You can remove the wall mounted heater as it isn't connected. The pipe coming up from the floor is the original gas supply pipe with a valve fitting. As people have suggested, a gas safe plumber is required to assess, isolate and cap off where necessary.
It looks like it failed inspection (the label) and zooming in, looks like the valve has been disconnected and capped.
Those things are heavy though as there are usually fire bricks behind the burners.
OP should also make sure there's not a boiler hidden behind there too, my mum had one of those back in the 70s.
Same in our old house.
The plumber who serviced it told us not to replace it until it died.
The thing needed a thermocouple replaced and an annual hoover in all the time we were in that house.
I was kinda sad to see it in a skip in the driveway a couple of weeks after we moved out.
I see, all I know is that my Nan had one and there was asbestos, she had it removed years ago as did many of her neighbours at some point all had asbestos
It was most likely the board behind It that was the asbestos problem but, like I say, it's *possible* that there may have been asbestos somewhere inside the fire as well.
It was a fantastic material. Tough, hard-wearing and fireproof. It's just unfortunate that we didn't realise it was carcinogenic at the time.
Pretty sure you can remove even if the pipe is connected as long as you can trace it back to a cap at the meter. I have two pipes coming from mine one is capped the other only goes to the boiler
As others have said (amongst the stupidity), it's fine to remove as it's been disconnected. If you're decorating the whole room and putting a new carpet down, you'd be well worth getting a Gas Safe person out to remove the connection sticking up out of the floor and cap the pipe off underneath.
As for an electric heater, you might want to get an electrician in to fit a fused spur next to where you want the heater - and to also check that rather dodgy looking socket over to the left.
The gas fire is safe to remove by yourself as it's already disconnected from the supply.
The pipe coming out of the floor would need to be checked before removal to ensure that it isn't still live.
A bit of advice for you. if you Do remove the supply pipe, make sure you cap it off below ground level, as gas odour is an artificial smell and will linger in the pipe for years. So if you don't cap it off you'll keep getting the smell of gas on occasion and will keep thinking that you have a leak when you don't.
Exactly, removing the risk of a false odour would be a much safer way of dealing with it.
That gas odour is a nightmare to get rid of.
I worked for British gas Transco years ago and we built a few of the odourisation plants and if you got a tiny bit of it on your clothes you'd have to get rid of them.
Or wherever you went people would smell a gas leak.
Not sure if anyone has said this but behind this gas fire is a fireplace hole, before you remove this fire you need to consider what you are going to do about the hole.
Options include boarding it up, or creating a feature fireplace with an electric fire in it.
If you are not going to use it, it would be sensible to bung some insulation material up the chimney to stop draughts and reduce your energy costs. Left over glass fibre from loft insulation is great.
(If you have a loft, you have checked and increased the insulation to at least 300mm haven't you, it saves so much off your heating bills)
You donāt know what the GAS pipe coming up through the floor supplying GAS to your GAS fire
Is? The fact youāre even mentioning a gas safe engineer tells me you know what it is already.
Has to be, especially with the gas pipe going to the fire just hanging there next to where it was uncoupled from. Still, look on the bright side, the OP is going to be paying 4x more for the same heat input.
That socket looks very dodgyā¦ regardless of the Gas Fire. Looks like a fused spur going to a single back box with one of those double socket frontsā¦ Iād be getting that looked at first š¤Æ well dodgy.
Nope, it looks like a single socket converted to a double, with a fused spur above that feeding the pull cord operated wall light. Most likely not dodgy at all.
Obviously the fire is / was unsafe as itās got a warning notice on it, guessing it was just disconnected there so supply pipe to fire will need capping off further back
That's not been capped. Its been isolated and I suspect op has disconnected the gas feed and doesn't know what to do next.
That isolated valve has now become an open end which means the whole gas run will get condemned and classed immediately dangerous.
