The Fireplace - Part Two

In this post we will start again with the adding of the stone.  In my past posts about installing the stone veneer on various projects, I installed metal mesh before adding mortar to the stone.  Since I have cinder block for the bottom portion of the fireplace, I did not add mesh because the stone will stick to the surface since it is already irregular and porous. The only difference when adding the stone is that you should wet the cinder blocks with water first.  This is because the dry cinder blocks will otherwise soak up all the water in the mortar and it will not cure and hold properly.  Below you can see the progress on the stone for the lower part of the fireplace.  I am still cutting each stone to make a tight fit so it took probably close to 35 hours to do all the stone.

Since the top half of the fireplace is still wood covered in tar paper, I added mesh so the rest of the stone would stick to it just like I did on all my other columns.  You will notice in the picture below that there are pavers being placed for the hearth.  I am using two levels of pavers instead of pouring a solid concrete slab to keep the weight down.  The pavers will be covered with a fiber reinforced concrete in the future so it will still look like a solid slab when I am done but it will be half the weight.  The pavers are mortared in place and since they are concrete as well, they will attach to the cinder block and will not be moving anytime soon.  I also added welded wire mesh between the layers of pavers to help if any settling does occur and to reinforce the area for seating.  

Originally I planned to just leave the inside of the firebox the cinder block and then paint the interior with black high heat paint.  Since the fireplace was turning out so well I decided that I really needed to finish the inside of the fireplace in brick to make it look even better.  Most fireplaces use firebrick which is more of a ceramic than a brick to hold up to the high heat of wood fires.  Under repeated high heat, a normal brick deteriorates and will eventually crumble.  Since this fireplace is only natural gas, the temperature does not get hot enough to deteriorate regular brick.  I decided to use a blonde thin brick that resembles fire brick.  This brick is only 1/2” thick so it is made for decoration and is actually cut from the face of a full size brick.  This type of brick is normally around $15 a square foot. To do my fireplace I needed about 40 square feet so it was going to be quite expensive.  I found a guy on craigslist that sold me some leftovers he had for a little over $1 a square foot.  I paid $45 for all of it.  Below was my great haul laid out on the floor in a herringbone pattern.

It turned out to be a little tricky to install the brick.  I used mortar again but had to wet the cinder block and the bricks to keep the mortar from drying out too fast because both materials were so porous.  I also had to take very precise measurements because with this pattern if the bottom row is slightly crooked, each row above it gets a little more off until it is all messed up. In the below picture you can see the back completed and all the cuts I had to make everything fit. 

I waited a day for the back to fully cure before I started on the two other sides.  The bottom of the firebox will be covered in sand so I did not add brick to the bottom. Below is the final product of all the brick work.  It turned out real well but turned out to be quite the task.   

For the fireplace I really wanted to have decorative molding but was having trouble figuring out what to do.  I had seen moldings made out of Styrofoam and then covered in stucco but they are a fortune and I really wasn’t sure how well they would hold up in Colorado weather.  I was reading online about making fountains out of concrete and I realized that the same technique could be used in my project so I decided to try and make the moldings out of fiber reinforced cement.  The cement is called Quickwall by Quickrete.  This stuff may be my new favorite building material as I am finding so many uses for it!  I first made a pattern as to what I wanted the molding to be.  I gave this to my brother who went to my Dad’s sheet metal shop and made a mold for me. I had my brother make the mold longer than I needed so that I could change the length of the piece each time depending on what I needed.  In the below picture you will see the small mold I had made.  I cut pieces of metal to fill in the ends and left extra metal so I could use clamps to hold it together.  Since I would need to make almost 20 pieces of the small molding, I wanted to be able to re-set the mold quickly.  

I only had one mold, so every night after work I would make a new piece.  I started by spraying the inside of the mold with vegetable oil.  This would help me remove the concrete once it started to harden.  The concrete I mixed to a very thick constituency almost equal to toothpaste.  I would then fill the mold half way with concrete and then tap the sides and bottom to make all the air bubbles float to the surface.  I would then add the second half of the concrete and smooth out the top.  The next day I would pull out the casting and then re-set the mold to make another piece.  Here is a pile of pieces I had already cast.

Since these pieces were longer than what I needed and would not have perfectly squared edges on the ends, I ran them through my wet tile saw to cut everything straight.  I also cut some pieces at 45 degree angels to miter the corners.  These pieces were then attached by using mortar and held in place with braces until the mortar dried.  Below is a picture of the smaller pieces installed.  There are gaps between the pieces that will be filled in with more mortar in the future to make it look like grout lines. 

