Ive had a quote for labour charges of knocking an old tile fireplace out and putting a new complete fire and surround etc.
ive chose the fire and surround and the shop have a firm at high green who put it in.
at first the shop man said the labour cost would be around £180
but when the man came to measure it he said it would be £380 as i would need bricks and lintle.

is there anyone who knows if this is a fair quote.
thats all i want to know.
as i dont know much about fireplaces.

Originally posted by tara
Ive had a quote for labour charges of knocking an old tile fireplace out and putting a new complete fire and surround etc.
ive chose the fire and surround and the shop have a firm at high green who put it in.
at first the shop man said the labour cost would be around £180
but when the man came to measure it he said it would be £380 as i would need bricks and lintle.

is there anyone who knows if this is a fair quote.
thats all i want to know.
as i dont know much about fireplaces.

I would check to see if you do need a lintle.

If you put your hand up the chimney breast you should be able to feel it (part of the wall above the fireplace/chimney breast)

We recently took our fireplace out and put in an arched shaped cast iron surround.

We did it ourselves. It's a bit messy and dusty when you start knocking bricks out. The fire bricks you need are quite cheap not sure how much the linles are but I wouldn't imagine they cost that much.

All in all it saved us a quite a bit.

We did end up spending quite a lot on hearth tiles though as we got the ones with rounded edges, just over £100 but worth it in the end.

We got our fireplace and tiles from Pheonix fireplaces at broadfield. You could try there for some advice. i think we got the bricks and stuff from padgets.

thanks for info,
the complete package, surround and fire and hearth is costing
£739, -with victorian tile detail.
so with the £ 380 installation cost il be paying over £1,100.













7

Can anyone tell me what fireplaces were originally in the front rooms of typical Sheffield terraced houses? i.e. in a 1900ish front-door-into lounge type workers' terrace?

All the ones I've seen so far are not original. Mine is a fairly ghastly 1930s/50s beige tiled job. The chimney sweep said originally it would have been simply the brickwork fireplace hole with some sort of iron insert thing. Not really sure what he meant. Was there no surround at all? Does having a cast iron one in the bedrooms mean something similar was in the lounge?

The victorian-type ones you see in places like Replicas of Walkley look nice but are they too fancy in terms of what was originally there when these basic houses were built? In the bigger houses I've seen original fireplaces but not in the little terraces.

I don't fancy paying the best part of a grand for victoriana style if the original thing was just the brickwork with a simple grate.

It's highly unlikely that the original fireplace would have had tiled inserts. More likely to have been a plain cast iron one. Saying that, we've just had a stainless steel one fitted which isn't exactly in keeping with the period of the house. But hey, it's a small lounge and the extra room gained by not having a hearth is a bonus

Yeah, mine is definitely not original - being entirely made of horrible 1930s/50s brown tiles, not just tile inserts down the sides of a tasteful victoriana-style one.

But if they were originally just simple cast iron ones why do you never see them? If they were nice ones [like in the Manchester terraced house on the sleeve of Oasis 'Definitely Maybe' LP] then surely they would have been left in and you'd see them in houses all over town. Or was it the change to gas fires that enforced a change?

My chimney sweep said no, i wouldn't be likely to see a fireplace in its original state because there was basically nothing there in the first place, it was just a simple grate inside the brickwork fireplace hole. I'm sure there must have been some sort of surround though, surely.

Bilge, take a stroll up abbeydale rd. You'll find what you're looking for there. Yes, it was probably similar to, but bigger than, the bedroom ones. It may have been the sort that incorporates a shelf on the side for warming the iron.

PS. I'm not an expert, just somebody with more than a passing interest in house histories

Thanks Strix, I'll have a look. I was hoping it was one of those.

They're quite nice aren't they? I've not seen any reproductions of them though, so you'll probably need to investigate grit blasting it or something, when you find one second hand.

I think the tiled ones can be too overpowering in the wrong setting.