Hearth extension has separated from the fireplace

[elmoleaf]

To the op:
1. Hearth extension is typically supported by reinforced concrete that is cantilevered out from under the hearth. What you have there is structurally unsound. Masonry is typically only cantilevered outwards 3/4" per each course. If you still intend to use this as wood burning fireplace, get a professional mason to review/repair.
2. If you intend to put freestanding stove in, get a professional builder or anyone else who knows proper wood frame construction to review the floor structure. Unfortunately, many times when a homeowner has self built and you find one thing done wrong, typically you'll find others. You might also check the wiring while you're at it.

If you can't get professionals on site, then educate yourself as much as possible. There are a lot of very good publications etc available. Your safety and that of your family is important...good luck.

 

[Willkellysims]

And then there was the buried and undisclosed oil tank....

Did you attempt to do anything legally for the undisclosed issues? We didn't have the money or education to battle ours out once the realtor and seller became nasty, so we just figured we needed to learn the lesson only once anyway.

 

[Willkellysims]

To the op:
1. Hearth extension is typically supported by reinforced concrete that is cantilevered out from under the hearth. What you have there is structurally unsound. Masonry is typically only cantilevered outwards 3/4" per each course. If you still intend to use this as wood burning fireplace, get a professional mason to review/repair.
2. If you intend to put freestanding stove in, get a professional builder or anyone else who knows proper wood frame construction to review the floor structure. Unfortunately, many times when a homeowner has self built and you find one thing done wrong, typically you'll find others. You might also check the wiring while you're at it.

If you can't get professionals on site, then educate yourself as much as possible. There are a lot of very good publications etc available. Your safety and that of your family is important...good luck.

I agree. We don't and won't use the fireplace as it is now but with the mortar literally crumbling and the gap that my 4 year old likes to shove or hide things in (lol) we wanted to at least see what our options are and do exactly as you said - educate ourselves. With all the great help we have received from here we feel it best to continue saving and have the new insert or free standing stove professionally installed. Your correct on if one things wrong a lot of other things are as well. When we had the laminate floor installed there were sections of subfloor the installers also had to replace due to not being put down correctly.

 

[begreen]

Did you attempt to do anything legally for the undisclosed issues? We didn't have the money or education to battle ours out once the realtor and seller became nasty, so we just figured we needed to learn the lesson only once anyway.

I found the oil tank the next summer. By then the sellers were out of state.

 

[Willkellysims]

It usually gets better and more fun. This was our place 12 yrs later.

View attachment 149155

What a beautiful hoMe. Our home was built in 41 and the previous owners lived here for 51 years. We knew the house would need repairs and fell in love with the idea of being able to redo and create our own space which we know takes time, it's the learning curve that I appreciate most.

 

[Willkellysims]

I found the oil tank the next summer. By then the sellers were out of state.

wow.

 

[Willkellysims]

Life in the country. Rules get a bit sloppy, especially when no one is watching crappy workmanship. The furnace guy had to be drunk when he installed it. Fortunately I caught that error pretty quickly. I arrived home from work 3 days after we had moved in. Couldn't understand why the furnace was running non-stop. There was a strong north wind coming down the sound. I went upstairs and found the knee wall space doors had blown wide open. Canadian air was blowing right through the house. Thank god I had a roll of duct tape on hand. I went down to inspect the furnace found the exhaust leak, taped it over with metal tape. Then noticed the plenum didn't fit the furnace. There was a 1.5" open gap at the back with warm air just blowing out into the crawlspace. I used most of the roll of metal tape on that temp fix.

It is amazing to me how many people are careless and have no second thoughts as to how or who it affects

 

[begreen]

Most of the problems with our house came from a yuppie remodel in 1984. They were artists and left it up to locals to bring their vision of changing an old farm house into an art gallery for their collections. They took all trim and molding of of every room and modernized it with slabs of sheetrock. That was bad enough, but the contractors were the type to make mistakes, then bury them behind walls and trim. The artists didn't last a year in the house, too rural for them and they moved back to the city leaving the house terrorized and without soul. We bought the house 10 years later after more eccentricities were added and no one wanted to buy the house. I spent the first 6 months with a crowbar pulling out nonsense and rebuilding quality back into the house. We've been restoring details ever since.

 

[Willkellysims]

I have another question, as I am sitting here staring at my fireplace. if we remove the hearth piece and do I simple diy to make it look good until our new replacement, then the firebox (not sure if that's right.., the place wood goes) is still above the floor at least a foot. Will I "reface" that space between the box and floor?

 

[Willkellysims]

Most of the problems with our house came from a yuppie remodel in 1984. They were artists and left it up to locals to bring their vision of changing an old farm house into an art gallery for their collections. They took all trim and molding of of every room and modernized it with slabs of sheetrock. That was bad enough, but the contractors were the type to make mistakes, then bury them behind walls and trim. The artists didn't last a year in the house, too rural for them and they moved back to the city leaving the house terrorized and without soul. We bought the house 10 years later after more eccentricities were added and no one wanted to buy the house.

That's horrible. We bought our home because the previous owners truly did love their home and it loved them. You could just feel it. The wife passed away ten years ago and the house became to much for one old man. Then my family came in and the house isn't use to all its use I don't think lol

 

[HammerheadC4]

To the op:
1. Hearth extension is typically supported by reinforced concrete that is cantilevered out from under the hearth. What you have there is structurally unsound. Masonry is typically only cantilevered outwards 3/4" per each course. If you still intend to use this as wood burning fireplace, get a professional mason to review/repair.
2. If you intend to put freestanding stove in, get a professional builder or anyone else who knows proper wood frame construction to review the floor structure. Unfortunately, many times when a homeowner has self built and you find one thing done wrong, typically you'll find others. You might also check the wiring while you're at it.

If you can't get professionals on site, then educate yourself as much as possible. There are a lot of very good publications etc available. Your safety and that of your family is important...good luck.

I have worked in construction for over 35 years....Elmoleaf is spot on.

 

[Jo191145]

As a mason I can tell you that hearth is all wrong. Elmoleaf is correct. Building code requires a concrete pad with rebar to fully support the hearth. My brief lay mans explanation to home owners on the subject would go like this. "If your house burns down that hearth must still be connected to the fireplace". A joke that got me some strange looks over the years. Fortunately my reputation was better than my dark humor.

It's also not deep enough. 20" of extension is required for a fireplace of your size.

Most small town building inspectors know very little about building fireplaces in my expierience. It might be a good place to go for a recommendation though. Your gonna need a good mason to fix it. It's supposed to built to code wether you install an insert or not.

If it were me? I would suggest full demo of that hearth. Reframe your joists to the correct size. Build two 8" block piers up from your concrete cellar floor. Use. A sheet of dura rock as a form and pour concrete with rebar while also epoxying rebar pins into the existing masonry fireplace. Not a perfect solution but there is no perfect solution to fixing bad masonry.
Your cellar floor is not exactly the same base the fireplace rests upon but it's probably the most solid thing to support your hearth now.
Trying to attach a concrete hearth to be fully supported by the fireplace after the fact might work but if it doesn't all the work was in vain.

Also as elmoleaf suggested, hard to tell from pics. Seems they doubled the framing running across the hearth but didn't double the long joists supporting all that weight. Obviously not good.

Also, an insert with a full flexible liner up the flue would be safe. But I wouldn't recommend using that fireplace as is even with a fixed hearth. Bringing fire into and out of a wood structure is serious business. If the builder messed up that much just on the hearth I guarantee there are bigger, more dangerous mistakes you cannot see. I've seen them all at one time or other.

 

[Willkellysims]

As a mason I can tell you that hearth is all wrong. Elmoleaf is correct. Building code requires a concrete pad with rebar to fully support the hearth. My brief lay mans explanation to home owners on the subject would go like this. "If your house burns down that hearth must still be connected to the fireplace". A joke that got me some strange looks over the years. Fortunately my reputation was better than my dark humor.

It's also not deep enough. 20" of extension is required for a fireplace of your size.

Most small town building inspectors know very little about building fireplaces in my expierience. It might be a good place to go for a recommendation though. Your gonna need a good mason to fix it. It's supposed to built to code wether you install an insert or not.

If it were me? I would suggest full demo of that hearth. Reframe your joists to the correct size. Build two 8" block piers up from your concrete cellar floor. Use. A sheet of dura rock as a form and pour concrete with rebar while also epoxying rebar pins into the existing masonry fireplace. Not a perfect solution but there is no perfect solution to fixing bad masonry.
Your cellar floor is not exactly the same base the fireplace rests upon but it's probably the most solid thing to support your hearth now.
Trying to attach a concrete hearth to be fully supported by the fireplace after the fact might work but if it doesn't all the work was in vain.

Also as elmoleaf suggested, hard to tell from pics. Seems they doubled the framing running across the hearth but didn't double the long joists supporting all that weight. Obviously not good.

Also, an insert with a full flexible liner up the flue would be safe. But I wouldn't recommend using that fireplace as is even with a fixed hearth. Bringing fire into and out of a wood structure is serious business. If the builder messed up that much just on the hearth I guarantee there are bigger, more dangerous mistakes you cannot see. I've seen them all at one time or other.

Wow, thank you so much for all of this good info!! I can't get enough. Its so nice that everyone is consistent and agreeable with eachothers advice. It helps so that when we get someone out here if they try blowing smoke at me, I can ask the right questions and make sure they aren't some Jo who "worked" from a temp agency once every other winter. It had been suggested to us that an insert with flexible liner would be an option, so glad to hear you reconfirm. We really just want this hearth gone, and then I am leaving the rest of the work to the professionals.
Also, your spot on with the joist running across, we didn't see or understand its importance in the inspection report, but we got it out and went through it again last night and it states the joists are not correctly spaced and now explains why our floor bounces in the room the fireplace is in.
Pandora's box... Lol. I just wanted to remove that big bulky piece...so it didn't fall through the floor and one of my boys don't end up with stitches in their head if they fell into it, but homeowner ship has bigger plans for me!! Ha
Your help is tremendous and appreciated. Thank you.

 

[jamus34]

I found the oil tank the next summer. By then the sellers were out of state.

wow...I'm pretty sure in NJ that would be a lawsuit, especially if you can prove they knew about the tank. Over here underground storage tanks (UST) are such a toxic issue (no pun intended) that most RE lawyers will push buyers away from a house that has an UST even if it is decommissioned. We had a decommissioned oil tank at the house we purchased last year; we can to an agreement with the seller we would pay for the removal however they would be responsible for remediation if the tank leaked at any point. It wasn't an ideal solution for us but it worked out as we really liked the house, wanted the tank removed but wanted to have some insurance if it every leaked.