The next step was for me to cast the larger pieces of molding for the fireplace.  Again like the last mold, I made a template and my brother folded up the metal for the form.  Because these pieces would be much larger (almost 40 pounds each), I needed to create a different type of mold.  Because the weight of the concrete would bend the mold slightly if it was unsupported, I needed to create an additional form for the mold to sit in to the mold would stay exactly the same for each casting.  I did this by creating a wood frame that was a little larger than the metal.  This piece of molding was to have a large arch in the middle so I needed to make sure it was supported.  I did this by placing a piece of plastic over the back of the mold and then setting it in the frame.  The next step was to fill the void that was created with expandable spray foam so that the material would expand to the unique shape and give support.  Once the foam dried I cut the excess foam away and it gave a very sturdy backing for my mold.  You can see the completed mold below.  

After I had created many of the smaller castings, I found that it would be helpful if I could reduce the weight of the larger castings and also create an easier way to attach them to my fireplace.  First of all, I started using large blocks of high density foam to stick in the center of the mold.  This reduced the weight quite a bit but did not reduce the strength since they were encapsulated in the fiber reinforced cement.  Below you can see a picture of a cut-away on one of the pieces where you can see the foam. 

 The next change was that I added five inch bolts to the back of the casting while it was wet.  I added a large washer on the top of the bolt to help it grab better in the cement and then buried about half of the bolt in the wet cement.  You can see this in the pictures below. 

My brother then helped me lift the heavy pieces in place with mortar on the back of the pieces.  We pre-drilled holes for the bolts to go through the fireplace and then attached washers and nuts to the back side to not only help support the piece while the mortar dried but to also be the main anchor point.  Below you can see all the pieces mounted.  You may also note that some of the pieces are cut long.  This was so I could grind the extra cement away to make the contour of the ends match the adjoining pieces.  

After the main mantle was installed, I continued to work on the stone for the rest of the fireplace.  Since there is a curve towards the top, I had to cut each stone by hand with a slight angle so that it would look correct on both sides.  You will also notice in the below picture, that once the point on the chimney is reached where there is no curve, I had to make sure that all my lines of stone lined up so it looked like one level all the way around.  This wound up being no easy task since there is no standard width to any of the stone and I had to account for the difference in the prior few rows so it would look correct when I got to that point. 

In the above picture you will see that I attached the top molding a little differently.  Since there is no stone above the molding, I would not have any extra pressure to help hold the stone in place.  For this I attached a metal edge to sit the concrete molding on.  I also embedded some metal straps into the concrete while it was drying so that I could screw it into the top of the frame.  The top of the fireplace is actually covered with a piece of galvanized metal to keep rain and snow out and I sloped the top towards the back for the water runoff.  Here is an up-close picture of the mounting that gets covered up by mortar and stone so it isn't even noticeable.

Unfortunately I did not really take many pictures of the inside workings of the fireplace as I was building it.  I made a cardboard template of the top of the fireplace opening and had my brother make a chimney cap to funnel the heat.  I then cut a hole on the top of the cap and ran metal flexible flue liner up through the top of the fireplace and attached a vent to the very top of the fireplace.  The flue liner directs all the heat out of the top but also keeps all the heat away from any of the wooden parts of the fireplace.  I will build a decorative cap to cover this up at a later point.  In the below picture you can see the metal vent.

The back of the fireplace has since been covered with a coat of fiber reinforced cement to match the rest of the fireplace.  Once it gets warmer I will paint it a color that will match the stone but since it is only seen from the street, I did not go to the trouble of putting stone on the back.  There will also be an access hatch on the back so I can get to the gas line and also use it for storage of outdoor torches and such.

There is still the task of covering the paver hearth with the fiber reinforced cement and grouting in the gaps between the cement castings, but that will all happen this summer when it is warmer.  You will see that everything is now cleaned up and I also finished grinding all the moldings to the right contours in the corners.  I am really happy with how it turned out and just wait until you see how it works with the pergola I am building on this side of the house.  I figure between my brother and I, we spent about 75 hours on this fireplace with most of it being the stone and brick work.  My schedule shows me completing this part of the yard in the very early summer so keep watching for updates soon.  So I will leave you with a few pictures of the (almost) finished product.

Completed Project Updates

Last night I started writing a long overdue post for part two of the fireplace.  I visited my blog to see where I left off and realized that of all the posts I have posted, it seems like I never show the finished project.  This post is to recap a few smaller projects from the last few months as well as the finished product from other projects. I will give the part two fireplace update in the very near future. 