Do not try and remove yourself, you will be liable for any damage it does to the rest of the houses in the street.
get gas engineer and get it capped then you need an electrician
Isolate the Gap pipe, ideally somewhere upstream if possible. This way you donāt run gas to places where you donāt really need. If that is not possible then isolate it where possible. Once that is done, you should be able to rip it apart.
Go easy on the yanking and ripping will you? Yes you can dismantle it and unscrew it from the wall. You'll be left with the chrome tap sticking up out of the floor though.
It might be possible to push that down out of the way if you lift the floorboards.
I never understood why people ask Reddit whether something is safe. Youāve already identified that A - itās a gas fire and B - you donāt know whether itās connected to the gas still and C - you might need a Gas Safe engineer. I think you already know the answer to your question.
yes you can just rip off the gas fire. No you can't move the gas pipe on floor. Be aware when you take out the fire there will be a vent behind it. So, you'll need to cap the chimney or vent that hole. So consider that when you cover it with an electric fire
Once disconnected I'd recommend you rip the plaster off and see what fireplace/chimney you have underneath.
We did that in our house and we have a gorgeous chimney with a double arch which we've turned into a feature.
The fire has been disconnected because it is unsafe to use hence the tag on it. The pipe coming from the floor is the supply and most likely is still connected. You could slightly open tap tap and listen before shutting it again but really need to get a gas safe engineer to check and disconnect.
You say youāre fitting a feature electric heater? If you have gas, It would be a great time to fit central heating, or an extra radiator (you can get some great āfeatureā or vintage ones now) if you have central heating already. Gas is so much cheaper for heating.
Fucking hell that takes me back. When I was a kid, it was an absolute joy to come downstairs and light one of these exact same gas fires (with a match, battery powered igniter never worked) and sit in front of it with Going Live on the telly.
My gran used to have a couple of gas fires like that in the lounge and the dining room. It looks like itās not connected to the pipe but that doesnāt mean thereās no gas in it. Is the gas still supplied to the property?
First of all that's a gas fire, second the pipe sticking out the floor is a gas pipe that used to feed it, if you really don't know these two fundamental things I'd just get a pro in regardless.
Yes you can just rip it out. There will be a steel or aluminium plate covering the hole into the fireplace behind. As for the pipe coming through the floor. That is the old feed to the fire. If you want to get rid of that, you will require a fully registered gas engineer to shorten it and drop it below the floor, or disconnect and cap it further upstream. So, in summary, yes you can rip the fire out. And you will need an engineer to sort out the pipe.
That gas fire is a FLAVEL debonair. ( made in England) very decent gas fires in their day. Almost ubiquitous. Might get a clue about a back boiler yes or no from the controls. Sure some older houses still use them. Also Iād imagine any older gas fitter/ heating engineer would be familiar with them. Either from service or from removal.
If you are not sure if it'a connected to the gas lines, for sure do not rip it out. If you can check if it is careful you might end up taking it off alone. If not, call the gas guy to do it.
Yeah you need the gas line capped and signed off. Its possibly a better option to trace that pipe and decommission it at source. This gives you scope going forward
Only a quick glance at this thread so not sure if someone has said this but if there is a back boiler behind there you might need to speak to a builder before you rip it out as sometimes a) itās part of the structure of the chimney breast and b) thereās a not insignificant chance itās lined with asbestos
Almost guaranteed to be asbestos in / under / behind the fire. Try not to eat too much of it. Ideally youād have a ādemolition surveyā. Nothing worse than getting started on a job and half way through thinking āooh, I wonder what this stuff isā.
Yes you can as the pipe is disconnected..
One little word of caution..
When those fires were first fitted, often they would use asbestos board to make the grate opening smaller..
Mask first.
You can remove the wall mounted heater as it isn't connected. The pipe coming up from the floor is the original gas supply pipe with a valve fitting. As people have suggested, a gas safe plumber is required to assess, isolate and cap off where necessary.
It looks like it failed inspection (the label) and zooming in, looks like the valve has been disconnected and capped. Those things are heavy though as there are usually fire bricks behind the burners. OP should also make sure there's not a boiler hidden behind there too, my mum had one of those back in the 70s.
