If your home is a historic building, there are many challenges that you are going to face when doing restorations. Often, old chimneys and fireplaces in these buildings are decaying fire hazards that are going to require their own restorations. The following options will help you choose the best chimney restorations for the needs of your home and to ensure it is safe and free of fire hazards:
Start With Restorations of Brick, Stone, and Masonry
The damage to the chimney is often visible on the exterior finishes of historic homes. Usually, these chimneys are made of masonry materials like brick and stone. Therefore, one of the first things that need to be done to restore the fireplace and chimney is repairs to the exterior masonry and other finishes around the chimney.
Consider Modern Inserts and Exhaust Flue Pipes
Sometimes, the interior of the fireplace may be too damaged to use again. Therefore, you may want to repair the materials to prevent further decay. Another option after repairs have been done is to use modern inserts and metal chimney exhaust flue pipes, which will allow you to restore the chimney with a modern fireplace that you can actually use during the coldest months of the year.
Have The Interior Of Your Old Fireplace and Chimney Stack Cleaned and Inspected
One of the things that you may want to have done is an inspection of the interior of your fireplace for damage and problems that need to be repaired. The first step is cleaning the interior of the chimney and then inspecting the historic materials. Old masonry and clay materials may need to be retrofitted or repaired to make them safe again when there is a fire in the fireplace.
Restoring The Interior Of Historic Chimneys and Adding Saftey Improvements
After cleaning and inspecting the interior of the chimney, you may decide that it is best to restore the historic materials. When the chimney restoration contractor does the repairs, you will also want to talk to them about improvements like installing a new flue and using replica materials to give the fireplace hearth a restored look.
These are some of the things that you will want to know about the restoration options for old chimneys and fireplaces. If you are not sure what you should do with an old fireplace when restoring your home, contact a chimney restoration service for professional help with these repairs and improvements.