Fireplace
Inside a fireplace restoration in Longwood
Sandblasting and grinding on old fireplace brick
Abrasive blasting removes dirt fast by removing some of the brick with it. Brick Industry Association guidance does not recommend abrasive blasting for cleaning brickwork apart from limited cases, and it advises trying nonabrasive methods first on paint and coatings.
Once a brick face has lost its fired surface, it soils faster and cannot be put back. Our specialists restore fireplace faces in Longwood with brushes, suitable cleaners, poultices and low-pressure water, and keep grinders and blasting media away from original brick. If the face was blasted in the past, its surface may already be soft, and it is cleaned with even more care.
Painted fireplace brick and lead paint
Paint on an old fireplace can hide more than the brick. The EPA notes that lead-based paint was banned for homes in 1978 and that renovation, repair or painting in a pre-1978 home with lead paint can create dangerous lead dust. BIA guidance adds that scraping and abrasive methods are not recommended where lead paint may be present unless protective procedures are in place.
Any Longwood home old enough to have lead paint should have the paint tested before any stripping is planned. The result decides the method, and the restoration plan is written around it.
Matching new mortar color on a restored fireplace
The Park Service brief says new mortar should match the historic mortar in color, texture and tooling, and that the match is made to unweathered portions of the old mortar. It also notes that, with a proper match, the best way to handle small color differences is usually to let the mortar age naturally.
We mix and compare samples against the old joints on your Longwood fireplace before repointing starts. Fresh joints look a little new at first. We tell you that plainly instead of promising an instant, exact match that no mortar can deliver.
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 Longwood fireplace is listed separately, so you can see what it adds.
