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How to repair a damaged brick fireplace?

Old fireplace will no longer be used as a wood burning fireplace but has an electric wood look alike pot belly. Fireplace in dining room has lovely tiny profile bricks on surround that previous house owners have damaged by drilling holes in bricks to attach large modern tiles and smashed edges of bricks. Looking at cheapest options to improve myself maybe render and using some sort of beading on broken brick corners. Suggestions welcome.

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KatieC

Hi @judith48,

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community! It is wonderful you have joined and thank you for asking about repairing your fireplace. Our resident D.I.Y. expert @EricL will be able to assist you as soon as he can so let me also tag in our great Workshop members @Dave-1, @Jimi and @craftyhopper to check if they have any suggestions. In the meantime, I recommend giving this Best Advice article How do you clean a fireplace surround a read to get your fireplace prepped for its makeover.

I think your transformation will be great whether you decide to render or to showcase the existing brickwork. We would love to see the outcome with photos when you are finished. We hope you continue to find Workshop to be a great source of inspiration and advice, please do not hesitate to ask further questions along your D.I.Y. journey.

Katie

Dave-1

Good Afternoon @judith48

My first thought was render it. Second thought was have you rendered before? I havnt but it looks like a nice projet to have a go at. I would suggest to practice on a brick or two first just to get a feel of howrender is applied. I have my front retaining wall that I have to repair and am dreading and looking forward to having a go at the render.

Looking at your photos I dont mind the fractured edge of the bricks, it adds character and Id be tempted to highlight them in some way even. If you went down the path of leaving as is and maybe using a light mounted inside the old fireplace pointed downwards I would hit the edge of the bricks with a wire brush and scrub hard to remove any flaky bits first. That Green rawl plug can be wiggled out if you are lucky or worse case 1/4inch (6mm ) drill bit to drill it out and then you could fill the hole.

Do you have a larger pick of the fireplace area by any chance? I do like the trowled edge of the bricks, its different and interesting.

Dave

EricL

Hello @judith48

Thanks for sharing your question about repairing your damaged brick fireplace. The images you've posted have given us a general idea of the damage, but would it be possible for you to take a step back and take another picture of the fireplace so that we can have a better overall idea just how far the damage extends and what the entire fireplace looks like.

Your proposal of rendering the damage is actually a good idea. But are the rest of the remaining damaged bricks loose and crumbling? Or are they still solidly stuck to the wall with adhesive? If you were to render that side of the fireplace, I would suggest removing any loose or broken pieces that are sticking out. Your goal is to have a flat surface that will require the minimum amount of render.

Once the damaged is fixed all that needs doing is to paint the render.

Here is a handy step-by-step guide: How to render

If you have any other questions we can help with, please let us know.

Eric

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