New gas fire to be fitted

Assuming you do have a flue liner fitted, unfortunately for you it is true. As a gas engineer myself I know it is our lively hood at stake if we don't follow regulations, but much, much more than that it is our customers lives at stake if we don't follow regulations. 99.9 % of the time everything will be fine, your flue liners probably fine, but if theirs a chance it's not, it's past it's use by date, do you really want to take that chance, cuz me as a fitter wouldn't, being haunted while serving 3 years minimum for manslaughter, thinking, why didn't u just do my job properly. But it's hard to do our job to the nook sometimes, when pressured by customer who think we're out to sting them. Sorry for the rant, and I can see your point, but now I hope you see his too, he is apsolutley doing his job right. But I'm sure theirs still plenty of care free cowboys who will come and throw your fire in, if you still feel it's a rip off.

I assume that you have a liner in the chimney, although the engineer is not required to replace it, they are required to guarantee its integrity when installing a new appliance this is very difficult to do when the liner is in place as simple smoke test will not suffice. hope this helps its very difficult to advise with seeing it