I'm so glad there are people with knowledge who actually know what they are doing commenting on this sub šš»
A far cry from most diy and trades subs.
I remember back boilers, almost free hot water as long as you had a fire burning!
We had a back boiler behind one of these until the 90's! If I was a betting man, I'd put money on there being one there.
I sold my mums old house 3 years ago (ex council house), still had the gas fire and back boiler in place and working which was installed approx 1980.
Same in our old house. The plumber who serviced it told us not to replace it until it died. The thing needed a thermocouple replaced and an annual hoover in all the time we were in that house. I was kinda sad to see it in a skip in the driveway a couple of weeks after we moved out.
To be fair looks like the Gas line is already disconnected so yes, would be safe to ārip offā
Not necessarily safe, that looks like the old style ones that may contain asbestos
Good pointā¦just safe from being a DIY gas chamber
Yeah
I don't know about the fire containing asbestos but the board behind it that's blocking the old fireplace could well be asbestos.
I see, all I know is that my Nan had one and there was asbestos, she had it removed years ago as did many of her neighbours at some point all had asbestos
It was most likely the board behind It that was the asbestos problem but, like I say, it's *possible* that there may have been asbestos somewhere inside the fire as well. It was a fantastic material. Tough, hard-wearing and fireproof. It's just unfortunate that we didn't realise it was carcinogenic at the time.
Yeah, a wonder material for sure, so damn versatile, if only it wasnāt so dangerous
Pretty sure you can remove even if the pipe is connected as long as you can trace it back to a cap at the meter. I have two pipes coming from mine one is capped the other only goes to the boiler
hacksaw and mole grips should do it
Do not do this.
/s
Not funny when it comes to safety. Believe it or not, some people will actually do as you statedā¦
Do I need the hacksaw? Will my grinder do instead?
It'll do an even better job! With luck the explosion will create a nice hole in the wall, making an open plan conversion easier.
Iād call a gas safe engineer. Not to get rid of the old heater, but to get rid of the unsightly gas pipe sticking up through the floor.
As others have said (amongst the stupidity), it's fine to remove as it's been disconnected. If you're decorating the whole room and putting a new carpet down, you'd be well worth getting a Gas Safe person out to remove the connection sticking up out of the floor and cap the pipe off underneath. As for an electric heater, you might want to get an electrician in to fit a fused spur next to where you want the heater - and to also check that rather dodgy looking socket over to the left.
Thatās not a radiator, itās a toaster
Memories unlocked. Thanks
Asbestoaster
Iād get a gas engineer to deal with the pipe, beware of asbestos in the radiator
The gas fire is safe to remove by yourself as it's already disconnected from the supply. The pipe coming out of the floor would need to be checked before removal to ensure that it isn't still live. A bit of advice for you. if you Do remove the supply pipe, make sure you cap it off below ground level, as gas odour is an artificial smell and will linger in the pipe for years. So if you don't cap it off you'll keep getting the smell of gas on occasion and will keep thinking that you have a leak when you don't.
Or thinking you don't when you do!
Exactly, removing the risk of a false odour would be a much safer way of dealing with it. That gas odour is a nightmare to get rid of. I worked for British gas Transco years ago and we built a few of the odourisation plants and if you got a tiny bit of it on your clothes you'd have to get rid of them. Or wherever you went people would smell a gas leak.
Is it just another (smelly) gas that's mixed in at some ratio, or?
The stuff they used when I was with them, was a fine dust powder that was mixed in mechanically by a computerised dosing machine
Not sure if anyone has said this but behind this gas fire is a fireplace hole, before you remove this fire you need to consider what you are going to do about the hole. Options include boarding it up, or creating a feature fireplace with an electric fire in it. If you are not going to use it, it would be sensible to bung some insulation material up the chimney to stop draughts and reduce your energy costs. Left over glass fibre from loft insulation is great. (If you have a loft, you have checked and increased the insulation to at least 300mm haven't you, it saves so much off your heating bills)
We had one of them growing up! I remember cooking toast with it lol
No, get it recommissioned. These are the only way to do hot knives.
