opening up fireplace

[tony198777]

Hi there, new to this site so sorry if this is posted in the wrong section.
Basically I'd like to open up a fire place but after taking some photos through the air vent it seems like it's not straight forward.
I was expecting it just to be bricked up flush with the wall but there are two types of brick and and some are built into the fireplace i will try and attach some pics, as I'm not quite sure how to explain.
Any advice would be massively helpful

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• tony198777
• 8 Jan 2015
• 1

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• tony198777
• 8 Jan 2015
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• tony198777
• 8 Jan 2015
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• tony198777
• 8 Jan 2015
• 1

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• tony198777
• 8 Jan 2015
• 1

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• tony198777
• 8 Jan 2015
• 1

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• tony198777
• 8 Jan 2015
• 1

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• tony198777
• 8 Jan 2015
• 1

 

[kazuya]

quite often fireplaces get altered over the years, often made smaller, that's maybe why you can see different types of bricks

 

[tony198777]

Thanks i guessed that would be the case. I'm going to start taking the plaster off the weekend hopefully it all goes well lol
Ill try and post some pics when I get to use the computer

 

[tony198777]

 

[kazuya]

looks like it may have arched brickwork originally above the opening then its been lowered and they've used a concrete lintel
usually your safe to open them up back to the original arch
hard to tell for definite from the pictures

but yes knock off the plaster and expose the brickwork then post more pics

 

[tony198777]

Thanks i managed to get take a little video and I can deffinetley see the original arch I'm hoping it's in a fairly good state though.
Yeah I will get some plaster off and post some more pics.
I'd like to keep the original arch, is it necessary to get a lintel above the arch or would it have to be below it? Sorry for all the questions

 

[mark1981]

hi,
I've just done the same,

I started by removing all the plaster from the chimney breast to reveal the original brickwork then started taking out the infill bricks, the original arched brickwork is the lintel,
so no other lintel will be required as long as the brick arch is sound and doing it's job.

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• mark1981
• 7 Jan 2015
• 3