Ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties …

Ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties …

http://mcgore.com/interesting-decoration-halloween-design-ideas/black-bats-wall-decoration-with-shaw-laminate-wood-flooring-and-vintage-gel-fireplace-in-modern-living-room-design/

In Britain, we’re somewhere between the full-on Trick or Treat fest that our North American cousins enjoy and the slightly darker European traditions linked to paganism and witchcraft when it comes to marking Hallowe’en. In its purest Christian sense, it’s All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saints Day on 1 November. It is also All Souls Day on 2 November, so for Christian folk at least, it’s a time when the departed are very much to the fore.

Of course, this ‘celebration’ of death has acquired a new and spooky vocabulary in modern times. We have a lot more monsters to choose from if we’re dressing up for a Hallowe’en party. Because whatever its roots as a festival, Hallowe’en is very much about celebration.There is a change in the air, the clocks have gone back and summer (if we had one at all) has departed. Inevitably, Christmas is already on the horizon. There is no escaping it! It is also usually half term, so the kids are extra excited about having some time off. All in all, Hallowe’en is the start of the last quarter of the year and gateway to a season full of excitement, ritual and wonder.

http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/844773/great-reasons-to-go-apartment-building-trick-or-treating

For all its focus on the darker things, Hallowe’en is a homely celebration. It’s about parties and welcoming visitors to your home, even if it’s just the local kids trick or treating at the door. At this point, I’m bound to say that today’s trick or treaters don’t have much in the way of tricks. When I was a boy … well, let’s just say that most of the fun was to be had the following morning when the grumpier souls in our street, the ones who opted for ‘trick’, found their cars quickly spluttered to a halt. It’samazing how effective a potato firmly wedged in the exhaust pipe could be. Don’t do it, kids!

http://uk.pinterest.com/pin/284078688970837239/

Whatever the excuse – and Halloween is a great one – these colder, longer nights are a great reason to curl up on the sofa with a good book (or a spooky film) and be glad that you’re inside and nice and warm. One of the homeliest of the Hallowe’en traditions is the jack o’lantern, usually carved from a pumpkin or, if you’re a hardcore traditionalist, a turnip. It’s amazing how relaxing a flickering candle inside a hollowed-out vegetable can be. Nothing’s wasted either. You can make soup from the flesh and save the seeds to plant for your own seasonal crop next year.

Of course, you can enjoy the relaxing warmth of a real flame all year long. It’s just extra nice at this time of year anda Bio Fire is an excellent way to do it – either as a full fireplace or a table ornament. They’re clean and efficient, stylish and a real asset to any home and if you want to add a whiff of seasonal ambience to your living space, there are lots of scents you can use with your fire for that extra seasonal touch!

http://dferraro.me/2013/02/25/assignment-2-book-cover-in-progress/book-cover-goodie2/

Follow Peter's BLOG

Turn off, tune out - 'come home to a real fire'

Turn off, tune out - 'come home to a real fire'

In the olden days – say, the 1970s – you could relax in your home safe in the knowledge that the boss couldn't ring you up from his car, nobody would be sending you messages about things that needed to be done in the morning and that once you closed your front door, that was more or less it for the night. You could relax. You could switch through all three TV channels (no remotes!), confident that even if there was something you wanted to watch, the broadcast would finish at midnight.

Picture source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-2418874/How-television-killed-Fair-Isle-jumper-ARMCHAIR-NATION-BY-JOE-MORAN.html

Life has changed a bit, hasn't it? None of those things are true today. The telephone is in your pocket, you are receiving text messages and emails at all hours of the day and night and there are more 24hr television channels than anyone could ever watch. Relaxation is now something you have to actively seek. You have to make time in this modern, distracting world to simply do nothing.