Back Yard

In the last post about the back yard, I left off right after the grading was completed and the retaining wall was installed.  When the grading was completed, the sprinkler system was no longer going to be usable and it was going to need re-designed.  I added two zones and fitted them with special rotor heads that would allow me better control of the watering area and the amount of water used.  It turned out being quite a bit of work to dig down deep enough to run the pipes so that when I aerate the yard the knives do not puncture the pipe.  The soil here has a ton of clay in it so it is tough to dig in.  Below you can see some pictures of my sprinkler system as I was installing it.

I also finished the retaining walls by adding stone columns on either end of the wall.  I created these columns a little differently because they will be more exposed to weather.  Instead of making the base of the column out of wood, I made the columns out of aluminum studs and cement board so there is no chance of the elements deteriorating the columns over time.  I then added the stone the same way as I have on all the rest.  Below are pictures of that process.  

For the column caps I did something a little different.  I wanted the look of concrete but did not want the weight on the top of the column as the cap would weigh over 200 pounds.  I instead used high density foam insulation.  After I cut the insulation to the size I wanted, I coated it with cement bonding adhesive.  The solution looks a lot like Elmer’s glue but is used to bond new concrete to existing concrete. 

Once the bonding agent had dried, I then coated the entire surface with fiber reinforced cement.  This material is called Quickwall by Quickrete and is used to smooth out cement walls.  Once the cement dried it looked just like a solid cement slab.  

I then decided I wanted to add some landscape lighting to the underneath side of the caps to show off all the stone work I did.  I found some waterproof LED light strip on e-bay and paid $8 for a 30 foot roll.  

The lights run off of 12 volt DC current.  I wanted to add the lights to my existing landscape lighting but the system is 12 volt AC current so they are not compatible.  To fix this I purchased 10 bridge rectifiers off of eBay for $1.50.  I soldered the rectifier into the wire leading to my landscape system and it converted the AC current into DC current so it could work correctly.  To make the lights sit flush with the bottom of the cap I used a soldering iron to melt a groove in the foam to sit the LED strip in.  Below is a picture that shows the caps installed and the lights working.

My brother and I also added metal edging to the entire yard and used nine yards of mulch to fill in the flower beds.  We laid down black plastic to keep weeds from growing through the mulch.  A lot of people use weed barrier which is a fabric that allows water through.  I have found that plastic really works better for me since I use a drip system for my plants so water goes to the base of every plant and I find the weed barrier does not really stop many weeds.  

The last step was to add sod to the back yard.  I did not want to go to the trouble of adding seed to grow grass so I found a guy online that sells sod in Parker and it is really cheap.  I spent about $400 but it was for 1,200 square feet of sod which was 120 rolls.  It actually took me three trips to get it all because it was almost 7,000 pounds. Below are the pictures of the sod installed. 

I also had a lot of pots around my back yard and up until the golf ball sized hail hit my house, the back yard looked real good.  Here are a few pictures of that along with the hail that mutilated everything. 

Window Re-Cap

The last post on the windows ended before the trim was installed.  I used exterior trim and framed out the windows to give a little more character to the back of the house.  It was so hot during the day that I would work on them after dark so it was more bearable.

Here is the finished product.

I also framed out the inside of the windows as well using a different type of trim.  They still need painted but I will do that when I re-do the family room in the next few weeks.

I also replaced the garden window in my kitchen because it was falling apart and really didn't match the house.  I removed the window and replaced it with a new sliding vinyl window.

I am getting pretty good at replacing windows so this only took me a couple hours.  Here is the finished product.  

I sold the old window on Craigslist for $40 to someone who needed some parts off of it to fix his window that was falling apart. 

Patio

When we last left off with the patio cover, I was working on the ceiling. I wanted to do something special with the ceiling of the patio to make it seem like more of a living room.  I used 4 foot wide by 9 foot long sheets of flake board I found on Craigslist for the ceiling.  I wanted a stucco type look so I used a paint called DeckOver which is basically paint with sand in it.  It is used for coating old splintery decks so it looks solid again and fills in cracks.  You use a special roller for it and it gives a cool stucco texture.  It can be tinted any color and to do my 9 foot by 20 foot patio it took seven gallons.  I then did a top coat of regular paint just to fill in some of the small holes it leaves.  My brother then helped me install the panels because a huge 60 pound sheet of wood is hard to install over your head by yourself. 

