amavadia

@willbish What is Woodhort Shapren? Dont seem to be able to see it online. The prices I have seen are about 10-15 per bag.

Thanks for that. Had a look at this stuff but its not particularly cheap to buy bags of this stuff either. Ill have to keep searching for an air vent solution I think

Hi @willbish, I will be doing some roofing mainly for this reason once i've decided to what to do. When you say cap it at the top, do you mean completely seal it or put a cowl which lets air in? If It is sealed from the top and bottom and filled does that mean you dont need to vent it on either end? Can you just cap the top and put a registry plate on the bottom without any vents and leave it empty inside?

To be honest i'm not too bothered about the flame, the Firefox 5 just looks so nice even when off whereas the electric ones like cheap and plasticy. It makes sense really because I may rent the place out later so one less safety concern.

Hi all I have a fireplace where I have taken out an old coal stove with back boiler, put a new slate hearth in, rebuilt one side and put a lintel in. Originally was going to put a Firefox gas stove in (which I had bought) but after getting quotes for someone to line the chimney and connect up the gas appliance i've decided to just put an electric one in ☹️. I was hoping to line it myself before finding out you have to get it done by the installer. So now I will just get an electric one but still want to make use of area i have prepared. Problem is there is still some rain and muck coming down. It is currently completely open at the top of the chimney (no pot either) so I can fit a cowl to the top to stop rain getting in, but not too sure what to do at the bottom. I will board the inside top face but read there should be an air vent to allow air to keep going through. If I put a vent, if any muck does come down it will just fall onto the electric fire / hearth. What do people normally do in this situation? I can only find advice for people who brick up the whole fireplace cavity and put a vent brick on the vertical wall whereas I need a solution for the horizontal top face. Thanks

Hi All I am renovating an old terrace house which currently has no ventilation in the kitchen. There are houses on either side and the windows on the other two walls go right up to the top and sides of the room. The solution I am putting in is to put vertical duct from the cooker hood, directly up through a new stud wall upstairs, up into the loft ant out of a ventilation tile. Anyone have any ideas of what I could use to keep this vertical run of ducting in place? Right now it is just a lose rectangle tube which would fall through to downstairs as it is not held anywhere. Cheers

Its not new. Yes I saw that bit but also thought it was a bit weird since the current one is 5" and fits in the spigot. Also most websites I've seen selling it say it takes a 125mm flue: https://www.stovesareus.co.uk/firefox-5-gas-stove.html

Does anyone know how to find the flue liner requirements are for a gas stove in terms of diameter? The black vitreous flue which came with the stove is 5" but I can't see anything in the installers manual linked above which talks about the size of the liner. Since the vitreous is 5" should the flue be 5" as well or does it need to be bigger? Thanks

I think that would need to be one unlucky person if they inhaled a single fibre and died from it. Clearly it’s dangerous and needs to be dealt with precaution but we breath fibres in all the time... break pads from old cars for example. I saw someone drilling into the soffits of their house on my road which are asbestos. I told them and they carried on doing it so again that is in the air. Clearly if abatement wasn’t so expensive I would have had it removed but the quotes I’ve had are in the thousands for a day’s work.

Yes it is chrysotile asbestos. The tiles come off relatively easily and can be disposed of at my local tip. But the problem is the cutback which is on there solid.

That’s easy to say when you personally are not the one who would have to fork out thousands of pounds. This thread is about which is the safer option, whether to leave or remove the tiles.

In situations where there are black asbestos tiles stuck down with asbestos cutback, is it better to screed over both the tiles and cutback with self levelling compound or remove the tiles first and screed over the cutback only? Will self levelling even adhere to the shiney surface of the vinyl tiles?

It goes under the wall and looks like they have put a clay conduit. Although not sure if that spans the whole horizontal run as I can’t see it. i tried feeding the 70cm piece of pipe I have in along side the black and it went in pretty easily. Might be worth just buying a roll and see how far it goes along side? Unhelpfully placed stopcock so I would have to break the concrete panel which Severn Trent fitted around it.

