On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:17:35 +0100, "R D S" wrote:

We have a living flame gas fire in our front room. I only ever use it in
desparation and then only on low.

I am about to put a radiator in that room which will complete the central
heating I started nearly 15 years ago! I wonder how much of the heat from
the rad is simply going to dissapear up the chimney, I am guessing it will
be quite a bit.

Anyone any real life experience of this? I have looked at numbers on the net
but these are from people selling solutions.

Last house we had exactly what you describe and I used to use the fire
on the rare occasions we fancied that extra warmth and a bit of a cosy
glow. Otherwise....I made a template from cardboard and then used that
to make a thin plate from steel to slot above the fire and close the
chimney off. Edged it with double sided tape and pieces of draught
excluder to make a better seal and it worked a treat. A lit candle
held in the fireplace showed no flicker of movement. And yes, I did
forget about it once and lit the fire and yes, I did then yoink it out
after ten minutes and burnt myself.And broke a crystal glass from a
wedding present set when I dropped the thing like a, a, a hot plate.
Go figure. As they say.