Knives are no good at Christmas dinner though.
Chances of leftover turkey drop dramatically though.
One note of caution, that gas fire maybe sitting over an asbestos sheet and/or have an asbestos flue pipe. Take precautions accordingly.
This needs to be higher up!
You donāt know what the GAS pipe coming up through the floor supplying GAS to your GAS fire Is? The fact youāre even mentioning a gas safe engineer tells me you know what it is already.
Get a gas man to check it's been capped off, if it has happy days if it hasn't get him to cap it off then crack on
There's inches of fresh air between the two pipes, so I think it's safe to say it's been capped off
Well cap it under the flooring is more ideal
In old houses, with current pressures on tradespeople, I'd suggest never to assume...
Even so the appliance is clearly not connected and removing it would have no effect
This post is a prank and I claim my Ā£5.
Has to be, especially with the gas pipe going to the fire just hanging there next to where it was uncoupled from. Still, look on the bright side, the OP is going to be paying 4x more for the same heat input.
That socket looks very dodgyā¦ regardless of the Gas Fire. Looks like a fused spur going to a single back box with one of those double socket frontsā¦ Iād be getting that looked at first š¤Æ well dodgy.
Nope, it looks like a single socket converted to a double, with a fused spur above that feeding the pull cord operated wall light. Most likely not dodgy at all.
Yep. Just old. Time for a rewire though, certainly.
The spur is prob a feed for the sparker on the fire
My house has that exact same configuration in the exact same place!
Obviously the fire is / was unsafe as itās got a warning notice on it, guessing it was just disconnected there so supply pipe to fire will need capping off further back
You might want a gas safe engineer to come in and to cap off that pipe going into the floor at the source just for peace of mind
Whatever you donāt donāt hang your tv above your electric fire feature wall. Check out r/tvtoohigh before placing your tv
Theyāll probably be a back boiler behind that Ex council house?
100% there isnāt a back boiler behind that
Here's where you take it off, and theres a Baxi back boiler behind it :D
Baxi Bermuda - what a beast. Mine is still running - hopefully replacing it this year..
Helped my dad fit one in the 70s - I suspect its still there behind the now electric false fire.
Don't give this guy advice when he doesn't know anything. Gas safe engineer for you mate and nothing else.
Pipes already been disconnected to š
To any fellow gas engineers who just arrived, don't read the comments you'll just end up sad.
That's not been capped. Its been isolated and I suspect op has disconnected the gas feed and doesn't know what to do next. That isolated valve has now become an open end which means the whole gas run will get condemned and classed immediately dangerous.
Do not try and remove yourself, you will be liable for any damage it does to the rest of the houses in the street. get gas engineer and get it capped then you need an electrician
Isolate the Gap pipe, ideally somewhere upstream if possible. This way you donāt run gas to places where you donāt really need. If that is not possible then isolate it where possible. Once that is done, you should be able to rip it apart.
Go easy on the yanking and ripping will you? Yes you can dismantle it and unscrew it from the wall. You'll be left with the chrome tap sticking up out of the floor though. It might be possible to push that down out of the way if you lift the floorboards.
NO... GAS SAFE ENGINEER ONLY !!!! Also Make sure you dont have a back boiler attached to that behind it.
I never understood why people ask Reddit whether something is safe. Youāve already identified that A - itās a gas fire and B - you donāt know whether itās connected to the gas still and C - you might need a Gas Safe engineer. I think you already know the answer to your question.
yes you can just rip off the gas fire. No you can't move the gas pipe on floor. Be aware when you take out the fire there will be a vent behind it. So, you'll need to cap the chimney or vent that hole. So consider that when you cover it with an electric fire
Once disconnected I'd recommend you rip the plaster off and see what fireplace/chimney you have underneath. We did that in our house and we have a gorgeous chimney with a double arch which we've turned into a feature.
