How to Demo a Fireplace

Rating (decode with the handy-dandy guide here)

• Time
• Money
• Tools
• Experience  
• Strength
• Risk
• Suckage  

The first step in Operation Level Floor (full vision here) was getting rid of this ugly fireplace.  For reference, the rest of floor is level with the piece of trim in the bottom left hand corner. This fireplace had to go in order to raise the floor up to level with the rest of the house. I wasn’t heartbroken by this, as fireplaces are out of style, super drafty, and cause your insurance premiums to be higher.

Tools:

• Claw hammer
• Trim prybar
• 3′ wrecking bar
• Contractor garbage bags
• Tin snips
• Safety glasses
• Ear plugs
• Bump cap (these are great when you’re clumsy and run into things a lot)
• Gloves

Step 1: Determine if the fireplace is structural

The first step in removing anything from your home NEEDS to be making sure it isn’t supporting something else. I checked a few areas to determine how this fireplace was installed. From the outside of the house I can see that it has a stove pipe chimney vs. a brick stack. This how-to walks through removing a fireplace like mine, NOT one that has structural brick! Another place I checked was the outside of my walls. This brick isn’t visible from anywhere outside, so I was reasonably certain it was a decorative touch added inside of the house only.

Step 2: Remove facade around fireplace front

Now that I was reasonably certain taking the fireplace out wasn’t going to make my house fall down, I started pulling off the facade. DIY shows always have them using a sledgehammer and wrecking everything. In reality, it’s worth it to take an extra step and carefully pull it down. It’s a lot easier to get rid of scraps of 2x4s vs completely shattered and splintered bits. I live in town, and I did not rent a dumpster so I wanted my waste to be as little as possible. I sorted the debris that came down into metal, inorganic (damaged brick, mortar, etc), gypsum, burn pile, and reusable (non-damaged lumber). Metal I tossed into the recycling bin. Inorganic can be used as fill material. Gypsum I bagged up with contractor bags to bring to the dump. I broke down wood in the burn pile so that I could easily burn it (again, I’m in town so my burn pile is backyard fire pit size, not summer evenings in the country burn pile). The salvageable wood I pulled nails out of and stacked in my garage.

I pried the beadboard off, and then used my hammer to whack the side of the plaster board. This gave me a hole I could start prying out of. I then alternated punching holes with the hammer, grabbing parts with my hands and wiggling, and using my pry bar to pull the edges loose. This left me with a wooden frame.

There wasn’t anything great to leverage against, so my pry bar wasn’t a lot of help here. We ended up having to whack some of these with a hammer until they splintered and then pull the pieces out and burn them. I only salvaged a few of these boards.

Step 3: Pull down the brick facade

Once I opened up the white facade on the fireplace, I realized the brick was only mortared to the paneling and didn’t need to be hammered out at all. This step was actually the easiest. We hooked the pry bar behind the top of the stack, and pulled the whole thing loose from the wall. It came crashing down, so some of the bricks were damaged, but I was able to salvage a lot of them! These bricks will become some backyard project once the ground thaws.

Step 4: Disconnect the fireplace from the chimney

To get the fireplace out I needed to disconnect it from the chimney. What I didn’t realize was that I had a double wall, 14″ OD stovepipe.  We tried popping the rivets, but it was a sticky mess so we were unsuccessful doing that. We ended up whacking it with a hammer until a hole formed in the outer pipe, and then cutting it away, and repeating on the inner pipe. We pulled that stovepipe out and threw it in the backyard.

Step 5: Get the fireplace out

Now that the fireplace was no longer framed in, bricked in, or connected to the chimney it was time to pull that booger out. It was REALLY heavy and there is zero chance I would have been able to get that out by myself. I utilized help and we walk/scooted it out the door and into the backyard. Bonus, its now my firepit!

Step 6: Seal and insulate the hole in the ceiling

I had two issues remaining: the chimney was still attached to the outside of the house, funneling frigid, Iowa air into my house, and there is a 2′ x 3′ hole in the ceiling that was previously covered by a fireplace, so I will need to do some drywall work down the line. It was December when I did this, so I couldn’t patch the roof (too cold for roofing tar). For now, I sealed the inside of the stove pipe with a bucket lid and spray foam, and held it with with a scrap 2×4 across it. They make proper stovepipe caps, but 14″ is abnormally large and both Menards and Lowes didn’t have them, so I had to improvise. This fix doesn’t need to last long term, it just needs to hold up until I can patch my roof this summer. The chimney has a cap that should keep rain, etc. out except in case of extreme wind, so moisture was not my concern. I temporarily insulated over this by stapling spare kraft paper insulation over the hole. Once I remove the last of the chimney and patch the roof, I will properly drywall this corner in. For now, its keeping the weather and the cold air out of my house.