Our Process
How fireplace restoration is done in Kolokee
Restoring a cracked brick or tile fireplace hearth
The hearth and its extension are required to be concrete or masonry on noncombustible support, with nothing combustible left against the underside (R1001.9). An old hearth can crack across, sink at one end or lose its tiles or bricks as the bed under them fails.
Before the hearth surface is restored, what it sits on gets checked. Loose brick or tile is lifted, the bed repaired and the original pieces reset where they survive, with close matches used where they do not. The restored hearth in your Kolokee home is level, tight and sound underfoot.
Testing a cleaning method on old fireplace brick
Brick Industry Association guidance on cleaning brickwork starts with a trial on an inconspicuous area, done under conditions close to the real job. Once the result is approved, that test area becomes the standard the rest of the face is cleaned to.
We follow the same order on your Kolokee fireplace. We clean a small hidden patch first and let you see it once it has dried before the rest of the face is treated the same way. It is the simplest way to find out what the old brick will and will not tolerate before it is too late to change course.
Ash dump doors in an old fireplace
An ash dump is a little metal trapdoor in the firebox floor, found in many masonry fireplaces, that drops ash into a pit below. In an old fireplace that door is often rusted shut, bent or missing, which can leave an open hole in the hearth of the firebox.
We clean out the old ash, check the chamber and its cleanout door outside or below, and replace a missing or seized ash door with one that fits the opening. It is a small part, and it is on your Kolokee estimate as a small line.
Coordinating fireplace restoration with room work
A fireplace restoration often happens alongside painting, flooring or a room update. The order matters: masonry cleaning and repointing make dust and use water, so they belong before new paint and floors go in, and the hearth extension should be settled before flooring meets it.
Tell us who else is working in the room and when. Our crew plans the restoration in your Kolokee home around that schedule, covers everything in the room, cleans up at the end of each day and hauls the debris away. If the room is being painted, the masonry work is finished first so the painter starts on a clean, dry wall.