Busy as life is, everyone needs to recharge, to have some downtime and just be free to do or think about nothing at all. And we all need a place to do it. For some it's a favourite bit of the settee, for others it's a sheltered corner of the garden. As mankind has known for thousands of years, there is no better way to relax than in front of a dancing, mesmerising real flame. A Bio Fire offers you a unique opportunity to enjoy the soothing effect of a real flame in any number of domestic settings. Because it can go wherever you want to be in the house, it can be a permanent fixture in your favourite room or you can enjoy a more portable unit that can grace any room in the house – or space in the garden.

A couple relaxing by a bio fire - no chimney and no worry about fuel suply.

What could be more soothing and revitalising than quality time spent relaxing in your favourite part of your home, watching the dancing pictures in a flickering real flame? A Bio Fire gives you a superb range of options for your hearth or tabletop. They can also be freestanding and come in a wide range of traditional and modern styles to match your existing décor. And a Bio Fire is not simply a stylish and decorative addition to your living space: it will warm your room as only a real flame can, but without the need for a fixed chimney or the worry of your fuel supply – you only use what you need.

As they used to say in those old television advertisements, 'come home to a real fire'.  Except progress is your friend in this case. Your modern real fire is clean, stylish and efficient. And that's one less thing you have to get stressed about.

Left picture source: http://bungalowclassic.tumblr.com/post/68972245255
Right picture: Bio Fires

Picture source: http://www.liscombelodge.ca/2014/05/07/lovers-hide-a-way/

People buy people. Why we encourage bio ethanol fires reviews and opinions.

People buy people. Why we encourage bio ethanol fires reviews and opinions.

There is an old marketing saying that is as true today as it ever was, and that is that 'people buy people'. What this means in terms of retail marketing is that any reputable business will supply a good product that looks and works as it is described, and do so courteously and efficiently, but it is often the endorsements of previous customers that can make – or break – a sale, as this 2013 report from North America testifies. We are good people to do business with and our customers agree.

This is one of the great advantages of the internet. It is now very easy for customers to leave their comments and observations on products and service for other potential customers to read. It is something we are very keen on for two reasons: if you like the products and service, we like to hear about it and so do other customers; if something goes wrong, we need to know how to improve what we do so that it doesn't happen again. This latter aspect is particularly important. There is another marketing adage that says 'if you can't measure it, you can't change it'. Feedback on when things don't go so well is useful to us and to future customers.

Most customer comments are reviews of particular products, such as this example from  the page for our Serenity Flame unit: 

“we purchased this wall hanging/mount bio fire after seeing so many on the internet. It was out of the box and hanging in 30 mins.” 

We like reviews like this because they give good information about the product itself and how easy it is to use.

A fireplace is an important feature of your living space. As these spaces come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, it is always useful to hear how customers have made best use of the space they have available, as this comment proves: 

“the style and shape of the living room was such that could not utilise a gas or traditional fire which would require all the correct ventilation fittings ... The biofuel fires provided the perfect solution to our longing for a real burning flame and authentic heat without the huge expense of electric or gas."

We don't edit our reviews, in fact they are handled entirely by a third party software integrated with our site, so what you see is as real as it gets. We are, of course, very happy to hear that we are doing a good job (“the personal service and advice we were given both over the phone initially and then on our visit was excellent”). Value for money is also a key factor, so comments such as 

“bought this good value tabletop to see how good they were before we invested in a larger fire. We were not disappointed and are now considering which larger standalone to buy” 

are really helpful to potential purchasers too.

We read every comment that comes in – we can't publish every negative remark because they usually refer to individual matters. But we do act on every one. In the spirit of making our website a friendly and welcoming place to do business, we encourage reviews and comments and this mechanism is built-in to all of our product pages. If you want to know anything at all about the products or the level of service you can expect from us, don't take our word for it – take a moment to read what our customers are saying!

Keeping things simple. A reflection about having a choice in life.

