Basement Chimney Breast

[Stevers]

The beads are now attached with the ducting carefully cut to fit the masonry and to space the beads correctly from the wall (they were all labelled in case I had to take them off). The beads are aligned to the existing plaster on the sides and are vertical at the front lined up with the mark in the ceiling. The brickwork on the left is not square to the front on this basis, and the alcove depth is only 1/2" different. I've dubbed out the considerable hollows with NHL render (it needs to be wetter than a pointing mix), and built up the corners to secure the spacers and am now about an inch from the top of the basecoat.

For the finish coat on the front I've ordered 'Hydraulic Lime Plaster Finish' from 'Conserv' on Teeside who will supply and deliver the one bag I need to Somerset for about £25. The beads are being primed today and I will NHL render up to them. I plan to tank just the sides with SBR cement slurry ready to finish with Thistle One Coat up to the existing gypsum skim. This will avoid applying gypsum directly over lime, since that would be a problem with all the salts. Once the base render coat is about 1/8" shy of the top of the beads, I will clean the fireplace surround (sandblasting not an option apparently), and finish the plastic stone repair. Once the fireplace surround has been refitted with stainless steel fixings, I'll apply the lime finish coat. Conserv claim this is 'easy to use', and I'm really hoping that's true!

 

[Cubist]

You know, I really appreciate the effort, attention to detail, skill and commitment you've put into this restoration project but I think its a shame that all the evidence of that will be lost/hidden from sight behind a coat of render/plaster. But... beauty in the eye of the beholder and all that - excellent work though.

 

[Stevers]

Thank you Cubist. I have slightly mixed feelings too, but I can honestly say that as the stones are still partially covered in that hard cement slurry, the photos definitely favour it. The troublesome me did think about posting this fireplace on the Victorian Fireplace thread as a 'see this and weep' though! Of course there's no shortage round here of lovely stonework outside that was always meant to be seen, whilst this rather bodged job was never meant to be seen again.

 

[Cubist]

Thank you Cubist. I have slightly mixed feelings too, but I can honestly say that as the stones are still partially covered in that hard cement slurry, the photos definitely favour it. The troublesome me did think about posting this fireplace on the Victorian Fireplace thread as a 'see this and weep' though! Of course there's no shortage round here of lovely stonework outside that was always meant to be seen, whilst this rather bodged job was never meant to be seen again.

Ah well, a hidden gem for future generations and better for it than the abominous bodges the members here so frequently encounter.

And keep the photos for others with similar challenges - give em something to aspire to.

 

[Stevers]

With the rendering proceeding more or less to plan attention turned to the fireplace surround. The remaining yellow gloss paint was stripped from the Doulting Stone using Rustins Strypit, that worked well, though not as well as proper Nitromors would have done as made prior to 2009. There was a layer of cream paint under the yellow, brown under that and lurking in the pores of the stone some immovable slate grey paint. With the paint almost entirely removed the stone looked distinctly grimy particularly the apron, which had plentiful evidence of mounting points for interesting hardware. I found that working the surface with a wire brush in tiny circles after leaving the stripper for ten minutes to do whatever magic it could, worked for me.


After some research (displacement activity) into specialist natural stone cleaners, I elected to attack it with a 5% Caustic Soda mix, on the basis that this should strip paint and dirt, which it did. Again small circular motions of a wirebrush were effective at removing the softened slate grey paint from the pores of the stone. The apron, though not as clean as the uprights, is in shade here - so is not as dark as that in the flesh. The stone is now a light brown rather than grey, and the sparkle that is unique amongst Oolites is visible. I'll have another go at the apron tomorrow, and then ponder if I should try to make the paler Bath Stone shelf look more like the rest of it.

 

[Stevers]

Well, the results of the fireplace surround repair are in:



The 25kg bag of scarily expensive Doulting Stone dust came from an active quarry first worked in Roman times, and is far superior to the Bath Stone dust I'd used before being slighty coarser. The loops made from stainless steel threaded bar were Araldited into the stone as my experience suggests that something is needed to hold this sort of large repair together. The form work is essential to getting everything straight and level. The G Clamp is securing a piece of wood that is stopping the stone from rolling off the trolley as there's another chamfer underneath. The mixture was 1:3 NHL: Doulting Stone dust. I've slightly distressed the surface of the repair to blend it in, but am happy for it to remain fairly 'honest' and may just leave them what is a fairly typical fresh Doulting Stone colour. Think Wells Cathedral, but only after it was cleaned!

