Our Process
How fireplace restoration is done in Whites Landing
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 Whites Landing home is level, tight and sound underfoot.
Restoring a wood mantel at the right distance
An old wood mantel is often the part of the fireplace people love most. The code allows combustible mantels and trim on the fireplace front, but not within 6 inches of the opening, and closer than 12 inches, combustible pieces can project only 1/8 inch for every inch they sit from the opening (R1001.11).
Our specialists measure the mantel and trim on your Whites Landing fireplace against those limits before planning the restoration. A mantel that sits too close can often be reset higher on the same face, keeping the piece you want while making the fireplace fit for use.
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 Whites Landing 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.
Replacing broken brick on a fireplace face
A brick that has cracked through or lost its face is replaced rather than patched. On a restoration the replacement should look like its neighbors, so our pros look for a brick that matches in size, color and texture, and show it to you before it goes in.
Each replaced brick is set in mortar matched to the surrounding joints. The count of bricks to replace is on your Whites Landing estimate, so a few damaged units never become an open-ended line. Where a damaged brick sits at the edge of the opening, the masonry around it is supported while it is replaced.
