About bioethanol heaters and fires

We love the look of the bioethanol heaters and portable fireplaces we sell. But because they’re still  a new-ish player on the interiors scene, most people know very little about them. Here’s what you need to know about bioethanol heaters, beautiful room-heating gadgets that might just save you some cash in winter – as well as looking wonderful.

This stylish design, for example, adds a welcoming feel to a room, a lovely way to enhance the atmosphere for family celebrations, wild parties, and romantic nights in.

Why buy a bioethanol heater or fireplace?

Some people buy a bioethanol fireplace to add atmosphere and character to a room, either everyday or for special occasions like dinner parties and family celebrations. Some are small enough to sit on top of a sideboard or table, others are bigger and more like regular fires.

A bioethanol heater or fire will fit into a regular fireplace with no need for a flue, perfect for homes where the original fireplaces have been blocked or turned into purely decorative features. Modern homes built from around 2000 onwards often come without fireplaces, in which case a bioethanol alternative is a cool idea.

The Tokyo, below, is a brilliant full-size fire, a splendid addition to any modern home without a chimney and just as good for homes with a chimney, blocked or not. Can you imagine drifting off, staring into the flames? Or gathering around it for great times? Its easy to move around to warm up any room you like.

Depending on the cost of electricity, oil and gas, heating a single room with a heater run on this clean-burning fuel could cost you less. It fits in with the ongoing energy-saving trend for only heating the room you’re in, instead of the whole house, especially handy when it’s not possible to fine-tune your central heating system well enough – or at all.

You can tell how much fuel is left too, putting you in control of how much you spend.

There’s nothing quite like a real fire to make people feel cosy, safe, and relaxed. While these heaters don’t give you the lovely crackle of wood burning, the flames definitely give you the same DNA-deep pleasure as the real deal. Bioethanol fires are low-maintenance, too.

So you get welcoming warmth, an attractive focal point, and a potentially affordable way to warm a single room simply. So far, it’s sounding pretty good.

What is bioethanol?

Bioethanol is a liquid fuel made from fermented sugar and starch from waste plant products like sugar cane and straw, distilled to boost its alcohol content. Taking everything into account it is about the same, environmental impact-wise, as burning wood pellets.

How do bioethanol heaters work?

Bioethanol heaters contain a firebox or combustion chamber, filled with a ceramic ‘wool’ that absorbs the fuel and lets it out bit by bit. This makes it fuel-efficient and helps keeps things safe, giving you a controlled burn. The firebox often comes with a slider to set the heat output. Many have a glass box on top to contain the flame. And that’s it – it is that simple. Other than that, the rest – the body of the fire – is all about looks, a good-looking container for the working parts.

Why is a bioethanol fireplace a good idea?

So what are the benefits of a bioethanol heater? For a start it only gives off water vapour and CO2. No smoke, ash, particulate pollution, or carbon monoxide. So it’s a clean burn. You don’t need a chimney or flue, which means the design options are only limited by the makers’ imagination. As you can see, we have some really beautiful room heaters in-store.

Bioethanol fire maintenance

The guts of the heater are so basic you won’t need to do any maintenance. Just keep the outside clean. There’s no installing either, just un-box it and set it up.

The cost of bioethanol fuel vs performance

You can buy the fuel in 1L bottles and pay more or, if you have space to store it safely, buy in bulk. At the time of writing this post, you can buy 190L in bulk for around £2.60 a litre, translating to about 24p per kW-hour. Reading around, it looks like a litre of fuel will last around 3 hours at the fire’s maximum heat setting, usually 3kW. 

A heat output of 3kW in a well-insulated room is pretty good. A 5m x 5m room, for example, usually needs about 1.4kW in winter to keep it lovely and warm, so a full 3kW will end up very cosy. A wood burning stove can stack up to more than 5kW heat output, enough to drive you outdoors to cool off!

Are Bioethanol Fireplaces safe?

Bioethanol is flammable, and like everything flammable it deserves respect and care. But it’s no more risky than any other real fire. Some models keep the heat contained behind glass, others have an open-top glass box for the flames, making fire safety a matter of common sense. Don’t store the fuel where it could set alight. Keep it away from kids and pets. Whether you buy in bulk or in small quantities, store it in the safest possible way, to the right safety standards. And don’t refill the firebox when the fire is lit or still hot – something the best heaters don’t let you do. Lastly, never over-fill the firebox.

As far as placing yours goes, if it’s a table-top model make sure the surface you stand it on – a unit, sideboard, dining table or whatever – is big enough, strong enough, and can’t be knocked over.

And that’s about it. We hope you enjoy our carefully-chosen bioethanol fires and heaters collection. We wish you a wonderfully warm shopping experience!