 

[a twig]

Bag of Doulting stone dust that big - might have been cheaper to get a new block of Bath Stone and make a whole new one

I jest - excellent work - well done

 

[malcolm]

Those stone repairs are impressive - that bit of stone looked only fit for a rockery. Good to see how that sort of thing can be done.

 

[Stevers]

Those stone repairs are impressive - that bit of stone looked only fit for a rockery. Good to see how that sort of thing can be done.

Thank you! I've got previous with these sort of repairs, very much learning on the job. There are a fair few of these repairs on the front of the house with varying degrees of success. It's quite hard to catch the mix at the right point to do the roughing up, although this time the window of opportunity seemed longer than usual. What I like about this approach is that you don't need to destroy historic fabric, it's still basically what was there before with any missing bits replaced.

The next problem will be manouvering those heavy uprights into position without the new bits falling off if I inadvertently put any pressure on them.

 

[Cubist]

I sometimes refer to the work produced by others, and sometimes myself, as a 'Pigs Breakfast'. But there are two inferences to be drawn from that. The first is that's its more than just a bit of a bodge while the other is an exemplar of the difference between mere 'involvement' and 'commitment' to all the key aspects of the task in hand.

I am happy to confirm that my opinion of your work falls firmly in the latter camp and you are indeed making a Pigs Breakfast of it. Good on you.

 

[Stevers]

'Pigs Breakfast'.

I'd like to think 'silk purse from a sow's ear', but that might be 'hogwash'!

 

[Stevers]

Uprights in and final base coat render in place with proper scratching, and a final glance of the builders arch. For some reason I had great difficulty with the wet render it peeling off in the top left corner, and had to apply it three or four times before it took - hence the upgraded scratching on the final coat. To fasten the surround back I bought a single 1200mm stainless steel strap bent at 150mm from Toolstation. I put two 7" lengths under it as feet so that the repairs wouldn't be damaged as I moved into around to mark up and drill the holes for the fasteners. Bending the bar was problemeatic, and I had to file a relieving groove before I could beat it into shape with a lump hammer. Hacksawing, drilling and countersinking happily all possible on this grade of stainless steel. To fasten back I used heavy duty Plasplugs in a 7mm hole with either 40x5 or 50x5 stainless screws. In 1997 they had used 1"x8 BZP screws in red Rawlpugs, so quite an upgrade!


And here we are nearly back to where I started, with my most grandiose plan yet for a brick insert. These would use up my stock of soft reds that I over-ordered for the greenhouse, and for this design I'd need an extra dozen or so to finish.


Bearing in mind that I have a flagstone floor under that cement screed, if I'm going to have a radiant gas fire - do I need a raised hearth, or would a wooden curb do?

 

[Cubist]

I think it was Hannibal Smith that would often say - "I love it when a plan comes together." That's an A Team job, well done.

Re your question I would say a wooden curb would look great and in keeping provided its not used with one of those coal effect gas fires - I've seen some spit hot coals out from time to Tim as the expand and contract against each other.

 

[Stevers]

First up, a fine display of efflorescence on the top half of the left upright. Now I was expecting some salting since this was starting to happen during dry spells when it was out in the yard, but that is quite impressive. It brushes off nicely and for the moment we'll assume that it's just due to it drying out. The right hand side also has some efflorescence, but not nearly as much. This week I applied the finishing plaster sourced from Conserv. When I opened the 25kg bag I found a 2.6kg bag of white stuff that I assume to be Natural Hydraulic Lime, and 22.4kg of some very finely divided damp sand with instructions to mix it all up and apply to the wall. Now I was expecting a lime rich finishing plaster and a 1:9 mix didn't seem to me to something that could ever work. I put the white powder to one side and used my own NHL (with some Hydrated lime to enfeeble it) at about 1:3 which I considered the weakest mix that might work given how fine the sand was.

With a small sample of this mix I plastered outside the uprights and the sides of the chimney breast, where I'd isolated the gypsum plaster with a couple of coats of SBR cement slurry. For a small area that went well enough, although in hindsight the mix wasn't really 'fatty' enough and could have done with more lime. The following day I soaked the front down to control suction, and tackled it in vertical strips still at 1:3, levelling it off between the beads with a straight edge and then floating with a plastic then steel trowel, not it's fair to say to any great effect. The end result is very sandy, not like any of the original lime plaster finishes in the rest of the house, and I remain convinced that a 1:2 mix with a weakly hydraulic NHL would have worked better. It's not quite as smooth as I would like so I'm planning to very thinly fill it with a rich NHL mix to bring the finish more into line with the rest of the house.

