any one fitted a fire surround before ?

[ColeyS1]

Hi all,
I think i may have bitten off more than i can chew here. I planned to replace the old fire surround with a stone one, but am a little unsure what to do now. I've removed the old surround

The fire back seems to stick out of the wall about 50-60mm.

I should be picking up the new surround today but cant imagine it being anything other than flat on the back.
The fireback at the moment is cracked to pieces so i have a new one to fit. Do you think i'll be able to let the new back in enough to be flush, or am i going to have to get some cover fillets in stone made up or something ? If only i hadn't been so lazy and made it from wood........... ](*,)

Thanks

Simon

 

[tsb]

What fire is going in the hole? Gas, electric or real

 

[ColeyS1]

Morning tsb, its for a real/open fire. Seems like there was a larger fireplace there before so after a wiggle its pretty much all fallen out.

Looks like there plenty of room behind it but its just tight on the top. Im asumming i could just knock off the bit in the way ? My dads going to have a heart attack when he gets home and see's what i've done to his lovely fire place :!:

Do you know if i need a special mortar to patch in all the holes or would anything do ?

Thanks Simon

 

[Peter T]

I had the same thing with the fireplace in father-in-law's bungalow.

Unfortunately I don't have "Before" pictures, but it was similar to yours with the infill sticking out from the wall by about 2 inches.

The infill was mainly whole and broken bricks that had been roughly piled in with some mortar added for effect!

I pulled all the infill out, cleaned up the hole, cleaned up the bricks, and then rebuilt it flush with the wall -

The new hearth was then bedded on cement -

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Then the flat back was glued in place and wall made good -

The wood blocks are just to clamp the back in place while everything sets.

After that the gas fire was professionally installed and I made a new AV unit -

not quite finished here!!

Sorry about the picture quality, mobile phone camera is not up to much!

Good luck,

 

[tsb]

I think Peter T has said it all.

 

[ColeyS1]

Thanks Peter T and tsb for your help :wink:

Peter, your pictures have made the task seem alot less daunting! Thanks alot for sharing. I like your idea of holding back the back with the blocks of wood. I dread to think what i would have done.

I've got the fireback in position where i think it will need to go.

Surround isnt in yet so im kicking my feet waiting at the moment. Im tempted to go on and make good around the fireback etc, but am a little wary about doing it.

So as far as making good goes, just use ordinary sand and cement (say 3-1 ?) I wasn't sure if it would fall out if i used it between the fire back and the back of the surround ?

Thanks again for all your help guys :wink:

Simon

 

[Peter T]

You need to fill in all the space around the fireback so you could be doing that.

I don't know what you need to do for the base of the fire since yours will be an open fire and ours is a gas fire.