This guide will help you decide on which gas firepit is right for you. It’s not specific to our products, but to gas firepits in general.
Search the Internet
You’ve probably spent some time on the internet searching for a ‘gas fire pit’ or ‘gas firepits’ or even ‘gas firepits uk’, and found what appears to be a vast number of options available to you. However, looks can be deceiving. Once you start investigating further, this opens up a minefield of information, which could be a bit overwhelming.
This guide will help you navigate that minefield, and quickly narrow down the options, making the decision making process far easier.
What to look for
Although there seems to be a lot of choice, there aren’t really once you understand a few basic facts, which will narrow down your choice quite quickly. So lets start with a few fundamentals.
CE Approval
Just like all cars have to have an MOT certificate, to make it legal, all gas appliances have to be CE approved for them to be legal. To gain this, the product has to undergo rigorous testing by a government controlled authority. This ensure it’s safe, and conforms to the Gas Appliance Regulations. Without this GAR Certificate, the product is illegal, and cannot be sold, installed, or used in the UK and Europe.
CE approval costs a lot and has to be maintained annually. Any company selling a CE approved product would want to highlight and show off this fact. So if you find a product and there is no mention of CE approval, then it’s unlikely to have it. This means it’s not legal for use in the UK, so steer well clear.
Almost all gas firepit from America or China, won’t have this approval, as they don’t need it in their country. Unfortunately this does not stop them selling their illegal products on Amazon and eBay. This will narrow down your search by around 90% as there are very few legal CE approved burners available on the market.
Heat Output or Power
Ok, so you find a product and it has CE approval. The next very important thing you should look at is how much heat does it give out. You see flames, so it must be hot, right? Well, take a candle, and a blow torch. One burns your fingers, but the other melts metal. Not all flames are equal.
A gas burner’s power is measured in kilowatts (kw). This is actually a measurement of how much gas it burns, but it also relates to the amount of heat given off. Some products are in fact quite low powered, which you don’t find out until you sit around it for the first time, only to find it’s more for decoration, as there’s not much heat. If it’s not obvious on their website, it probably means it’s a small number and they don’t want you to find it.
Our burners are 18kw. For comparison, your average indoor lounge fire would be around 4kw.
Manufacturing and Support
Some people are not concerned where a product is made and don’t give it a second thought. That is until it goes wrong, and they need to contact the supplier for support or spares. There are CE approved burners out there, but most are made outside the UK. This means if you need some technical advice, or spare parts, it could be difficult to find.
Check out their website. Do they provide free technical support information. Can you buy spares directly from their website.
We make our products in our own workshop here in the UK. We offer full customer support, and spare parts for all our products.