Hey guys, my wife and I want to re do the look of our fireplace, mainly the hearth, we would like to make it a bench that goes all the way to the corner of the room (the left of the picture). After making this bench we were thinking of lining the hearth and fireplace with some kind of stone. My question is, is it a good idea to raise the existing firplace say 12 inches along with the new benched hearth? We will always have the wood stove in there. The only thing to think about would be reselling the house because the fireplace would be supper small and maybe unusable without an insert? Your input is greatly appreciated! Happy new years!
Here's a picture without the woodstove so you guys can kind of see the size of the fireplace. I didn't take any pictures of it without the wood stove but this picture is from the previous owners of the house.
Are there masonry channels in that structure?! I've never seen something like that without there being some kind of masonry heater involved. But it must serve as a big chunk of thermal mass, no? I like it. As for raising the hearth, and thus decreasing the distance from the top of your insert to the top of the fireplace, will you still have room for that insert? Just curious..... Awaiting the responses of the other insert and open fireplace/ converted OFP guys to chime in.
Nope no channels in the fireplace, just solid brick, most houses in my neighborhood have this same fireplace. I just measured and I can move the woodstove up 5" before it hits the top of the original fireplace opening, and the original hearth is about 3 " off the ground right now, so that gets my hearth bench to 8". I would be willing to take bricks out of the top of the fireplace opening to get more height, if needed. Do you guys think an 8" high hearth bench is good enough? Thanks for your input!
I don't know much about the mechanics of raising the stove, but I like the ideal of extending the hearth. The existing hearth is way too small and I know I would have numerous burns in the carpet with a hearth that small.
In terms of de-constructing the top of the FP(if you wanted my height).... There is inevitably a lintel, yes? Be it steel or concrete.... You would maybe want to raise the ceiling of the FP to make hookup easier-assuming there's a liner, or does your insert exhaust straight to the flue(is that what I see called a slammer?)?
Yes, this would be a slammer, no liner at this time, will probably put a liner in before next winter though, there is a metal damper in the original fp that can easily come out
JOOC, are you on a slab?! The Living room, I mean- not you You've got some work ahead of ya's, but I think you'll pull it together fine Let's do wait and see/hear what others might say....
Well, your going to need room to hook up the stove to the liner. Since it's a slammer now, you probably don't see much of an issue with that. Once you raise it, putting the liner in and getting it hooked up will be tough. You want as much room as you can get. I just installed my insert in my open FP, now with a liner a few weeks ago.
Ahh true, I could always modify (remove bricks) inside the fireplace, but that will make it unable to have an fire without a wood stove, and I am not sure if that will hurt my property value or not.
