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fireplace repair

18 years ago

The house we just bought was built in the 60's. It has a working fireplace in very good shape, but for some reason the previous owners had bricked it up and in the process removed the front base (I believe it is considered part of the mantle). The fireplace itself sits almost 3 feet from the floor and we would like to rebuild the base so that we could set a firescreen and accessories in front of it. I have searched several sites and have not seen any pictures of fireplaces that sit up as high as this one. My question is; how do we go about rebuilding this base so that we can start using our fireplace? Any ideas or sugestions would be appreciated.

Comments (3)

kframe19
18 years ago
It's an elevated fireplace...

Sort of like this one?

http://www.remaxfbgtx.com/Homes-with-acreage/16620/DSCN1526.jpg

It's tough to say how to rebuild the front base. I've seen them done all brick, but the common way seems to be build a very sturdy frame of wood, cover it with cement board, and then cover that with bricks or tile.
jocelynj
18 years ago
There would be extensive restructuring to lower your hearth. Your firebox would have to be lowered and rebuilt and depending on your smoke chamber structure you may have to have that restructured as well. Unfortunately, it's not as simple a project as it may seem
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Kirkhall, no screws anywhere in the mantle. It kinda looks to me that it was mounted on running boards within the hollow area. It is solid as heck too ... just shoddy finish work. And ... this crooked board ain't gonna budge. First, it is displaced at a tight seam -- so when it got bumped upward it is still wedged against the next horizontal board. Plus, there is one nail upward and one downward holding it in its 'now' bad position (you can see these nails in the picture but not that one is up and one is down). I think I am going to shim a piece of drywall in there and joint compound it in, smooth it out. Someday, when I get some bucks, I pull the whole damn thing down and replace it. That is my plan with the walls too which are paneled now. Thanks all, I'll post a photo of my patch. It will be underneath and not viewable. LOL.
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ventupete
18 years ago
It would be a big deal to lower the fireplace box. If however, you are talking about building a new hearth that is level with the opening that is fairly easy to do. First you need to check your local building code to see what the required hearth depth is for your size firebox opening (the measurement between the outer edge of the firebox opening and the outermost portion of the hearth). This is usually about 18" and is important to keep any burning embers that escape from causing a fire. That will determine the minimum depth you need to build to. Build a frame out of 2x4's with the dimensions you want (the top should be about two inches below the firebox opening this will compensate for the thickness of the coverings mentioned below). Cover it with 3/4" plywood. Most codes require at least 1" of non-combustible materials on the top of the hearth (check your code). The next steps depend on what you want to cover it with. If you are going to use brick, you should put down a layer of cement board and then mortar and brick. If you are going to use tile/stone, you will probably need a couple of layers of cement board (to achieve the required thickness of non-combustible materials) then thinset mortar and the tile or stone. Knowing the approximate finished thinkness of your covering is important to building the frame height so that the finished product matches up with the firebox opening. Many people like the hearth to be slightly higher (1/2" - 1") than the opening so that it's easy to sweep ashes back into the firebox. Good luck.

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