Hello all... I was cutting my damper with a sawzall and a brick from inside the fireplace (right under damper) fell out. Can I simply re-mortar the brick and carry on with installing the liner, or am I missing something here? If possible I would like to use a quick setting adhesive or caulk instead (recommendations, please) so I could get things rolling.
Brick came tumbling down
- Thread starter rsiros
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I would suggest inspecting the other bricks around the one that fell out, and making sure that if one brick's mortar was defective, that there aren't other problems in the area that need to be addressed at the same time. Assuming that isn't an issue, or that you have possibly removed a bunch of additional bricks to get to solid structure, you should be able to clean the surface up and re-mortar. At the very least, you should use standard masonry cement type mortar, however you should ideally be using furnace or fire cement as your firebox should have been constructed with in the first place.
Code essentially says that your firebox should be in good enough condition that you could safely use it as a fireplace, aside from having removed the damper bits.
One area that is especially important to look at according to former member Elk, is the inside face of the firebox, between the lintel and the masonry facing - this area is often either inadequately sealed when the fireplace was built, or had the masonry joint deteriorate until there is a gap present that can direct excessive heat directly onto wood framing members, causing a very slow to develop fire hazard. Biggest risk of this tends to be fireplaces where the front face is brick or stone part way up, with a combustible wall above.
Given that you've had one brick fall out, I would consider the construction of the firebox suspect and give it a more than normal intensity inspection for flaws and defects.
Gooserider
Code essentially says that your firebox should be in good enough condition that you could safely use it as a fireplace, aside from having removed the damper bits.
One area that is especially important to look at according to former member Elk, is the inside face of the firebox, between the lintel and the masonry facing - this area is often either inadequately sealed when the fireplace was built, or had the masonry joint deteriorate until there is a gap present that can direct excessive heat directly onto wood framing members, causing a very slow to develop fire hazard. Biggest risk of this tends to be fireplaces where the front face is brick or stone part way up, with a combustible wall above.
Given that you've had one brick fall out, I would consider the construction of the firebox suspect and give it a more than normal intensity inspection for flaws and defects.
Gooserider
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