buuy")

The flue goes into a plate which has cleaning access, so the chimney is not open, this does her hot water, and keeps the downstairs kitchen and sitting room pretty warm during the day, supplemented with a fire in the evening in the sitting room.

It is lovely when she is cooking a roast, and the heat means due to some highly dangerous and probably lethal malfunction the water in the tank boils up into the header tank in the attic, at this stage you get to have a guilt free really hot soak in the Bath, in the middle of the day.... bliss.

Fantastic!

Thank you so much for this info. The rayburn man spoke about a special plate to go in the chimney so I guess that is the same as your Gran has. Excellent news about her kitchen being warm. We're planning on having a wood stove in the sitting room in the evenings on cold nights too. thank you.

It's called a registration plate and they usually have to be custom made to fit the chimney/fireplace

We have an Esse Multifuel and I installed the whole lot myself. I was told it would have to be installed and signed off by a HETAS engineer but there's no way I'm paying anyone to do a job I can quite easily do myself. That said, I have been in the building trade for 34 years so have a bit head start over the layman. I would definatly not touch a gas appliance tho'!

The whole installation for the Esse involved 6 self tapping screws and four joints made with fire cement.

Sorry to pick up on a small point, but, you don't have to be CORGI / gas safe register registered to do your own gas work in the UK. The law says you must be 'competant' and also goes on to mention that a pressure test must be carried out after works. To do it for reward (i.e. being paid) then you do have to be registered.

I'm not suggesting that anyone should have a go, but some people would fit into the competant category wihtout being registered.