I’ve cleared some more space. I think enough to put a fitting on the end. But I also dug down inside the clay tube and got to the point where the pipe goes into its horizontal run to the front of the house. There seems to be some play in it and I can move it back and forth slightly (didn’t try too much) but it got me thinking about replacing it. But not sure if I actually attempted it it would be that straight forward and the pipe would just come out and allow me to feed a new one attached to the back of it? Other thing is at the front of the house where it connects to the severn Trent stopcock is concreted over and just in front of the door. Does anyone know how much they would charge to connect up a replacement pipe? Thanks

Probably live there a couple of years I'd say but apart from the break which was caused by me putting it under unreasonable strain, the rest of what I can see of the pipe is in decent condition. Also the line from the outside stopcock to the point where it comes up inside the house goes pretty much under the whole length of a load bearing wall. Tomorrow I will try dig some more workspace. Another problem though is it is not coming up completely vertically so even if I put a 90 degree on it, the connecting horizontal piece will be sloping downwards.

Yeah it’s a 21mm black . I will need to put an elbow in there. First thought was to deepen the channel but just wondering if there are other options first

Nightmare! I was working on moving the main internal stopcock about 30cm back so it will come up inside a pipe box/pillar I am going to make. I dug out a channel and was planning on lying the existing pipe down, not realising that it was coming up almost vertically from the ground so by pressing it flat I was making it bend almost 90 degrees. It looked like it was coming out the ground at about 45 degrees. First few times I pressed it down it was ok. Bit of resistance but I thought it just needed time to adjust to the new bend. Connected my elbow, new mdpe and new stop cock. Was about to cement it in and pressed it down once more to fit a jig to keep it down and I dent it go. So now I have a snapped off water pipe coming up in a clay tube. Any suggestions for a solution? I’ve dug out and exposed some of it in the tube to see a bit more. Thanks!

Wouldn't a tape melt near the opening under the fireplace?

In terms of the finish I think I'm decided on trying to cast the concrete block. If it doesn't turn out so good ill just tile it. I came across this thread where someone has cast a block. I really like the black colour before it dries. I will just try add lots of colour powder. http://www.likeacupoftea.com/our-dyed-concrete-hearth-lessons-learned/ The only open question I still have is about the type of conduit used. Researching online, it doesn't seem to be copper being in contact with concrete which is the problem, more when there is steel rebar/mesh, there is a galvanic corrosion happening between the two metals. I don't think I can avoid putting some reinforcement inside. Clearly can't use a plastic sleeving under a stove. Yesterday's gas safe engineer said to just use a larger copper pipe but not sure about it personally. I will contact some fireplace installation places and see what they say I guess.

Had a gas safe engineer round today. He said just put a piece of 22mm copper pipe in and he will feed an 8mm copper through it ?‍♂️

Which part? Using 8mm instead of 15, or running through a conduit? I dont have anyone lined lined up to do the gas work yet.

I was thinking last night... The gas pipe will come down that old water pipe channel to the right of the fireplace. The Firefox 5 gas inlet is right in the middle of the underside of the fireplace so the gas engineer will need to run the pipe from the channel to the fireplace centre. I would like this to be inside the concrete I cast so it can't be seen. So I will remove that last bit of a brick stack at the bottom in between the two, cut a channel in new bricks to be laid, and run some kind of conduit to the centre so the engineer can just feed the gas pipe through when fitting. The intake of the fireplace is 8mm so I assume it would be ok to run 15mm down the vertical channel, then reduce down to 8mm for that last 600mm or so? Or do you have to have 15mm right up to the inlet and then reduce it? I was thinking of just putting some 15mm copper pipe as the conduit so 8mm can just feed through it. But also not too sure if that is ok? I guess being under the fireplace, that would mean the copper outer pipe will heat up and the air in between the 8mm gas pipe and the outer 15mm will be hot while in operation too?

Thanks for the replies all. Hearthstones are out. I was going to leave to leave the original firebox slab but there was a huge step up so its all out now and level with the room. I will cast a concrete T. Good idea about the pigment, I was just looking into whether I might be able to polish after casting but looks like you need an actual polisher rather than an angle grinder that I have. I guess I will see how well the cast turns out with black pigment and then decide whether to leave it or tile it.

That sounds quite nice but I am carpeting the floor so I will have a bit of a step up. What kind of tiles did you use?

It does look good but I am literally redoing the whole house in one go and didn't really consider all the additional costs when I picked up the gas stove... chimney lining kit, fireplace lining, hearth etc, so just trying to keep them down wherever possible. I think some dark charcoal tiles would look quite good and I was thinking of having a tiled upstand of about 50mm which is the approx height inside the actual firebox. that way I don't need to remove it and can just take the old slabs off in front and cast a concrete slab for the new front part before tiling everything. Also allows me to chase into the slab for the small gas pipe to run because the Firefox 5 gas inlet is right in the centre of the underside. Is there a special kind of heat resistant grout for this kind of application or would normal grout be ok?