New hearth for NC30

[kennyp2339]

My friend had and old concrete hearth and mantel, the mantel was about to fall down, so we decided to take it down. We had a little accident while doing that, we severely under estimated the weight of the old mantel, we leaned it forward causing crumbling pieces to fall behind it, making it in possible to push the mantel back up when we realized that it was way to heavy, the mantel collapsed on my friends legs, also on my foot, my buddy severely hurt his ankle, but we pushed on and built this. We still have to order the stone veneer but this was a big step forward.

 

[Jackfre]

Gravity prevails, and it always wins. This, for me, falls into the "shiver me timbers" category. Glad you are both reasonably okay. It must have been a moment. Has anyone gone under the house to examine the sub-floor?

 

[kennyp2339]

Yes, we looked at the subfloor, his body literally broke the fall of the mantel, we seriously thought it would weigh like 400 pounds, after it fell he went to the couch and I took the sledge hammer and broke it up into sections, I quickly realized that this thing was probably close to 1,000 pounds between the block that was filled in with concrete and the stone on the outside of it, we really didnt stand a chance and are very lucky that we both didn't get seriously hurt and that the house was still standing.

 

[Highbeam]

That liner connection, is it supposed to be seated? Looking forward to the veneer.

 

[kennyp2339]

It is seated, it was installed 3 years ago, he cut it with a sawzall, I came out really crooked, he called me after and I was able to rig it up, the liner is all the flush with the collar adapter, it just looks horrible, power tools should not be used for everything

 

[begreen]

Ouch. That whole fireplace construction is crap and far from kosher. Considering the poor quality of the fireplace one can expect it to continue to be poor all the way up through the roof. I would prefer to see a fully insulated liner and I would have also used metal studs for the frame as I am not comfortable with the close proximity of the stove and uninsulated liner to the wood.

 

[kennyp2339]

I agree on the insulated liner, there is clay flu tile all the way up the chimney, it was cleaned and we also check for cracks and loose mortar joints before the liner went in , the exposed liner was packed with roxal insulation and we also took white ceramic insulation and stuffed it up the flue about 2 ft, his total chimney height is only 12ft, he just called before to say that since insulating and installing the block off plate the room and house has never been warmer

 

[BobUrban]

All w/o letting the fire go out. What a show!!

 

[kennyp2339]

All w/o letting the fire go out. What a show!!

Yes sir, the fire was lit the whole time lol, we're firefighters though, so we have serious super human powers and can take the heat, or as what both of our girlfriends said, we're pretty dumb.