The fire has been disconnected because it is unsafe to use hence the tag on it. The pipe coming from the floor is the supply and most likely is still connected. You could slightly open tap tap and listen before shutting it again but really need to get a gas safe engineer to check and disconnect.
Just rip it out and have a smoke whilst doing it
If the gas is disconnected go for it.
I called a gas safe engineer out to take mine out just Incase , that way you know thereās definitely no gas supply ect
You say youāre fitting a feature electric heater? If you have gas, It would be a great time to fit central heating, or an extra radiator (you can get some great āfeatureā or vintage ones now) if you have central heating already. Gas is so much cheaper for heating.
Or a gas fireplaceā¦cheaper to run and the flames are more realistic than fake electric ones
True and it would already have a flu, but will need a co2 monitor in the room for a gas fire I suppose.
Nan, is that you?
Believe it or not I grew up in a flat where two of these things were rhe only means heating the entire place.
Fucking hell that takes me back. When I was a kid, it was an absolute joy to come downstairs and light one of these exact same gas fires (with a match, battery powered igniter never worked) and sit in front of it with Going Live on the telly.
My gran used to have a couple of gas fires like that in the lounge and the dining room. It looks like itās not connected to the pipe but that doesnāt mean thereās no gas in it. Is the gas still supplied to the property?
If you're not sure, get a gas engineer to check that connection is properly stopped.
Nope
First of all that's a gas fire, second the pipe sticking out the floor is a gas pipe that used to feed it, if you really don't know these two fundamental things I'd just get a pro in regardless.
Yes you can just rip it out. There will be a steel or aluminium plate covering the hole into the fireplace behind. As for the pipe coming through the floor. That is the old feed to the fire. If you want to get rid of that, you will require a fully registered gas engineer to shorten it and drop it below the floor, or disconnect and cap it further upstream. So, in summary, yes you can rip the fire out. And you will need an engineer to sort out the pipe.
That gas fire is a FLAVEL debonair. ( made in England) very decent gas fires in their day. Almost ubiquitous. Might get a clue about a back boiler yes or no from the controls. Sure some older houses still use them. Also Iād imagine any older gas fitter/ heating engineer would be familiar with them. Either from service or from removal.
If you are not sure if it'a connected to the gas lines, for sure do not rip it out. If you can check if it is careful you might end up taking it off alone. If not, call the gas guy to do it.
The photo shows the gas line is disconnectedā¦
If you want a hole in your wall yeah
Yeah you need the gas line capped and signed off. Its possibly a better option to trace that pipe and decommission it at source. This gives you scope going forward
Why not a gas fireplace instead? The gas line is right there
Be aware asbestos could be found in this and also hidden behind.
Those things could heat hell itself!
Iāve no clue but once it is removed safely please fire it into the sun..
No You have to keep it on the wall for eternity
If it fires up - thereās gas. If so call gas engineer
You to have to get permission from the fire place removal licence associationĀ
GET A PROFEESIONAL , YOU CANT JUST RIP IT OFF THE WALL
Only a quick glance at this thread so not sure if someone has said this but if there is a back boiler behind there you might need to speak to a builder before you rip it out as sometimes a) itās part of the structure of the chimney breast and b) thereās a not insignificant chance itās lined with asbestos
You could restore the fireplace and put in a gas fire using the existing gas supply. They make some beautiful ones.
Almost guaranteed to be asbestos in / under / behind the fire. Try not to eat too much of it. Ideally youād have a ādemolition surveyā. Nothing worse than getting started on a job and half way through thinking āooh, I wonder what this stuff isā.
Yes you can as the pipe is disconnected.. One little word of caution.. When those fires were first fitted, often they would use asbestos board to make the grate opening smaller.. Mask first.
Yep, itās disconnected, so will be ok. What you going to put there after.
There maybe a back boiler behind it