Repointing Fireplace

Soldato
Joined
25 Nov 2009
Posts
5,392
We're going to have a log burner fitted, the returns have always been boarded over, back wall bare brick. I have exposed it all with a view to making it presentable enough to be left bare. The plan is to smash the hearth up and replace with a larger slate hearth to allow the 225mm in front of the stove.
I've never repointed before, I also need to replace a couple of blown bricks.

All doable? Reasonably handy, I have a grinder so thinking of getting a mortar disc, also a mortar rake for the drill looks handy. Cut around the damaged bricks, knock them out and replace with a spare, mortar gun all the gaps.

Bed the new hearth on mortar and square up.
I have spoken with a local fitter who will be lining the flue and fitting the stove as per regs.

Is there some kind of non combustible trim that will tidy up the plasterboard/wallpapered edge? Or any other wisdom you guys can impart?

Many thanks :)

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Did a bit this afternoon, sheeted off and the draw of the chimney cleared the dust nicely. The disc is quite brutal lol, works really well but gets too dusty, can't see a thing where as like you say, the rake is far more precise and less aggressive.
Hopefully get it all ground out tomorrow. imFeU1Ih.jpg


I've gone quite deep with the rake so I can hopefully knock this brick out to replace it.
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Cheers guys for the input.
The company fitting the stove have been really helpful when I said I'll do all the brickwork, but they said they use regular mortar with plenty of plasticiser in it.
Will that not be good enough?
Is there an additive I can use with regular mortar or do I need to do all the pointing with fire cement?


That's sds mortar chaser looks way better in terms of dust... Luckily, the draw from the chimney has prevented the whole room from looking a bomb site but still not great.
 
I used lime and ash mix with sand and cement. Fingers crossed...
Slate is here, just making a ply template before cutting it... Expensive mistake to get that wrong! Will bed it on the same mortar mix as I pointed with. Log burner should arrive today too :)
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So the slate came, was going to go slow and steady with the diamond disc on a 4 1/2" grinder... 1) I didn't have a diamond slitting disc, 2) would be dusty as hell and 3) I own a Stihl saw :D
Made a plywood template, just because it'd be pretty wild to assume anything is square.
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Next up was to offer it up and mark the floorboards for cutting, circular saw made light work of them and the multi tool just to clean up the corners.

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Then I made a reasonably stiff mix, tamped it level then dropped on the slate :)
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Cheers for the input guys, I agree, a piece of metal angle trim should do it. I have a 1100mm long 100mm x 100mm oak mantel coming, and I'll use some 18mm quadrant for where the edge of the slate meets the flooring.

The stove arrived today... Looks a little bigger than we expected :D Dimensionally fine as far as regs go though so no issues as far as we can tell. Let the installer know we're practically ready to go too, just waiting for him to call and book us in.
 
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