Keeping things simple

We recently got inspired by a guy called Barry Schwartz who is the Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College. He is a psychologist by discipline and he speaks and writes very eloquently on what he calls the 'paradox of choice'. His argument is simple: the more choice we have, the more difficult it is to feel happy with our choices, or indeed make a choice in the first place. You can watch his insightful – and funny – presentation to the Technology Entertainment Design (TED) conference in 2007 here:

                   

In summary, Barry's theory is that choice in itself is not a liberating force but that on the contrary, it paralyses. That is the paradox. This theory is supported by lots of scientific data about how the ability to choose decreases as the amount of choice increases. We have all done it, haven't we, when presented with too much to choose from? We choose the thing we know the best, or the thing at the top of the list. The best and most frequent example of the paradox is what we have all faced when eating out in a restaurant: menu anxiety.

Choosing a fireplace might seem a long stretch from menu anxiety but the underlying principles are the same. There is no shortage of options when you are considering how to heat or decorate your living area. How do you make sense of them all, particularly when this is a choice you are probably not going to make very often? The solution you choose has to be the right one, because once you have made that choice, you're kind of stuck with it!

It's not even a single choice. You have to choose what fuel you wish to use, with all the attendant supply and regulation issues. You have to choose a style – do you want a traditional or modern fireplace? Do you have to alter or adapt your fireplace, or even build a new one to accommodate your heating choices? The deeper you get into the problem, the more complex it becomes. And this feeds your paralysis of choice, doesn't it?

One easy way of avoiding this paralysis is to keep things as simple as possible. Bio Ethanol Fires are an ideal solution to your fireplace dilemma in so many ways. A Bio Fire can stand pretty much anywhere in your room, so you are not limited to having to decide how best to use your existing fireplace. A Bio Fire doesn't need a chimney. It is low maintenance – all you have to do is wipe it from time to time. They come in a terrific range of sizes and traditional and modern styles (uh oh – choices!). Best of all, no pipes, no meters, no servicing and no dirty fuel to lug about. In fact, the fuel is an environmentally-friendly biofuel, so as well as the warm glow you will get from your Bio Fire, you know that you are using a fuel that is much less harmful to the environment. And if you choose to move house (more choices!), your Bio Fire can come with you. What could be simpler?

 

Is life really a gas? A story behind a gas fireplace.

Is life really a gas?

So, you're sold on the idea of a real fire adding that gorgeous homely warmth and ambience to your room. You like the idea of having a gas fire because you only want to pay for the fuel that you actually use and you like the idea that gas burns with a lovely real flame. There is also something traditional about gas: it's the clean, modern successor of messy open fires, gas is more or less a national industry and it is piped directly into your house via some magic, invisible means that you don't have to worry about. All things considered, a gas fire seems like one solution to your heating needs.

Is it though? Let's consider the issues. In terms of supply, is gas even available as an option? If you live in mainland Great Britain, there would probably not be a problem in having gas piped to your house. If you live in Northern Ireland, however, mains gas is a relatively new phenomenon. If you are not on the gas main, do you want to have brightly coloured gas canisters standing at the side of your house? These are things to think about. 

Pictures source: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2499955

Picture source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_meter

OK, so you are on the gas main. Has there been a day recently when you haven't seen a television advertisement for a website that urges you to compare your home energy outgoings? How do you choose a supplier? Despite the Regulator's efforts, there remains a bewildering array of providers and tariffs to choose from ... 

By far the biggest challenge, however, remains that a gas fire requires you have a fireplace to accommodate the fire. This also means that you need a flue to take away the results of the combustion efficiently and safely, which would probably need to feed into an external wall chimney. Your fireplace will also need an electricity supply. Even when you have this infrastructure in place, you would need to have your fire fitted by a registered fitter and properly serviced every twelve months. So you are probably going to need the services of a builder and a gas fitter to get your fireplace sorted out.


