Fireplace
Inside a fireplace restoration in Lake Mary
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 Lake Mary 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.
Removing smoke stains from an old brick fireplace
Smoke stains are the most visible sign of a neglected fireplace. The BIA's cleaning guidance says scrubbing with scouring powder and a stiff bristle brush is often effective on smoke, and that is where our crew starts on your brick.
Before the face is cleaned, we find out why the smoke escaped, since a fireplace that still spills will stain the fresh face again. Once the cause is repaired, the brick in your Lake Mary home is cleaned section by section and rinsed at low pressure, matching the test patch you approved.
Restoring an old outside air vent in the firebox
Some fireplaces have an outside air supply with an outlet in the firebox. The code calls for a corrosion-resistant 1/4 inch mesh at the intake and an outlet that closes and keeps burning material out of hidden spaces (R1006.2, R1006.5). In old fireplaces the outlet is often rusted open or shut and the screen long gone.
During restoration our crew checks the outlet, the duct and the intake, frees or replaces the outlet cover and restores the screen. The work on your Lake Mary fireplace is listed separately, so you can see what it adds.
What the brick can and cannot tell us about a fireplace
It is tempting to date an old fireplace by its look, but appearance alone is a poor guide. Brick, mortar and design details can come from the original build, a later repair or a remodel. We do not assign a history to your fireplace that we cannot support.
Records, drawings or old photographs of the room are worth sharing. They help our specialists judge what is original on your Lake Mary fireplace and what is not, and that shapes what the restoration tries to keep. What the restoration can promise is a fireplace that works properly and looks like itself.
