Fireplace Disaster

[Madge55]

Need a bit of help/guidance. Just had a wood burning stove put in. Good job , workman did a good job , EXCEPT I went for a rustic looking mantel with no surround, so basically just a plank of wood. Anyway I don't like it. It's too shallow whereas i wanted a bulkier looking mantel. It has just has ended up not how i had imagined. Ignoring the detail of why or who to 'blame' for the final job....mine really.....how difficult would it be to remove and just put a surround in or a nicer/better mantel? Someone who has some experience of doing this recently would be much appreciated. The plank of wood (mantel) is fixed with some sort of iron bolt work and glued in on both ends, so to remove would wreck the plaster work again obviously but would it be, a complete disaster/major upheaval and very expensive to do ??

A picture of the current set-up would help!

Sorry its taken a while but got the pic uploaded eventually. I have had boxing it in suggestions but don't want it to look like a box on the wall either.

To me it looks too high for the actual hole , which actually looks pretty small - could you just have the hole made bigger .

Sorry but it doesn't look right the hole looks to small for the woodburner there min clearance round these as the heat is tremendous .
BIL put his own in literally shoehorned into small opening there wallpaper caught fire get it checked

That looks really dangerous. You need a much bigger hole. There has to be much more space all the way around. Best case scenario the heat will crack the plaster. Worse case, well I don’t want to say.

What make of wood burner is it? If you look on line it may give you the minimum clearance measurements required for safety.

Once you get that rectified you can make a decision re the mantle.

If the fireplace and surrounding wall are a non-combustible material (brick, stone etc) then there’s no requirement for the fireplace recess to be of any particular size - though it’s recommended to have at least 150mm around the sides and back of most woodburning stoves, for performance purposes. Yours looks like it might just make that.

I think the main reason it looks weird is it’s not finished. Once the wall is properly painted and skirted with furniture in place it won’t look quite so out of place and the wooden beam will look more like a mantle.

Could you add sort of wooden brackets below the mantle to match it? Think we have 3”or 4” clearance round our stove.

I often think a mantel shelf looks odd if it is just floating in mid air & doesn't seem to be held up by anything.

if you want to make it all look more finished, you could put a plywood 'surround' covering the bit that currently looks like pink plaster. And then paint it a different colour from the wall, so that it goes with the fireplace and not with the wall.

Nice cast iron brackets either end of the mantle so it’s not ‘floating’? And something vertical on the hearth on one side to frame the fireplace a bit? (Fire irons in a nice stand? Tall vase with twigs/foliage?)

We’ve just been through this exact thing! However painting putting up a mirror and bits on the mantle have made it look how I pictured.

I have a 'floating' style mantel, it's very chunky and looks good now that the surrounding wall and inner fireplace has been finished to my liking. There are regulations about airflow and hearth size, yours looks a little short on width gap, you could check online about that. But photos can be deceiving.

As PPs have says that definitely doesn't look as if it meets the building regs? Were they HETAS registered. That doesn't look safe at all.

www.stovefitterswarehouse.co.uk/pages/regulations-for-wood-burning-stoves

Agree with pps. Your hole looks way too small. Firstly for safety as it looks like it is surrounded by plasterboard which is combustable secondly for performance, it needs space around it to let the heat out of the recess.

I would get the installation checked by a different professional.

Agree with other posters, hole too small and mantle is odd as it is floating.

I also think it looks like a plank rather than a chunky beam. I would get the hole bigger and new mantle installed- on the top of the hole not floating. This would have to be artifical wood to meet regs but they look very realistic and come in a huge array of sizes and colours.

Having had a load of chimney work done in the last few months by a lovely local company I'd say it'd be about £400/ 500 to sort including cost of new mantle.

If it's a real wood burning stove, I think the hole is too small and quite a fire hazard . Please check the manual for fitting instructions

This was the depth I was looking for for the mantel but it has been hung with the narrower aspect to the front. The installer has followed the building regs for the installation of the stove, surrounding material and distance, no plaster board or anything like that. The building regs people still need to come and inspect it on completion which should be in the next week or so, but I won't be using it until they see it.

The installer is well known in the area, used by local builders and highly respected.

@Madge55 the beam in your example picture is actually made from moulded resin. We have the same one and the ‘crack’ in the wood is in the exact same place. It hangs on the wall like on a bracket, like a picture. Maybe ask if they can come back and replace it with one of those. Ours was about £100 I think.

Thanks bytheseaseasea really wish I had opted for that !!

Thanks to all for your input. Much appreciated.

Please don't depend on the building regs, honestly from recent experience I've found that so long as it looks ok they don't really look too deep into a job before they pass it.
That space definitely looks too small around the stove. What clearance is there on top?

Honestly even if it’s safe it would look a lot better with a larger whole. That photo example you shared shows the gap going much higher up and then the mantel meeting it, which looks better imo.