Hi Fireplace Experts!
I’m hoping you have some suggestions for me regarding some remodeling I'm doing. I had a chimney sweep/repair person out to clean my fireplace and I asked him what he thought about what I was planning, but I’m not sure he had the background to really rely on his opinion, so I’m hoping an expert here can chime in. Here’s the situation:
Last month, my mother bought a bit of a fixer upper house built in 1948 that has a single chimney on what is “sort of an outside wall.” On the inside of the house, half of that chimney serves a living room wood burning fireplace that has a gas log in it from the 70’s (chimney sweep guy said it is a wood burning, and it has an ash clean out to basement in bottom of firebox). This living room is sunken from the surrounding floors by a luxurious 2.5”, so just enough to be annoying/trip on.
On the other side of the LR, there is a screened in porch area that shares the other half of the chimney with another fireplace with a separate clay flue. This porch firebox is also wood burning, according to chimney sweep.
The screened porch area is about 4 inches lower than the current sunken LR, and here in lies the problem: I am planning to insulate/HVAC/enclose this porch and make it part of the interior of the house, which will involve raising the LR floor AND the porch floor to be flat with the floors around it so my 75 year old mother doesn’t trip. So I’ll be raising the LR floor by 2.5” and the porch floor by 6.5”. This will involve raising the fireboxes of both fireplaces and that is where my questions come in.
I plan to trowel refractory cement to raise the LR firebox the 2.5” and I’m guessing that shouldn’t be a problem (?) But in the porch area, I need to raise that firebox a total of 6.5”, and it is already kind of short, something like 36” tall by 40” wide (I don’t have the dimensions with me today).
So here are my questions:
1) Regarding raising the porch fireplace: Can I (or someone else) break out the top of the firebox and build the firebox higher on the chimney so that I can keep the porch as a wood burning fireplace out there? I really like the option to burn wood, in case the power ever goes out for an extended period in winter in my area.
2) What is the minimum dimension of the porch firebox that I would need to keep it wood burning? I have looked at the ICC but I’m not seeing anything on minimum firebox dimensions or ratios for wood burning. (I’m a complete novice on fireplaces, so I might just be missing it).
3) If after raising the porch firebox, it is too short to have as a wood burning, or to be worthwhile at generating any heat for the home, I'm thinking I *could* convert the porch fireplace to gas and use one of those shorter, long contemporary-looking gas logs. Thoughts?
4) What should I use to raise the porch firebox up for the first 4 of the total 6.5 inches I need to raise it? Just standard ready mix concrete and finish the last 2.5 with refractory cement?
Thank you in advance for your ideas!
I’m hoping you have some suggestions for me regarding some remodeling I'm doing. I had a chimney sweep/repair person out to clean my fireplace and I asked him what he thought about what I was planning, but I’m not sure he had the background to really rely on his opinion, so I’m hoping an expert here can chime in. Here’s the situation:
Last month, my mother bought a bit of a fixer upper house built in 1948 that has a single chimney on what is “sort of an outside wall.” On the inside of the house, half of that chimney serves a living room wood burning fireplace that has a gas log in it from the 70’s (chimney sweep guy said it is a wood burning, and it has an ash clean out to basement in bottom of firebox). This living room is sunken from the surrounding floors by a luxurious 2.5”, so just enough to be annoying/trip on.
On the other side of the LR, there is a screened in porch area that shares the other half of the chimney with another fireplace with a separate clay flue. This porch firebox is also wood burning, according to chimney sweep.
The screened porch area is about 4 inches lower than the current sunken LR, and here in lies the problem: I am planning to insulate/HVAC/enclose this porch and make it part of the interior of the house, which will involve raising the LR floor AND the porch floor to be flat with the floors around it so my 75 year old mother doesn’t trip. So I’ll be raising the LR floor by 2.5” and the porch floor by 6.5”. This will involve raising the fireboxes of both fireplaces and that is where my questions come in.
I plan to trowel refractory cement to raise the LR firebox the 2.5” and I’m guessing that shouldn’t be a problem (?) But in the porch area, I need to raise that firebox a total of 6.5”, and it is already kind of short, something like 36” tall by 40” wide (I don’t have the dimensions with me today).
So here are my questions:
1) Regarding raising the porch fireplace: Can I (or someone else) break out the top of the firebox and build the firebox higher on the chimney so that I can keep the porch as a wood burning fireplace out there? I really like the option to burn wood, in case the power ever goes out for an extended period in winter in my area.
2) What is the minimum dimension of the porch firebox that I would need to keep it wood burning? I have looked at the ICC but I’m not seeing anything on minimum firebox dimensions or ratios for wood burning. (I’m a complete novice on fireplaces, so I might just be missing it).
3) If after raising the porch firebox, it is too short to have as a wood burning, or to be worthwhile at generating any heat for the home, I'm thinking I *could* convert the porch fireplace to gas and use one of those shorter, long contemporary-looking gas logs. Thoughts?
4) What should I use to raise the porch firebox up for the first 4 of the total 6.5 inches I need to raise it? Just standard ready mix concrete and finish the last 2.5 with refractory cement?
Thank you in advance for your ideas!