Also visible is an extra bit of exposed paving in front of the fireplace. The right hand side being damaged where they'd dug out for the tiles in front of the old anthracite stove. This paving doesn't look wet, so that's a good thing. Thoughts are currently turning to a Blue Lias hearth to cover that little mess up.
Which brings us to a simpler brick insert that I do have enough Soft Red bricks for, this time with a bit of fake Flemish Bond to add visual interest. The opening has been reduced to the maximum size for the gas collector I intend to use. To my mind the hearth improves the proportions of this smaller opening, and I'll go for a wider hearth than shown the width depending on what's readily available locally.

Also shown (less the two top doors that we also have) is the cupboard that was in the right hand alcove when we bought the house (see below). There had been a matching cupboard on the left side, but this had already been replaced with a deeper cupboard to house a gas boiler and cylinder, although two of the original doors had been re-used in this monstrosity, and so survive. The surviving frame has suffered somewhat from wood worm, and the plan is to strip the paint, remake the joints at the bottom, treat it with preservative, and to fit it in the left hand alcove where there is a gas feed and central heating pipes to conceal. I plan to set the frame slightly back from the front of the chimney breast to make a feature of the rounded corners. To avoid at least some of the issues of placing built-in cupboards against outside walls I'm going to box the cupboard and ventilate the resulting void, and that will also cover up some compromised gypsum plaster. In the right hand alcove I'll reproduce a similar frame without the centre rail for a set of shelves, and although it's not a closed cupboard I plan to also box and ventilate that void too.

To complete the picture some photos of this room as it looked when we bought the house. What price that wallpaper and yellow panel on the ledged door?! At that point this room had a built-in floor cupboard with counter top. That one went upstairs to the breakfast room where it might have been originally, but it had an exact twin on the first floor landing that was also originally on the ground floor. That cupboard has now been fully restored to a more useful depth and was fitted in that basement corner this Spring. Strangely damp inside that cupboard, even condensation, is not a problem against what is an internal retaining wall. There's also a rather splendid 7' Welsh Dresser on the wall facing the chimney breast. It really needs an extra shelf (or two), but back in 1997 my builder reckoned they were worth £300 per foot - and that must have made quite an impression on me at the time!

 

[Stevers]

Quite a few months on and there's been considerable progress. A big change is that we've opted for a small ex-showroom wood effect gas stove acquired via Ebay, rather than a brick insert and radiant gas fire, as that got more and more expensive to do with cost of the collector and the raised stone hearth required.

It won't be news to anyone that chimney breasts have alcoves and that they can be a problem too. Ours were partially below ground on the left and fully below ground on the right. On the left there were also central heating pipes and a gas feed for the stove. The top half of this alcove retains the original tanking - the pink gypsum plaster of this by now being in poor shape. As shown previously the full height cupboard on the right had survived the conversion to flats that we reversed, but the frame was in very poor shape and had suffered badly from from that unholy alliance of wet rot and woodworm. This frame could be moved to the left alcove that was nominally the same size where it would conceal the plumbing and dodgy plaster. Below ground, built-in cupboards would be a bad idea for storage, but as mentioned previously, not if it could be fully lined with a demountable interior for access to the plumbing, and the gap between lining and wall properly ventilated, so that became the plan.

At the foot of the frame the decayed mortices and tenons were rebuilt in laminations of timber recovered from a sash window (1913) that I'd repaired and fitted to my shed - some lovely stuff though wormy on one edge. Further recovered timber was spliced into the sections eaten by woodworm that had been against the old lime plaster, and the frame extended at the top left where the new plaster wasn't nearly as plumb as it should be. The frame was carefully trimmed to fit the left alcove and it was treated with exterior clear preservative - something I hadn't clocked when purchased. The remaining worm holes and damage were made good with two part wood filler and primed all round twice to keep any badness out. Removing the cement screed on the floor had made the opening 1" taller than the frame, so this was an opportunity to add a piece trimmed to fit the uneven floor topped with a couple of slots for ventilation of the void behind the lining. Originally the frame had a coving at the top to cover the gap that I don't have and haven't tried to replicate.


