Are Ethanol Fireplaces Legal in Australia

Yes, ethanol fireplaces are legal in Australia. You can buy one, own one, and use one in your home, right across Australia.

At the point of sale, the ACCC covers them, under the Consumer Goods (Decorative Alcohol Fuelled Devices) Safety Standard 2017 (F2017L00909). That standard sets the safety requirements every unit sold here has to meet.

But here's the thing most people miss. "Legal" isn't one question. It's two.

One rule decides whether the product is legal to sell. A different rule decides whether your installation is compliant. And people trip up when they assume the first one answers the second.

Are ethanol fireplaces legal to buy and own?

Yes. Any unit sold in Australia has to meet the ACCC standard, the warnings, the markings, the fuel-container design, the stability. All of it.

Buy a compliant one, put it in a home you own. That's the easy half. It's why you'll see them sold openly, in showrooms and online.

Every burner we supply at Chama Design meets that standard, so the unit itself is never the question mark. It's what happens after the sale that needs the attention.

Just remember what the standard actually covers: the point of sale. Not a step past it.

Is it legal to install an ethanol fireplace?

Here's where "legal" turns into "compliant", and where most of the confusion sits. A product being legal to sell doesn't make your install compliant.

The National Construction Code is mostly silent on bioethanol fireplaces. So there's no neat clause that stamps an installation as approved.

Instead, it falls back on the manufacturer to supply installation documentation, and then a compliant installation is: 'installed as per manufacturer's instructions'.  

At Chama Design, we work with brands that have detailed installation documentation and like to review all our customers' drawings and plans to guide the design to result in a compliant installation. Sorted before the job starts, not after.

The product's legal everywhere. The installation is only compliant once someone's approved it on its own terms.

Are ethanol fireplaces banned or restricted anywhere?

There's no national ban. No state or territory bans them outright.

What you do run into is restriction at the building level. An owners corporation can knock one back under its by-laws. And the questions shift once you're in a Class 2 apartment rather than a Class 1a house.

Chama Design has specified into a number of Class 2 apartment projects, so the owners corporation questions are familiar ground. We know what gets asked, and what the answers have to be.

Rules vary a bit state to state, too. Something that's fine here in Victoria might need a second look somewhere else. So "legal to own" isn't quite the same as "free to install anywhere."

So what makes an ethanol fireplace legal to use?

Two things, working together. A legal product, one that meets the ACCC standard. Installed as per the manufacturer's instructions. 

Miss that middle one, and you can end up owning a perfectly legal fireplace that's been installed the wrong way.

That gap between the product and the installation? That's the whole answer. It's the bit the spec sheets never spell out for you.

Closing that gap is what we do at Chama Design; we sign off on all our local installations, working closely with our clients to ensure the fireplace installation is done correctly and compliant.

“Everyone asks if ethanol fireplaces are legal. The other question is whether the installation is compliant. The product is legal the moment it meets the ACCC standard; but that standard stops at the point of sale. Compliance is what happens after, and that’s the part we sign off on.”

- Rhys Vermish, Founder of Chama Design

References:

Commonwealth of Australia (2017) Consumer Goods (Decorative Alcohol Fuelled Devices) Safety Standard 2017 (F2017L00909). Canberra: Federal Register of Legislation. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2017L00909 (Accessed: 5 August 2026).

Commonwealth of Australia (2017) Explanatory Statement — Consumer Goods (Decorative Alcohol Fuelled Devices) Safety Standard 2017 (F2017L00909). Canberra: Federal Register of Legislation. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2017L00909 (Accessed: 5 August 2026).

Parliament of Victoria (2006) Owners Corporations Act 2006 (Vic), ss 52–53, 57. Available at: https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/oca2006260/ (Accessed: 5 August 2026).

Australian Building Codes Board (2022) National Construction Code 2022, Volume Two, Part A6 — Building Classification. Canberra: ABCB. Available at: https://ncc.abcb.gov.au/editions/ncc-2022/adopted/volume-two/a-governing-requirements/part-a6-building-classification (Accessed: 5 August 2026).

European Committee for Standardization (2015) EN 16647:2015 Fireplaces for liquid fuels — Decorative appliances producing a flame using alcohol based or gelatinous fuel — Use in private households. Brussels: CEN.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (n.d.) Decorative alcohol fuelled devices mandatory standard, Product Safety Australia. Available at: https://www.productsafety.gov.au/business/search-mandatory-standards/decorative-alcohol-fuelled-devices-mandatory-standard (Accessed: 5 August 2026).

NSW Government (n.d.) Ethanol burner safety. Available at: https://www.nsw.gov.au/legal-and-justice/consumer-rights-and-protection/safety/other-consumer-products/ethanol-burner-safety (Accessed: 5 August 2026).

Consumer and Business Services (South Australia) (2017) Product safety standard on portable ethanol burners. Available at: https://cbs.sa.gov.au/news/product-safety-standard-on-portable-ethanol-burners (Accessed: 5 August 2026).

Australian Building Codes Board (n.d.) Building classifications, NCC Navigator. Available at: https://ncc.abcb.gov.au/ncc-navigator/building-classifications (Accessed: 5 August 2026).