Another open fire

[Sepher]

Moved into a new house this year and had a fireplace with a gas fire. The gas fire has all been removed and I've been left with a brick opening to the fireplace, a black granite surround and a one piece black granite hearth. Inside the fireplace is a concrete slab which isn't connected to the hearth. The chimney has been swept and I've lit some news paper on the concrete slab to check its drawing and smoke is being pulled straight up.

However the sweep advised me the hearth, and surround is most likely for a gas installation and wouldn't withstand the heat. He gave me horror stories of hearths cracking and surrounds coming away from the wall and smoke seeping through the top of the surround. Although no advice on the inside of the fireplace, its bare brick, with the sides filled in with some sort of mortar which looks like its covering pipe holes from a previous back boiler.

However I'm determined to have an open fire and I would quite like to put in a basket with a cast iron fireback and get on with it. If the surround comes away or the hearth cracks, so be it and I'll have to stop and replace them. I'm struggling to see how the hearth can heat up so much in the middle if the basket is first of all sitting on the concrete slab inside the fireplace.

What are people's experiences of this? I feel if I walk into a fireplace shop, they are going to make me spend £1000's just to get it going when in the late 1960's (when the house was built) these fireplaces were the norm and most likely worked fine! And I know it has been used with all the soot that came out with the sweep.

(By the way, the choice of an open fire is something I've always wanted for the sight smell etc, so not interested on heat saving with wood stoves etc )

 

[dominoman]

I'm with you - and I love open fires.

Personally I would just try it and see what happens.

When we moved in there was one open fire that had been closed off. When we removed the front it looked to my untrained eye like everything was in place, so after lighting a small "test" fire I went ahead and chucked a load of coal in.

It's been working a treat ever since. A few people said I should have it swept before I started but I never bothered and it hasn't caused any problems.

The shops and some people on here are too risk averse!

 

[Sepher]

I think a day or two after posting, I did think sod it and decided to go for it.

Fire has been burning in the basket absolutely fine, hearth doesnt get hot, nor does the surround. Haven't been smoked out, nor any smoke in the loft or bedrooms. Neighbours havn't said a thing either, so going good. Only problem is that its going through wood by the bucket load. Plus I don't have any kind of deflector in the fireplace, so most of the heat is going straight up.

At the moment, its an expensive ornament

I think once the rest of the house is sorted, I will probably tidy up the inside of the fireplace as there are holes either side that have been filled in with cement which I think were for pipes used on an old back boiler? Doesn't look too good cosmetically.

Thanks again

 

[dominoman]

Great to hear. Nothing beats an open fire!

If you're getting through that much wood, try coal. 3-4 kg of coal keeps my fire nice and hot for a good 7-8 hours without needing topping up.