Morning!
Today's mini project was to remove the old wooden surround for the fireplace and finish building up the hearth with a self levelling compound, top that with ply to floor level so that we can drop a rug over it for now until we have the room re-joisted and plastered.
Few weeks ago I dug out the hearth as it was sunken in the centre, never really found out why, seems like it was built on a very crumbly sandy mix that moved with the house over time.
Dumped a few bags of concrete in to backfill it and will level it off today with compound.
So I have taken the fire surround off and exposed the brickwork behind.. doesnt look like I have a lintel of any kind in there, possibly had an infil at some point and might have an arch above it behind the plaster, not sure!
Mortar mix is like powder between the bricks and when tapped, the bricks are not firmly in place, although they dont move a lot you can tell it wouldnt take much to remove them.
The pillars each side seem solid, hopefully that's the case.
Our end goal will be brick up the fireplace, or open it up into a square, tidy it up and use it as a little shelf area.
Just looking for advice on the support of the stack, from what I can see there is an arch but is that sufficient and should I consider putting a wooden or steel lintel in?
Today's mini project was to remove the old wooden surround for the fireplace and finish building up the hearth with a self levelling compound, top that with ply to floor level so that we can drop a rug over it for now until we have the room re-joisted and plastered.
Few weeks ago I dug out the hearth as it was sunken in the centre, never really found out why, seems like it was built on a very crumbly sandy mix that moved with the house over time.
Dumped a few bags of concrete in to backfill it and will level it off today with compound.
So I have taken the fire surround off and exposed the brickwork behind.. doesnt look like I have a lintel of any kind in there, possibly had an infil at some point and might have an arch above it behind the plaster, not sure!
Mortar mix is like powder between the bricks and when tapped, the bricks are not firmly in place, although they dont move a lot you can tell it wouldnt take much to remove them.
The pillars each side seem solid, hopefully that's the case.
Our end goal will be brick up the fireplace, or open it up into a square, tidy it up and use it as a little shelf area.
Just looking for advice on the support of the stack, from what I can see there is an arch but is that sufficient and should I consider putting a wooden or steel lintel in?
