Will lime crack from heat inside an inglenook?

[joechip]

Hi all,

We have a stove going into a small inglenook fireplace inside the cottage. The stone has been repointed in lime but is not suitable to leave as is. The builder asked for the inside to be rendered before he installs the plate that sits above the stove in the chimney. Will lime render/plaster be ok and will it crack from the heat of the stove? It's a 4kw stove as the room is not very big and I presume it will kick out quite a bit of heat into the inglenook.

Thanks for any input.

 

[DaveBrigg]

Our inglenook is lime rendered for a couple of feet, and the brickwork above has original lime mortar, and neither are affected by the multifuel stove. We haven't had the stove glowing, but even when it has a good load of coal inside, the nearest part of the wall has been cool enough to touch. Obviously the lime has to be fully dry before you fire up!

I'm not an expert, but I was curious as to why the builder wanted the rendering done before he fits the register plate. You need a seal around the edge of this, which I would have thought was far easier to achieve if the plate was bolted in place and then rendered up to.

 

[joechip]

Thanks for the advice. I will ask him why he wants it done first.

 

[Andrew Bodenham]

Not the exact answer you need, but our stove aperture was plastered with gypsum bonding and multi-finish, and has cracked up very badly with the heat from our 5kW stove. When I re-work this detail I'll render with lime mortar, and probably face with tiles.

 

[middi]

I know this may sound silly, but, why would anybody want to render the inside of a chimney opening when historically is should be black worn bricks or stones, exposed, showing rounded edges where knife sharpening was practiced etc..

You could just clean the exess dust and install your woodburner. it will look like a proper chimney opening then.

 

[joechip]

Hi Midi, I understand what you are saying but the stone is not the best, it's very uneven, with broken bricks and very roughly pointed just to fill in the large gaps and holes where the earth(?) render had completley turned to dust. I guess I have to balance trying to put a certain 'feel' back into the place while also making it comfortable and clean. If the stonework was of better quality I would certainly be considering leaving it exposed.

Most of the cottage's original features have been ripped out in the 1930's and 1970's and I am hoping to put a bit of life back into the place using lime, oak, slate etc. I am looking for a good mix of natural materials and comfort while taking into consideration the place probably has always been very basic being a labourers cottage. I am taking my time and am sure I will get it right in the end.

On a more basic level, as the room will be used as a bedroom some of the time, a dark black chimney opening is not ideal if you have seen the size of the spiders we get in here. Some of them are so big you can 'hear' them run up the wallpaper. :shock: :mrgreen:

Thanks to all that have replied.

I know this may sound silly, but, why would anybody want to render the inside of a chimney opening when historically is should be black worn bricks or stones, exposed, showing rounded edges where knife sharpening was practiced etc..

You could just clean the exess dust and install your woodburner. it will look like a proper chimney opening then.

 

[Nemesis]

Sorry this is a little late. We have rendered the 'walls' of one of our chimney openings behind a stove, and the walls get quite warm. The lime is fine. Of course, you must allow plenty of time for it to carbonate and dry throughly before subjecting it to any heat. All buildings are different however, and so it's a case of suck it and see, really. (We did the same in a previous house and all was OK too.)

In fact, the back and sides of many fire openings were not meant to be seen. That depends on the age of the house, the room, and local tradition. In our case, house c 1800, the 'builder's opening' in some rooms was filled with a hobgrate, in two others cooking ranges were fitted. The original ranges and their successors are long gone, and although one opening is not too bad so the stone remains exposed behind the stove, in the other the stonework was a hacked about mess and the stone itself clearly never meant to be seen. So we rendered it.

The stone uprights which face the room are worn with knife sharpening. Those are not rendered. They were always meant to be on display.