The frame and doors had all been stripped with a hot air gun, and this revealed that the taller pair of doors both suffered from the panels not being wide enough so that in both cases they had come out of their grooves on one side. Being mortice, tenon and wedged (as was the frame), these were knocked apart and a little extra wood glued onto the panel before reassembly - no glue required for this. The doors had also been attacked with a saw along the edges and this damage was made good with two part wood filler. The doors had never been stripped before, so I feathered out some sample areas of paint to show the sequence of colours used previously, and it soon became apparent that the doors had been two tone at times in a range of mostly very dull colours, though never scumble grained. The colour chart is the Albany (Brewers) range of BS colours. I rather like the warm red of what may be the remains of the original primer. Given how patchy it all is, the plan is to paint them that rich cream (almost vanilla) in the middle of the sample. Between the six doors that survived there were just enough unbroken 2" heavy cast iron butt hinges for me to refit them, though I centred them on the gap rather than burying them deep in the doors as before.


The demountable lining stands on adjustable plastic feet to take the weight, and is fastened to the frame, but not the walls. It's clean (almost knot free), relatively slow grown whitewood (Norwegian Spruce) from the excellent independant DIY store up the road, and the Ex 25x125 planks were biscuit jointed to make boards 9.5" wide. At each level there's a frame that the TGV planks at the rear slot into - making them removable for access to the plumbing (and plaster) that's behind. The bottom, middle and top boards hold the sides together, and the intermediate shelves are adjustable. Normally I would stain whitewood to look more like redwood, but I like the effect of the pale wood here, so I'll just use Osmo Oil on the interior to seal it. To complete that all important void ventilation, there's a vent with insect guard through a plasterboard repair to the ceiling that comes out close to an existing air brick. As an aside, the vertical stripe in the wall plaster on the left is the chase in the blown lime plaster that I filled with Thistle One Coat back in 1997. The filled in chase remains, but the blown lime plaster has been recently knocked off and replaced with NHL render topped with a skim of Thistle One Coat.


There seemed to be some disappointment when I plastered the stone work on the front of the chimney breast - so this is the partially stoned in rear of the fireplace opening, it's random rubble from my ugly stone pile, about to be brought to course. - I'd like to think mostly avoiding the crazy paving look. The big stone in the middle is a lump of conglomerate recovered from a layer of mudstone that underlies the house, retrieved when I was working on the drains. There's also blue lias, white lias, and a fair bit of mountain limestone. That small wood effect gas stove is likely to look a trifle lost in such a large opening, although it is about the same size as the anthracite stove that was there when we arrived.

There's also that right hand alcove that is missing some built-in goodness, but that's an even more involved tale for another post...

 

[Toby Newell]

FYI if you like the lighter colour then using a long oil varnish like Osmo is the absolute worst thing you can do, it has a yellow cast and oxidises as it ages to go even more yellow. A water based varnish might be better.

 

[Toby Newell]

The new Bona Mega Evo is supposed to be very good, they sell it in one litre sizes for about £26. It's very durable and pretty non yellowing. I am going to try it soon. The extra matt is around 9% which isn't really extra matt for all finishes, but is for water based. You just need to apply very thin coats and remember to be on drip patrol. It dries pretty quick on verticals if applied thinly, you should be able to do three or four thin coats in a day quite easily. Any bog standard water based varnish will be a lot less yellow than an oil based finish but some of them yellow slightly over time.

 

[Stevers]

Stoning in the back of the fireplace is complete and incorporated an even bigger lump of bedrock. Apart fom the three lumps of bedrock, all of the ugly stones had been used at least once before. No effort was made to tie the front into the back and voids were filled with loose stone. It was brought to course twice, before finishing up with a line of bricks that I can fasten a batten to for the fibre cement closure board. An opening has been knocked out into the flue just above ground level ready to insert an air brick to try to keep a bit of air moving in the flue once the closure plate is in. As this flue failed a smoke test really quite badly, the top of it is clearly being vented through at least one neigbouring clay cowl via at least one set of failed mid-feathers. In shortening the stainless steel flue the cut was started with a hacksaw and finished off with tin snips.

Despite introducing at least 5 gallons of water in making the NHL mortar, the floor slabs are trying to dry out for the first time. There was a damp looking joint front right that I've raked out and am about to point back in. In the flesh I find this disconcertingly cave like, but it's something that I'm going to have to live with. Don't get me started on the scope creep that came with building in a cheap blue bookcase bought on Ebay, that seemed like a good idea at the time!

