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?