Sounds like a lot of hassle, right? Well, the good news is that if you want your living space to benefit from the warmth and homeliness of a real flame, there is an alternative. A Bio Ethanol Fire. The advantages are immediately apparent. Firstly, you can put one wherever you like: free-standing on a flat surface or wall-mounted. You can also fit one into your existing empty fireplace without the need for any alteration. You can even have a table-top Bio Fire, so there are no flues or chimneys to open up and maintain. Bio Fires come in a stunning array of styles, both modern and traditional, so you won't have any difficulty in finding one that complements your existing décor. You buy fuel – an organic, environmentally-friendly ethanol fuel – as you need it, so you don't have to have pipes and meters put in or constantly worry that you are not achieving best value for money.

Ethanol fires can be placed in bathrooms! They don't need any pipes or connection, so you can build one wherever you need, or simply place a ready-made freestanding unit.

This is a custom built fireplace, using two of our Large Bio Containers - special bio fuel boxes to create 'ribbon fire'.

Best of all, your stylish, free-standing Bio Fire will warm your room with its attractive, clean real flame whenever you need it to. No pipes, no fitters, no servicing and probably best of all, no hassle. And if you move house, you can take it with you!

Ulyssess II bio fuel fire - stunning modern glass fireplace, no gas or other connection whatsoever!

Roma Freestanding Bio Ethanol fireplace (no gas pipes!) in an interior designed by FLAMANT

Serenity - bio fuel fire - here wall mounted, but can also be freestanding

Weekend bio ethanol fireplace deal on Facebook - can bio ethanol fires be used in a garden?

THIS WEEKEND 

We have a fragrant deal on our summery FRAGRANCE OIL FOR ETHANOL FIRES! 

Gorgeous 'Oriental Green Tea & Citrus' - Aura Oil No 7

Have a look here: 

https://www.facebook.com/biofires

 

Can a bio fire add value to your home?

House prices may be on the rise again but as a seller, you can still be sure that it is a ‘buyers' market. And while prices remain relatively low, those buyers can afford to be a bit more discerning about their choices – there is still a lot more home available for their money than there was before the slump.

As a seller, you will want to be looking at all possible ways to make your house more attractive to potential buyers. Your fireplace can play a vital role in that first impression. It is the focal point of your living space, the warm heart of your home. It is usually the centrepiece of your family room too and the first place a visitor's eyes will wander to. You want to make sure that that first impression is of welcoming warmth and style.

Fireplaces, of course, come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, depending on the age of your house and the purpose for which they were originally installed. With the emphasis on the efficiency of home heating these days, it's unlikely that you are reliant on a traditional open fire to heat your home. In fact, open chimneys can be responsible for substantial heat loss in the winter. The prevalence of central heating often means that fireplaces no longer serve any useful purpose in a house these days and they are often blocked or removed.

Sterling Flame II wall hanging fireplace

If you want to rediscover the homely magic of a real fire and have that as a feature in your home, the ideal answer is a Bio Fire. Not only are Bio Fires available in a fantastic range of contemporary and traditional designs, they are a real fire that will warm your room and don't need a draughty chimney for ventilation. They add a homely atmosphere to any room without any of the drawbacks of a traditional fire. They are clean and stylish, burn with a clean, real flame and while they are odourless, you can even add fragrance to the fuel to give your room a seasonal ambience. Bio Fires come in a range of sizes, from table top conversation pieces to full fireplaces. This gives you the opportunity to open up that discarded fireplace to make a feature in a room that was lacking one before or to add a visual feature to your room. Bio Fires are endlessly adaptable too. If you don't have a fireplace to open up and simply want to add character to any room, a Bio Fire can be free-standing or wall-mounted to add an eye-catching talking point that is also a practical and attractive way of heating your room.



In a competitive marketplace, it is the attention to detail and the homeliness of your house that will sway a buyer. Bio Fires are modern and easy to maintain, they tell buyers that you have given thought to the aesthetic appeal and ambience of your home in a way that will make it stand out – which could be the difference it takes to help them make up their mind.

 Photo: © Alamy