A conventional brick chimney with a chimney stack with a terracotta pot or gas terminal on it.
Normally you have a chimney breast in your lounge or a brick breast protruding outside your home.

This is an interlocking metal flue tube system identifiable by a metal flue and terminal on the roof and a metal box behind the fire.

Built from concrete or clay blocks, pre cast flues provide a rectangular section flue, they can be identified by a ridge vent or metal flue tube and terminal on the roof.Normally you have a flat wall in your home where the fire is situated and no chimney breast.Pre casts are generally the most troublesome flue types we come across and do limit the type of products you can purchase. It’s worth letting us know what age your house is as this can effect your fire choice with some of the earlier pre 1986 flues.

Balanced flue fires are glass fronted room sealed appliances and the flues vent directly outside (normally at the rear of the fire) the flues normally vent horizontally through a concentric twin pipe.One pipe within a larger pipe.The outer pipe draws air from outside, the inner pipe expels combustion gases. Balanced flue fires are becoming very popular as they are very efficient and have few limitations of where they can be installed.

These fires are getting less popular as they are inefficient and costly to run. Power flue fires expel the combustion gases directly outside the building through the use of an electric fan unit.Most people now change old power flue fires with more efficient balanced flue options.

If you don’t have a chimney or flue and do not want a balanced or power flue fire then an electric fire may be your best option. We have seen a massive increase in the sales of electric fires over the last five years and have over one hundred models on display including wall hung, inset, free standing and stoves.The new flame pictures on the latest electric fires are very realistic and have the benefit of a flame picture without having to have the heater turned on.Electric fires have a maximum of 2kw output and the latest LED fires cost only a couple of pounds a year to run the flame picture.