I decided I really wanted the patio to feel more like an outdoor living room.  To do this I added four LED can lights and also wired in ceiling speakers so I can hear my home audio system outside.  I also added a switch on these speakers so I can re-route the sound to speakers buried in the ground over by my fireplace. 

The last step was to cover the seams with trim and to make the ceiling have a coffered look.  I used the same wood trim that was used around my windows but I painted it a dark color to contrast it.  It turned out really well and you can see the result below. 

Well that is all for the update this time.  I will have an update on part two of the fireplace soon.  I have also started major parts of the interior renovation so posts about that will begin soon. 

  

The Fireplace is Taking Shape - Part One

So it has been awhile since the last update and I really have been trying to complete small tasks around the house so there have not been many large projects to report on.  One huge project I have been working on is my outdoor fireplace. Since this project is so big, there will be two parts.  Below are the details for the first part of the project.  

My brother and I have been working for the last 6 weeks or so building a full outdoor fireplace and it is really starting to take shape.  This is no small fire pit, but a full outdoor fireplace to create an outdoor living room.  Below you will see a 3D rendering of what I am trying to do.  It has changed slightly but the main parts are the same.  A pergola will be attached to the top of the beams but I did not draw them in for this picture. The round circle below the ground level is where my window well is located going into the basement.  

We started with a huge open dirt lot on the side of my house that originally housed two cars in a temporary shed when I bought the place.  Below is what I started with for the dirt lot.  This picture was after we moved a ton of dirt over to this area because it sloped down very steep originally and we graded it slightly.

So we could make sure that the dirt was compacted, we drove my truck over the area many times.  My brother blared the song “Redneck Yacht Club” while I did it just so the neighbors knew our intentions.  I am sure it solidified the perception my neighbors have of me as being crazy.  The next step was to make the frame for the cement pad.  The pad is about 14 feet long by 8 feet wide and the depth is a little over 4 inches thick.  Inside the frame we added welded wire mesh as well as rebar just to add support to the concrete to keep it from breaking since there will be quite a bit of weight with all the stone and cement used.  You can see this below. 

There really was not enough concrete needed to require a cement truck, so we used a little over 40 bags of concrete from Home Depot and mixed it all by hand in a wheelbarrow.  Here is the picture after the concrete was poured. The rebar sticking up in the corners is to go through the first level of cement block to help tie the blocks to the cement pad.

The next step was to add the cement block for the base since I wanted this fireplace to be strong enough where multiple individuals could sit on the hearth and it would not have any problems structurally.  We used a little over 130 cement blocks for the construction so we were pretty sore the day after we laid them all.  The corners were filled with cement up to the top so that it would add extra strength because the fireplace is also used as a retaining wall for the new patio area.  The blocks were laid three high but only two blocks will be visible above the ground. 

In the picture below, you will see blocks laid in the center of the cement pad.  This is to hold up the concrete slab that will be the bottom of the firebox. 

The slab of concrete is used for under A/C units and weighed a little over 200 pounds.  In the picture below you can see the pad along with the walls around the firebox taking shape. 

Once this was all in place, it was time to start the rest of the structure for the fireplace.  The frame was made from aluminum studs so that they would not rust.  The frame pictured below is screwed into the concrete and blocks with concrete anchors so it will not be going anywhere anytime soon.

We then started adding the sheathing on top of the metal frame.  This is the same exterior sheathing that I used on the columns on the front of the house.  I also used a piece of cement board for the center above the fireplace just in case the fireplace ever gets real hot, but since it is only a gas fireplace it should never get very hot.  I then added drainage around the front of the fireplace because water does drain down in front of the fireplace and I do not want it causing the fireplace to shift from water.  This drainage is the same as used in a few prior posts for the retaining wall and such.  You can also see in the below pictures where the ground level has now been brought up to the final height and now one level of cement block is below ground level. 

I then added the top portion of the fireplace.  In the pictures below you can see how I cut the metal studs to form the arch and attached the wood so it would match the curve. 

The next step was to cover the entire structure with roofing tar paper to keep out the water.  There is a minimum of three layers on the entire structure but some areas have as many as six layers just to be safe. 

Here is a picture of the area once the dirt has been leveled and some landscape lights added. This area will be covered in pavers next summer.

My brother and I are much further along with this project but since this post is getting long I will hold off on any more details and make that part two.  I will tease you with a picture of where I am at with the project so far and stay tuned for the details in the next week or so.  It really is turning out well.

  

Keep watch for the next update where I will show how I completed the brick and stone work along with how the concrete moldings for the fireplace were made by my brother and I. Well that is all for now.