FP Services, Winchcombe
Stoves, fires and flues, fitted with care.
Fred Pope is a HETAS registered installer and chimney sweep working out of Wickfields Farm, Winchcombe. The same pair of hands does your survey, your fitting and your paperwork, and comes back each year to sweep it.
A stove is a piece of furniture you light. It has to sit right in the room, and it has to be right behind the wall, where nobody looks: the liner, the plate, the hearth, the air it breathes. Fred gets both right.
Behind the wall
A chimney, cut in half. Scroll through what Fred fits, from the pot to the floor.
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The terminal
Where the smoke leaves. A cowl keeps the rain off and the jackdaws out, and a good one helps a sluggish chimney draw on a still day.
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The liner
Most old chimneys need one. Fred fits flexible stainless liners, rigid sectional liners and non-metallic block liners, sized to the stove and insulated so the flue runs warm and clean.
Flexible metal liners, rigid sectional metal liners, non-metallic block and sectional liners
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The register plate
A sealed plate closes the chimney above the stove and carries the flue pipe, with a hatch left in it so the flue can still be swept.
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The stove
Wood-burning, multi-fuel, pellet or a cooker. Chosen for the size of the room and how you live in it, not for the biggest number in the brochure.
Wood-only, solid fuel and multi-fuel stoves and cookers, pellet stoves
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The hearth
Welsh slate, local stone or a lime-rendered recess, laid to the distances in Approved Document J so the floor, the beam and the walls stay cool.
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Air, and an alarm
A fire needs air to burn, and some rooms need a vent to give it. A carbon monoxide alarm goes in the same room, and gets tested at every visit.
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No chimney at all?
A factory-made system chimney, run up through the house or up an outside wall, puts a stove into a new extension, a converted barn or a garden room.
Internal and external factory-made system chimneys
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Every year after
Fred sweeps and services what he fits, and what other people fitted. You get a certificate your insurer will accept and a reminder when the next one is due.
Service and maintenance, chimney sweeping
Four ways to have a fire
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Inset
Set into the wall, flush and quiet, with the flue out of sight. Good where the room is small or the style is spare.
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Freestanding
On a slate hearth in an old opening, or out in the room on a twin-wall flue where you can walk round it.
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Open fire
A basket or a dog grate in a proper opening. Nothing looks better; the chimney has to be good enough to earn it.
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Cooker
A range that heats the kitchen while it cooks, and can take the hot water with it.
Fred fits gas and electric fires too, for rooms where a flue isn't the answer.
What it's made of
A fireplace is a small piece of architecture. These are the materials Fred likes to build it in.
Welsh slate
Riven or honed, for hearths that take heat and wear for a century.
Lime render
Soft, breathable, the right finish for an old opening in a stone house.
Oak
A beam over the opening, set at a safe distance from the flue.
Cotswold stone
Local limestone for surrounds and hearths that belong to the house.
Cast iron
Stoves, grates and baskets that hold heat long after the flames die down.
Stainless steel
Liners and system chimneys: the part nobody sees and everything depends on.
In November the light goes at four. That's when you'll want it lit.
How it goes
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A visit
Fred comes out and looks at the room, the chimney and the roof, and asks how you use the space.
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A written quote
Stove, liner, hearth and labour itemised, with the options explained in plain words.
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The fitting
Dust sheets down, everything cleaned away, and the fire lit before he leaves so you see it draw.
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The paperwork
Fred notifies the work to HETAS, who send you a Building Regulations certificate. Keep it: you'll need it when you sell.
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Every year
A reminder when it's due. A sweep, a service, the alarm tested and a certificate left on the side.
Where he works
Winchcombe and the villages around it, Cheltenham, Bishop's Cleeve and Tewkesbury, Broadway, Stow and Bourton. Further afield? Ask; the answer is often yes.
Rings at five, ten and fifteen miles from Winchcombe.
Light the first one
this winter.
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL54 5AF
From the workshop
Recent fittings, before-and-afters, and the occasional chimney with a nest in it. Fred posts his work on Facebook.
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