1950's fireplace in Edwardian house excavation. Is this normal?

[C-neal]

Hi all,

I am currently opening a bricked up fireplace in my Edwardian house due to damp, which is proving a challenge.

It seems that then the 1950's fireplace was installed, the Edwardian brickwork each side of the opening and the brick lintel was hacked, and then some sort of rock hard mortar was used to make the opening smaller with additional bricks. The same mortar was used to stick the T & R Boote Ltd tiles. The tiles had been plastered over when the 1950's fireplace was removed.

Is this normal (hacking the original brickwork back when 1950's fireplaces were installed)?

Because of the damp, a lot of the Edwardian brickwork has spalled and the mortar has disintegrated. Once I have completed the opening, I will let it all dry out.

To me, it looks like I'm going to have to get part of the chimney breast rebuilt, especially the brick lintel and sides of the original opening.

Any advice please?

Many thanks

 

[Cubist]

It looks to me like the installer was fitting a steel baffle plate - shown in the last picture - and other elements to create a smaller solid fuel fireplace that may have also been equipped with a gas supply to initiate the fuel burn.. It's likely that the builder will have used a Fire Cement around the steel components and also some of the masonry. Fire Cement can become extremely hard, compared to ordinary mortar, with exposer to heat. The worrying part of your job there is whether the brickwork of the supporting arch has been compromised and will require repair/replacement. What's you plan for the fireplace?

 

[C-neal]

Hi Cubist, Thank you very much for your reply and info.

A bit of background. My house is detached and the chimney stack goes through the centre of the house (the fireplace in the photos are in the front room, stairs running behind, between front and back room). The chimney stack has been removed above roofline and the remaining stack is in the loft space.

The front room sits on a concrete slab foundation. Backroom has earth. The front of the house foundation is higher than the back as the house sits on a slope. The back of the house is divided into the back room, and kitchen. The kitchen has original solid floor. The back of the house has an additional chimney stack which is complete and is above the roofline. All walls in the kitchen have rising damp, plaster has disintegrated and fireplace has been bricked up with no vent, kitchen cupboards in front.

The whole of the downstairs has rising damp which has not been addressed for many years. Of course, I had surveys done before purchasing the house, but none gave any indication of what the source of the problem was, only the usual 'remove plaster, have a chemical DPC and lower the ground level', It is only by living in the property I have discovered the scale of the problem, involving 3 separate issues and I am now very concerned I have made a huge mistake purchasing this house. I have dug a trench around the house to lower the ground level below the DPC, which I am hoping will have helped.

With regard to the front room fireplace, I am opening it up due to the damp. Historically, during heavy rain, water entered through the air bricks and I believe, it repeatedly sat on the concrete slab foundation which explains why the damp is so bad around the chimney stack and internal walls. it also explains why so much of the chimney brickwork has spalled? My aim is to let everything breathe and dry out.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do about the fireplace yet. As the chimney stack has been removed below roofline, I was thinking about adding a non-functioning cast iron fireplace. Or installing a cast iron surround with log burner with pipe going through the roof. Either way, I am not sure how much of the fireplace brickwork should be repaired (in particular the spalled bricks and pointing). Once repaired, I will get it re-plastered.

I have recently read that if a chimney stack is removed below roofline, the flue should be ventilated through the roof using ducting and roof tile vents?

Thanks again,
C