From family tree to mantle piece

First steps first. When we purchased the house we were aware that there are few finishing works needed in the house with fireplaces and wood fired cooker in the kitchen. Also a boiler room would need checking as it has 40kW boiler with 2000l storage tank central heating system attached to it. Lounge fireplace consisted of fire heath perched on breeze blocks with no surround and kitchen had a 5 meter long horizontal flue attaching to boiler chimney.

To make sure that all necessary works are completed and checks are done on existing systems we ordered a fire safety assessment as the first step in our project. The report that came back was worse than we expected...

Due to our boiler being over 25kW we needed to create "fire room" around it that complies with E30 safety regulations. (More details on this in a later blog). The kitchen cooker flue can not be connected to the same chimney as the boiler, again due to capacity but also due to length of the flue. Who has 5m horizontal pipe there! And how are you supposed to keep it clean from soot and creosote? Instructions were clear: the cooker is unsafe and until it has its own separate chimney no fire can be made there as it is major hazard. Lounge fireplace needs surround, appropriate support and correct solid flue added to it. The photo above shows how incorrect, thin and flexible pipe is showing signs of discoloration.

Let the fun begin or fixing all this!

The central heating takes time to warm up and as the house is infrequently used we decided that the lounge fireplace should have air heating system attached to it to maximise benefits and heat the house fast whilst radiators are providing night time heat. Few phone calls later we found a potter who was willing to take on the fireplace and building third chimney.

The hot air vented fireplace consists of collector cupboard built above the heath, air inlet, outlets and vent that starts working when temperature reaches set level. In our case the fireplace has 4 outlets: one to the lounge, one to bedroom directly on the other side of fireplace (both of these are directly from collector cupboard with no extra vent) and two upstairs outlets that are run by ventilator and piping hidden in ceiling void. So hot air actually comes from ceilings.

The fire surround was built of breeze blocks and fire proof plaster. And yes, it is all very unnatural and goes against out thoughts of wanting everything as natural and genuine as possible but there are compromises and this was best solution for us both considering cost and practicality.

All that type of fireplaces have some similarities and in terms of shape there is only so much that can be done. My mother helped with the design and came up with this:

The surround was covered with limestone slivers and plastered with antique plaster. The potter suggested a company that has nice variety of local limestone cut on site. More on their varieties can be found here: www.paekivi.ee

As a house warming gift we received old twisted apple tree trunk from my mother. This stood in the centre of her garden once upon a time but came down during a storm and had been stored for 10 years to wait for a special purpose. This was cut and prepared by local sawmill who used their excellent craftsmanship to save any interesting features like a knots and twists. Until it was just perfect. The tree can live on as a centre of another family for years to come.

Finally all got done, old family tree as our mantle piece, limestone fitted and we had nice fire ready waiting for us to visit at Christmas. Only thing left to do was the front of the fireplace but this needed some thought. Until we had a good idea we decided to leave it.