opening up fire place for logburner (threads merged)

[Candyman21]

Morning,

My wife decided she wanted to have a wood burning fire installed in placed of our old gas fire. So we got our gas capped off and set to work ripping it all out, see picture below!

So I don't appear to have a lintel! So I am in the process of getting this sorted, once this is installed I will start to open it up sideways to get a bigger opening. This is where my questions start!

The wife wants the full chimneybreast covered in brick slips, so I will need to board out the inside flat to stick the brick slips to. So does this get boarded out in Fireboard?

Next question in about the hearth, I have a solid floor in my front room so are looking at tilled options for the hearth, I have seen people buying cheap slate type things and patching these together to make a nice looking hearth, can anyone link me to ones they have used? Do they just get bedded on normal mortar?

Thanks for any help you can give

John

 

[Candyman21]

Hi All,

I am currently pulling my old gas fireplace out to replace with a log burner, upon pulling all the plaster off the walls it was apparent i had no lintel! So I have made the space and installed the lintel as per the pictures below. The lintel is perfectly level, is it a case of now just filling everywhere with mortar to secure it? would you lift the lintel up so it touches the brick above it or fill it with mortar? The bricks it is lying are nowhere near level hence the difference in packers on either side!

Also do you think by looking at the pictures I will be able to open the width of the opening as its only about 40cm currently?

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Thanks

JOhn

 

[Adam182]

Hi John,

Firstly I'm not in the trade but I'm confident I can offer you sound advice in this case (currently renovating myself and have opened up a fireplace and installed a lintel myself)

Regards filling around the lintel, just knock up a good strong mortar mix and fill all the gaps, leave the packers you currently have in place and fill around them.

Regards opening up the gap, you could definately go as wide as the cut bricks directly beneath the lintel and still have plenty of lintel overhang on the remaining bricks, that is what I would do.

Hope this helps!

 

[Candyman21]

Hi John,

Firstly I'm not in the trade but I'm confident I can offer you sound advice in this case (currently renovating myself and have opened up a fireplace and installed a lintel myself)

Regards filling around the lintel, just knock up a good strong mortar mix and fill all the gaps, leave the packers you currently have in place and fill around them.

Regards opening up the gap, you could definately go as wide as the cut bricks directly beneath the lintel and still have plenty of lintel overhang on the remaining bricks, that is what I would do.

Hope this helps!

Thank you Adam, i am just worried about the bricks behind them, i will open up the front today and have a look behind.

Thanks Again

John

 

[Adam182]

Ah yes I was in the same boat John I know exactly what you mean.

In my case the bricks behind the lintel were perpendicular to the lintel itself therefore they were tied into the brickwork of the back wall, with the span being less than two bricks a further lintel was not required.

Depending on the age of the house you might actually find that originally the opening was alot larger and it has just been "closed in" in more recent years, there may well even be a lintel further up the wall that you just haven't revealed.

 

[Candyman21]

Ah yes I was in the same boat John I know exactly what you mean.

In my case the bricks behind the lintel were perpendicular to the lintel itself therefore they were tied into the brickwork of the back wall, with the span being less than two bricks a further lintel was not required.

Depending on the age of the house you might actually find that originally the opening was alot larger and it has just been "closed in" in more recent years, there may well even be a lintel further up the wall that you just haven't revealed.

So this is what it looks like now

I am thinking of tiling the inside of the fireplace and Hearth all as one and suggestions on types of tiles to use?, i know have an opening of 60cm wide, hopefully this will be wide enough for a log burner!

 

[cwhaley]

It will take a small log burner and there's no risk of fire or damage given that you have brick and Hardiebacker board over it. However the opening is quite small so you will not get as much heat out of it as you might hope -- a lot of the radiant heat will be soaked up by the walls. One way to combat it is to put a couple of well-positioned stove fans on the top to draw up that heat and push it forward.

This is how one of mine looked at that stage.

...and these are the tiles I used: