Fireplace opening higher than lounge floor level

[Missnearlyvintage]

Hi everyone,

We're having a back boiler in our lounge removed which is currently in the fireplace opening. There is an obsolete gas fire which sits in front of it and is suspended about 10cm up from the lounge floor with skirting running underneath it.

In an ideal world I'd like to leave the fire place open once the boiler is gone and make a feature out of it, maybe adding a small gas stove in the future when funds allow if we can find one that's little enough to fit in the gap.

We've realised though that the bottom of the fire place opening is about 13cm above the concrete floor of the lounge, and it can't be brought down to the level of the lounge floor without disturbing the damp proof course (which runs high in the house).

Our local fire/surround showroom has said that hearths are usually only around 5cm tall, which would mean another 8cm section of wall before the fire place floor if we just left that as concrete, even more if it was tiled etc.

Does anyone have this set up or have any ideas? I don't really want a stove/ fireplace that look like it's suspended in the wall or has skirting underneath it, so I don't know if we can disguise this change in height or whether the idea of opening up the fireplace isn't realistic?

Any thoughts or ideas welcome! Thank you!!

I'd love to help you with this but I'm having difficulty picturing it. Can you post a photo?

Sorry, here’s a picture of the gas fire front not touching the floor - it hangs off of the wall, and the hole behind it in the chimney breast is a couple of centimetres higher than the bottom of the fire... it will only ever be a small hole in the chimney breast behind as well as there are cupboards in the room behind which make up the width of the chimney breast and make it look super wide!

I would just leave the hole inset with the skirting underneath and a slab in the hole for a hearth.

Could you make a feature out of it? The hearth doesn't necessarily need to be on the floor.

www.houzz.co.uk/photo/2326314-san-rafael-mid-century-modern-living-room-san-francisco

www.houzz.co.uk/photo/395888-retro-family-room-contemporary-family-and-games-room-minneapolis

This is nice goo.gl/images/912GkL

Are you sure the bit under the current fire can't be removed? We had a gas fire like that removed and just removed the added brickwork to bring it back down to th floor. You might not be able to tell if it will be a problem until the fire has gone.

Yeah, I'd just have a fire that's set into the wall like this www.directstoves.com/christon-700-inset-wood-bunring-stove.html

Something like this would work. You could use a lighter slab if that's too dark.

Thank you everyone. It's great to have other people's opinions and there's lots that I'd not considered. In my head my favourite fire places are the traditional looking ones with pretty wooden or cast iron surrounds, and a nice large opening, but alas, I don't think it's meant to be in our slightly ugly 1970s boxy house! Especially not on our kind of budget!

As SoupDragon has said, I think I'll have to wait until the back boiler is removed to really see the state of everything, and work out what can be done fairly cheaply/easily, and without disturbing things too much. This bit of renovating wasn't in the plan for about another 5 years as it's the pipework in the concrete floor, and not the back boiler that's breaking, so it's caught us by surprise and we don't have the funds to do a lot of work to it now. We can't justify re-piping the ground floor and connecting it to the back boiler though, as the end goal is to move the boiler elsq where anyway, and then we'd have to pay more costs to move the pipework again, so best to get it all done and get the boiler in it's final position.

I did go into our local fireplace/stove shop to ask them about what might be possible and walked out feeling sick at the prices of everything, so I think it'll just have to be an opening in the chimney breast for a while with the skirting underneath and possibly a mantel shelf on top which we can fit ourselves. I'm hoping the original bricks will clean up okay, and I'll do some research about how to stop drafts coming down the chimney in the meantime as the winds howls down at the moment on windy days. We don't have a cowl fitted though, just a little metal flue top thing from the back boiler flue, so I should imagine that's not helping.

Thanks again, it really helps to get other people's opinions.

We just excavated a fireplace for a woodburner using this site, list of good advice here www.stovefittersmanual.co.uk/

Obviously the link is for a wiodburner but the structural information on chimneys is still the same