Unflued gas heaters dangerous to your health

[tornado33]

Hi all
As of last night we turned off our old unflued gas heater for the last time. We saw an article on a current affair about the emissions they give off. My mums breathing isnt the best and she noted 2 other relos have died from breathing related disorders and they had unflued gas heating.

Went to AGL shop today, got them coming out on Friday to give a quite to install a Rinnai "energysaver" flued automatic gas room heater. Anyone out there who has an unflued heater I recommend to get a flued one ASAP. natural gas remains the cheapest heating by far, but do get a flued heater whatever you do. The one we het only nees a small hole in the wall right behind it. You can even get "powerflue" to run down througg the floor.

Sadly we wont get much change out of $1500 but peace of mind is worth it.
Scott

[JimmyH155]

Yes, that's the way to go, Tornado:). I remember in my youth we had those dreadful mobile paraffin heaters, and if you didn't get the flame just right, dreadful fumes would emanate from the heater. Or even worse, we had those diabolical paraffin heaters that took an upside down bottle of fuel - one small leak, or knock into it and the whole lot would catch fire. I remember once having to throw a blazing heater out of a third floor window from my sister's bedroom into the back yard - how the whole house didn't go up I dont know. I could hardly see the flaming heater from the black fog that had filled the room:eyepop:

[tornado33]

The old kero heaters were fun indeed. Wouldnt conform to modern OH&S thats for sure
Scott

[Glenhuon]

They were banned in the UK a long time back and I think WA made them illegal in the last year or so. We have one here, but it goes off at night and we never have the door completely closed as the furry kids just come and go as they please, so plenty of ventilation.

Bill

[Bassnut]

uuum, and efficiency?, how much heat goes out the flue? (dont they divert thru a water heater or something)

[Glenhuon]

We had them too when I was first married, cheap heating until M Thatcher taxed the Kero. Ours were the round wick type with the auto snuffer that snapped down if you bumped them. Those drip feed things were death traps.

Bill

[ving]

i use body heat ;)

[rogerg]

They aren't illegal here. We bought one 3 years back when we bought our home, a good Rinnia one, but didn't realise at the time about the eimssions.

My partner has breathing problems sometimes, she's sensitive to dust, cats, and other things. We discovered this winter that her breathing problems got considerably worse when the gas heater was used, so we have largely banned it, but still use it occasionally for a boost, like for 15 mins in the morning. Make sure the place is well ventilated.

We plan to eventually replace it with ducted reverse cycle, we already have the ducting for an evaporative system so it makes sense. Just a case of when we get around to it and when we feel that we can spend the money on it.

For us gas heating was an option because the house has gas points everywhere. But in reality it costs more than our wood fire to run, it's the most expensive form of heating for us, because we're on bottled gas, with each bottle costing $85, and if using the heater heavily we'd go through just over a bottle a month.

Roger.