# Forum Home Renovation Brickwork  restore fireplace

## stevekicks

Hey guys..  
I've just removed an old gas heater from our fireplace in the hope to use it as a fireplace. Unfortunatley it looks like it has to be rebuilt..  
Here's what it looks like:         
Just wondering if someone could recommend someone who could do the work? Maybe even an estimate cost? 
Depending on the price of getting it fixed, we may go for a gas fireplace..  
Dimensions of the fireplace are: (HxWxD) 710mm x 650mm x 530mm 
Cheers.

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## Black Cat

How old is your house? That looks as if it has been rebuilt to install the heater you just removed, and might once have been a real fireplace, before someone stuck those varnished bricks around it. 
I had three fireplaces and two chimneys repaired from rather worse condition than that, and it cost around $2000 using lime mortar. The convict bricks cost a bit extra but were necessary to match what was in the house. Will go look for some before and after pix for you.

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## Black Cat

here you go:
 Before, during and after in the loungeroom. The mantelpiece is stored on site and is awaiting a time for me to get around to refurbishment and I need to get the brickie back to render the chimney breast before I replace it. In case you are sharp of eye and notice the different skirting board, the middle pic is taken from the bedroom back into the loungeroom, showing the re-bricking of the cheeks of the fire place. These had completely burned out.

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## stevekicks

wow that looks great. nice work. 
ours is a 50s house.. im pretty sure it used to be a real fireplace as the sides of the bricks are all burnt. i've got a quote from a guy who said he'd redo the "rollback" for $450 cash (i supply the bricks). i've called 3 other places and left my number - none of them returned my call which im a bit pee'd off about. 
apparently i have to remove the flu off the top of the chimney too.. not sure how much work that is. also had a look at gas fireplaces.. too expensive IMO. as we have ducted heating, this is more for atmosphere rather than primary heating.

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## Black Cat

The flue is probably just inserted in the existing chimney (worth checking you actually have a properly built chimney before you go too far), in which case it is simply a matter of pulling it out, section at a time, drilling out the pop rivets so you can pull it apart, then moving on to the next section. 
A 'real' chimney should have a smoke shelf above the fire chamber which you can find if you shove your head up the hole. The problem is that later modifications do sometimes remove the bits that actually make the fire work (or they may indicate it never worked and smoked the house out when in action). There would be evidence of  excess smoking if you poke around in the more remote parts of the room (on top of old fixtures, under the batten-fitting for the lights etc) if you want to check that was not the reason for closing off the fireplace in the first place.  
This is often a problem in mid-twentieth century or later housing as the art of chimney building sort of died out. It is, however, by no means limited to more recent buildings. I had a 1914 house once that had a fireplace in the loungeroom you could only use if you built the fire at the very back of the hearth.

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