Hi, you would have to have a chimney for a log burner, or where would the smoke go, we have a log burner in the living room, best thing we ever bought, have turned the radiators off saving a heck of amount on our fuel bills. It's amazing how many people chop trees down and offer you the wood, or we go foraging in the local woods for fallen down trees, not sure how legal that is, but it's great fun. Ours cost �700 and we are more than happy with it.
You could have a flueless or catalytic gas fire without a chimney, they are 100% efficient as there is no loss of heat through the flue, as in ordinary gas fires.Have a look on www.hotprice.co.uk for catalytic gas fires for current prices.
Our neighbours have fitted a log burner in their new build timber framed house with no chimney. They have an inside flue that runs up from the fire - through the ceiling/floor into the upstairs which luckily is into a wardrobe and up through their attic and appears through their roof. No idea how much it cost them to do all that though, but obviously perfectly possible.
I have a flueless gas fire and have never used it as the fan that takes away the fumes to the outside is quite loud.
As Annie correctly says, the answer to the wood-burner part of the question is that you must have a flue, but it doesn't have to be a chimney. It must be designed properly and approved by Building Control thought, lest you end up with too many fumes in the house.
annie you do not have a flueless gas fire, you have a fan flued gas fire.
flueless gas fires do not give out much heat and also you have to have a 100cm2 air vent installed in the room which creates drafts.
if you have a suitable outside wall your 2 gas options are a balanced flue fire, your looking at around �600-�700 or a fan flued gas fire �500-�700.
you could go for the log burner option but has stated by others you will need a suitable flue system installed, either straight up through the roof or through the wall the up the outside of the building.
one other thought, if youhave no chimney you may not have a gas supply near to where you want the fire either, thats extra cost to install one.
Hi gucci - that sounds right - the previous owners installed it and other than test it when we moved in 5 years ago, we have never used it - it just seemed really noisy.
I know someone with a log burner, there house is always really warm, they do not use the radiators....there winter gas bill was �60 compared with mine coming in at �345!!! Wish I had a bloody chimney as I would get one for definate