Restoring an old fireplace in Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace

An unused fireplace in Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace restored to working order, with the drying time before the first fire written down.

Fully licensed and insured
Locally owned
Family owned and operated
Same-day service

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(904) 920-5495 Free Inspection

Fireplace restoration experts for Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace homes

Locally owned in Jacksonville
Family owned and operated
100% satisfaction guaranteed
Free inspection and estimate
Same-day service available
10% off any service

Trim and hearth get a tape measure and a code check on the same visit.

Family owned and operatedA family business plans your Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace fireplace as one job, so each step happens once and in the right order.
100% satisfaction guaranteedYou approve the trial patch and the mortar sample before the face is touched, and our guarantee covers the result.

Call (904) 920-5495 Free Inspection

A house bought with an old fireplace

A fireplace that came with a house often comes with no history: no record of the last inspection, the last cleaning or what was patched and when. The home inspection may have noted it only as needing further evaluation, which leaves the new owner holding a question rather than an answer.

Restoration starts with that evaluation, done properly, and ends with a record on paper of each repair and its materials, the fireplace's history from here on. Just bought a house in Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace with a fireplace you know nothing about? Book a free look at (904) 920-5495.

Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace lies inland. Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace is in Clay County.

Restoration work for Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace fireplaces

Smoke chamber parging restored
Seized dampers freed or replaced
Face joints repointed to match the original
A written order of work for your Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace fireplace

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How fireplace restoration runs

Clean and assess
Everything from the hearth to the flue top is cleaned, then checked and written up part by part.
Heat side first
Firebox, parging and damper repairs are made in refractory materials and left to dry.
Trial, then the face
A trial patch is cleaned and a mortar sample made for your approval before the face work.
Repoint, cure, clean
Face joints are repointed in layers, left to harden, then the face gets its final cleaning.

An old fireplace well inland

Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace sits well inland, where an old fireplace ages from time, heat, water down the flue and earlier repairs rather than salt.

Restoration in Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace finds and orders all of them.

10% off any service booked within 72 hours of inspection

Firebox, hearth and damper work on an old fireplace all come 10% off.

Call (904) 920-5495 Free Inspection

Getting the color from the sand

Most of a mortar's color and texture comes from its sand. The National Park Service guidance on repointing notes that when the sand is matched successfully, the color and texture of the new mortar usually fall into place.

We look at the old mortar broken open, not only its weathered surface, and choose a sand close in color and grain size before adjusting anything else. Tinting new mortar is a last resort. A small sample is mixed and left to cure so you can compare it with the old joints before the face work begins, and the chosen mix is recorded.

Wetting the brick before any cleaner

Saturating the brick comes first in the association's bucket-and-brush method: the area to be cleaned, and the brick below it, is soaked with water before a cleaning solution goes on and kept wet until the final rinse. The cleaner is not allowed to dry on the brick.

Saturated brick absorbs less of the cleaner, so it works on the surface instead of soaking into the masonry, and the rinse carries it away. On a fireplace face that means working in small sections, with the hearth and floor protected and the rinse water caught as we go, not flooding the whole face at once.

Checking the steel lintel above the firebox

The masonry over a fireplace opening rests on a noncombustible lintel, which the code wants bearing at least 4 inches on each end. On older fireplaces it is often a steel angle, and the Brick Industry Association recommends space at its ends for it to expand with heat.

A lintel that has rusted or sagged shows as a crack running up from the corner of the opening or brick dropping at the center. Restoration checks for both. A failed lintel is a structural repair written up on its own, done before the face work above it, since repointing over a moving lintel would crack again.

Cleaned and checked in Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace before a plan is priced

Flue, smoke chamber and firebox cleaned before the condition list
Smoke stains and efflorescence identified before cleaning
Mantel and trim distances from the opening measured
Hearth extension size and condition noted separately

Before an old fireplace is brought back

Do we have to restore everything at once?

No. The estimate splits safety work from appearance work, so the fireplace can be made safe first and the face finished later. The order of work still applies.

How long before we can light a fire?

Once the heat-side repairs have dried for the time on the mortar maker's data sheet. The date is on your ticket, and the face work can continue after that.