What Building Materials Are Safe To Use With Bio Fires

Safety and materials: in principle, when building housing for any bio fire you must only use fully fireproof materials.

  • Materials which are considered safe:

    • Stone
    • Slate
    • Ceramic Tiles
    • Bricks
    • Breeze Blocks
    • Concrete
    • Fire Cement
    • Vermiculite Board
    • Any refractory materials designed to be used for wood burners or other real-fire appliances

  • Materials which are not safe:

    • Plaster
    • Timber, wood
    • MDF
    • Regular Fireboard
    • Pink Plaster / Fireboard
    • Melamine / Plastic
    • Gypsum

Vermiculite Board

Vermiculite is a naturally occurring aluminum-magnesium silicate mineral, non-toxic and environmentally friendly. It is easy to work with woodworking tools. Moreover, it can be sawn, drilled, and sanded.

Vermiculite boards provide fire resistance, insulation, and thermal stability. Normally, they are tested to withstand extremely high temperatures and can be used to cover fireplaces, line openings for wood burners, stoves, heaters, and other heat-producing appliances…

If you decide to line your fireplace opening with vermiculite boards, we highly recommend the Vitcas shop as they specialize in providing refractory and heat-resistant products. We have consulted the Vitcas technical team and after inspecting laboratory data sheets for burning and testing our Bio Container, they confirmed that this board is suitable for lining your opening. The vermiculite board can be ordered on their website.

View case study from our showroom renovation project

  • Showroom Display

    Products: 1 x Large Bio Container + 1 x Zen Bio Fire

  • Davide Noades

    Product from Bio Fires: 1 x Planika's Prime Fire

Safety

The below diagram shows clearly the recommended minimum distances to any combustible materials when building a bio-ethanol fireplace. It has been created by Planika for their PRIME FIRE, but can be applied as general guidance.

Currently, there are no safety standards regarding bio-ethanol fireplaces in the UK. However, due to their popularity, it is only a matter of time before new regulations and legal requirements will come into effect. In the European Union, they submitted a vote for the Final Draft of the European Standard for Fireplaces for Liquid Fuel in April 2015.

We are constantly monitoring national and international regulations regarding fireplaces running on bioethanol fuel. A vast majority of our products already follow the general guidelines in the final draft of the European Standard (still in progress) and we are working to implement the slight adjustments to be – according to our abilities – in line with what a safe bio ethanol fireplace should be. Read our article Are Bio Ethanol Fires Safe? for more information on the topic.