Hi all,
I am just in the process of having a new woodburner installed after having an old gas fire taken out. I am using a HETAS registered fitter for the job but have had builders in doing other work around the house as well. I have an external chimney stack so the fitter initially just opened up the cavity into which the new burner will be set, rendered inside and laid the hearth. Whilst opening up the chamber the fitter also cut away approx 200mm of plaster board from the internal wall around the opening (i.e. the wall facing into the room, into which the cavity is set), citing building regs that specify a minimum safe distance for combustible materials from the burner itself. He advised that we patch this in with hardwall plaster and skim over and was content to leave that for me to do as I had plasterers in anyway. He'll return to physically install the burner later. The problem is I have a feeling my plasterer may have just reboarded in regular plasterboard (I wasnt there when he did it and didnt get the feeling that he understood what he was supposed to have done when I pressed him on it later). The installer never asked for me to provide evidence of the work so I presume I will get my certificate from him either way. So what I need to know is whether there's any real risk of fire which means I should air on the side of caution and pull the plaster off again, or are these just OTT regs meant to guard against an unlikely outcome? The burner is a small 5kw unit which I dont plan to operate with the door open. All advice welcome.
I am just in the process of having a new woodburner installed after having an old gas fire taken out. I am using a HETAS registered fitter for the job but have had builders in doing other work around the house as well. I have an external chimney stack so the fitter initially just opened up the cavity into which the new burner will be set, rendered inside and laid the hearth. Whilst opening up the chamber the fitter also cut away approx 200mm of plaster board from the internal wall around the opening (i.e. the wall facing into the room, into which the cavity is set), citing building regs that specify a minimum safe distance for combustible materials from the burner itself. He advised that we patch this in with hardwall plaster and skim over and was content to leave that for me to do as I had plasterers in anyway. He'll return to physically install the burner later. The problem is I have a feeling my plasterer may have just reboarded in regular plasterboard (I wasnt there when he did it and didnt get the feeling that he understood what he was supposed to have done when I pressed him on it later). The installer never asked for me to provide evidence of the work so I presume I will get my certificate from him either way. So what I need to know is whether there's any real risk of fire which means I should air on the side of caution and pull the plaster off again, or are these just OTT regs meant to guard against an unlikely outcome? The burner is a small 5kw unit which I dont plan to operate with the door open. All advice welcome.