 

[spotpush]

It's been a while since an update, but in that absence I have bricked in the right side of the arch, and after a few days for it to set, was able to safely remove the centring. The iron bar on the right side was very badly wasted, but I did manage to pre-tension it, making the arch a very solid masonry unit. This has completely stabilised the wobbly stonework above, so this really hasn't turned out to be the job I expected. Given the extreme solidity of the stonework of this chimney breast, I'm really glad I didn't opt to remove it to gain about a foot of extra space, with all the issues of making it good and supporting the floor above properly. I then spent what felt like days laboriously knocking off the rest of the hard cement render (up to 2" thick), and most of the underlying slurry coat from the front.
View attachment 10977
In lining the new arch bricks up with the existing, I ended up with a bulge across the front of around 3/8" as that middle brick was out of true. As on the left hand side I needed to step the brickwork out about half an inch, but much higher up. I put a couple of the New Forest bricks in the sides in the hope that they might be more breathable than the dense Gas Board bricks. Either way the new mortar seems miraculously dry. The Acrows have been retained because I will use them to hold the fireplace uprights in place while I secure them.

View attachment 10976View attachment 10978
The 25mm pine dowels for the corner beads have been sourced, and in the pictures they can be seen clamped in position on the right side, showing the amount of render that I will need to put back. Normally the beads are nailed to wooden wedges in the mortar beds, and I have done this without problems even in the basement, but this time my plan is to mount the bead on pieces of electrical ducting cut to shape to fit between the masonry and bead, all secured with a stainless steel screw through the ducting into a rawlplug in the mortar. I'll then render almost to the back of the bead leaving room for the SBR cement slurry to go behind the bead. To form a junction of the new tanking with the existing tanking I'll put a strip of SBR cement slurry down the existing render both sides of the existing slurry line which is visible. The bead has already had three coats of Barretine clear preservative with both ends stood in the preservative. Before final fitting they will need to be primed.

Hi Stevers

I'm restoring a dining room in my Victorian house and would like to put in rounded wooden dowels on the chimney breast and Victorian timber French doors and was wondering: where did you source the pine dowels from? How did you position them on the edges of the chimney? Some of the wooden wedges are still in the mortar beds but not enough to support the dowel top to bottom so how do you "mount the bead on pieces of electrical ducting"? And what is "electrical ducting"? I also want to paint the walls, as opposed to wallpaper, so what is the best process for doing this (plaster over the dowel or upto it and prime and paint?)

Lots of question, I know, I'm a new DIY'er...

Cheers

 

[Stevers]

I'm a huge fan of 'staff beads' and delighted to hear that you're planning to restore yours! In my case the 25mm pine dowels come in 2.4m lengths from the independent DIY store up the road, but happily it's a Cheshire Mouldings product also available from Wickes. The ducting is used to feed TWE electrical cable through plaster to plugs sockets and switches, and I only used it as I had loads of it sitting around from previous electrical work, and as it was very rough stonework the offset to the beads was considerable. The wooden wedges are the traditional method of fastening and easy to do - especially in brickwork. I do prime the bead before fitting to reduce moisture take up in the wood, but I haven't seen any evidence that the old pros ever did that.

On ground and first floors we have a 'V' shaped shadow gap between plaster and dowel that allows me to paint the dowel as woodwork (before emulsioning). When you emulsion the walls you finish the emulsion paint at the base of the groove. This makes an architectural feature of the staff bead, and for a much harder wearing job. All of our ground floor and upstairs staff beads were finished like that originally, but in every case I had to remove filler to do them 'properly' because some twerp had filled them in so he could paper round the corner. I'm not a fan of white paint, and some of mine have been scumble grained to look like oak or walnut which makes a real feature of them. In our case staff beads aren't limited to chimney breasts and all of our (indoor) external corners have them. We also have ceiling drops to either picture rails or a border and I don't pick out the staff bead above those as it looks a bit odd, so up there, well out of harms way, I just paint them the ceiling colour. Even like that the shadow gap adds visual interest.

Another advantage of the groove is that any cracking from timber or plaster movement will be at the base of the groove and won't be seen. Forming the groove is fairly straightforward. Just plaster as normal and as the plaster begins to go off cut the groove in with a knife and straight edge.