1840 Farm cottage fireplace/cooking range opening I am not sure what’s going on
Hi Folks,
I appreciate that this may have been covered before but having searched through previous threads/advice and other on-line resources I’m still at a loss.
Having opened old fireplaces in the past I thought that this would be relatively (or as relatively as these things ever are) simple. However, it’s now week two of this fiasco and every layer of brick I remove I’m getting even more stumped, I can’t get an installer to come out to advise as they are all snowed under with folks trying to get their fires/wood burners sorted out for the festive season and the plasterer is due in the next week or so to put up the first layer of Diathonite on the walls/chimney breast. So, I’m throwing myself on the mercy of the community for any and all advice.
It started off easy enough, when we bought our 1840 farm cottage (Dumfries & Galloway) we inherited and old 1970’s open fire with a log burner in front so decided to remove this, open-up the fireplace and then reinstall the burner. We suspected that originally there had probably been an old cooking/range here (this seems to have been confirmed by some of the remanets of old metal work on the original hearth stone and holes in the lintel) and we wanted to open everything up back to the original stone jambs and lintel to create a nice wide area (see image). However, once we started removing the brickwork we’ve come across several issues concerning the layout of space behind the newer brickwork and I’m not sure if this any or some of it is part of the original structure. For example, there appears to be an old brick (?chimney/ fireplace) liner (with what appears to be remints of lime plaster in situ) in the centre which goes part of the way up the stone chimney (just behind the original stone lintel) with jambs to the floor and up to the stonework above (where the stones taper in from the stone jambs and create the chimney) The brickwork appears old and does not go all the way to the floor at the back (there’s just a lot of backfill and rubble and a ?cement ledge which is proving a swine to take out (see image)). So, we wonder if that this is/was part of the original cooking range (fire area) and so may have to stay in situ to help support the stonework above. The ‘jambs’ created by this liner/insert and the outer stone jambs are infilled with rubble on the right-hand side (a mix of some new and old brick and stone) and on the left side what appears to be an old brick structure.
The end result is that that we’re now at an impasse. Do we replace the bricks we’ve removed (between the concrete and original lintel) patch-up the area at the back and just leave this small fireplace opening or persevere and take everything back to the old stonework and risk the overhanging internal stone and brickwork crashing down.s I said at the beginning, time isn’t something we have as the plasters are showing up in a week of two.
Oh, and just to cap it all off we have a patch of damp to the righthand side of the original hearth that will not dry out.
Hi Folks,
I appreciate that this may have been covered before but having searched through previous threads/advice and other on-line resources I’m still at a loss.
Having opened old fireplaces in the past I thought that this would be relatively (or as relatively as these things ever are) simple. However, it’s now week two of this fiasco and every layer of brick I remove I’m getting even more stumped, I can’t get an installer to come out to advise as they are all snowed under with folks trying to get their fires/wood burners sorted out for the festive season and the plasterer is due in the next week or so to put up the first layer of Diathonite on the walls/chimney breast. So, I’m throwing myself on the mercy of the community for any and all advice.
It started off easy enough, when we bought our 1840 farm cottage (Dumfries & Galloway) we inherited and old 1970’s open fire with a log burner in front so decided to remove this, open-up the fireplace and then reinstall the burner. We suspected that originally there had probably been an old cooking/range here (this seems to have been confirmed by some of the remanets of old metal work on the original hearth stone and holes in the lintel) and we wanted to open everything up back to the original stone jambs and lintel to create a nice wide area (see image). However, once we started removing the brickwork we’ve come across several issues concerning the layout of space behind the newer brickwork and I’m not sure if this any or some of it is part of the original structure. For example, there appears to be an old brick (?chimney/ fireplace) liner (with what appears to be remints of lime plaster in situ) in the centre which goes part of the way up the stone chimney (just behind the original stone lintel) with jambs to the floor and up to the stonework above (where the stones taper in from the stone jambs and create the chimney) The brickwork appears old and does not go all the way to the floor at the back (there’s just a lot of backfill and rubble and a ?cement ledge which is proving a swine to take out (see image)). So, we wonder if that this is/was part of the original cooking range (fire area) and so may have to stay in situ to help support the stonework above. The ‘jambs’ created by this liner/insert and the outer stone jambs are infilled with rubble on the right-hand side (a mix of some new and old brick and stone) and on the left side what appears to be an old brick structure.
The end result is that that we’re now at an impasse. Do we replace the bricks we’ve removed (between the concrete and original lintel) patch-up the area at the back and just leave this small fireplace opening or persevere and take everything back to the old stonework and risk the overhanging internal stone and brickwork crashing down.s I said at the beginning, time isn’t something we have as the plasters are showing up in a week of two.
Oh, and just to cap it all off we have a patch of damp to the righthand side of the original hearth that will not dry out.
