On Wed, 1 Oct 2008 17:54:52 +0100, "Roger Mills"
wrote:

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
jal wrote:

We have an open fire, which we use occasionally during the winter. I
rather fancy opening up a vent in the floor, near the hearth, in order
to feed the fire with air from the vent, rather than it sucking
draughts in via the doors to the room.

Does anyone have experience of this? Is my thinking along the right
lines? And what would I look for, at Screwfix, Wickes, etc?

TIA

John

I don't know whether you can retro-fit them - maybe you can if you have
suspended wooden floors, but it would be a bit more difficult with solid
floors.

My in-laws' bungalow (built in about 1960) had solid floors with under-floor
ventillation for the open fire built in. ISTR that there was an airbrick in
an outside wall, with a metal duct below the screed - terminating under the
fireplace. I think the relevant bits were made by Baxi - but I doubt whether
they make them now!

Correct. Baxi did an excellent fireplace with up to four pipes going
to each house wall and all terminating in a chamber under the
fireplace. The idea was that any prevailing wind provided forced
draughts to the base of the fire.

Sadly the controls were a bit lacking and you got anything from a
blast furnace of a windy day to a peat fire on a silent day.

Emptying them was rather difficult as well.

They were normally put into a new build as it went up due to the
pipeing.