Masonry Fireplaces – Cottonwood Modern

I am trying to keep pace with the progress that is going on at the Cottonwood Modern house but ironically, it’s going so fast that I barely have enough time to put together some information before it gets covered up.

I thought I would try to introduce you to the fireplaces we have on this project – sounds pretty formal but really this is about seeing what’s behind the wall rather than  just the finished version of the fireplace that you might see in your favorite shelter magazines. Eventually, I’m sure I will get around to having a few finished photos of the final enclosed fireplace, but not today.

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The fireplaces we are using on this project are all real wood burning fireplaces, although I’m not sure how much real wood is going to be burned indoors. In all, there are 4 fireplaces on this project – two are located inside the home (in air-conditioned space), one is located in a covered exterior patio, and the fourth is being built out at the pool pavilion. All of these fireplaces are pre-manufactured kits produced by Isokern – a Danish company that uses Icelandic volcanic stone to form the individual pieces – shipped to the site disassembled and put together on site by the masons. The fireplace in the picture above is located in the Great Room and is low and wide. It’s hard to tell the scale from this photo (since there are so few things to indicate size) but the clear opening where the fire will burn will is 6′-0″ wide and approximately 20″ tall. Part of the reason we are using Isokern fireplaces on this project (on most of our projects actually) is that we like the scale of the opening where the fire will be built.

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This is the fireplace in the Playroom  and is a better indication of a typical fireplace opening – 3′-6″ wide by 4′-0″ tall.

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This is the fireplace that is located in the covered patio. Since I tend to do some of my job site visits on the weekend, I had my daughter with me and she was kind enough to agree to sit in the fireplace for me to provide some scale. (How do you like her job site shoes?)

One of the reasons we really like using these modular fireplaces is that they are quick to install (generally less than a day each) and  are very cost-effective. Each one of these fireplace kits, plus installation, runs approximately $5,500. Pretty good for true wood burning fireplace of this size.

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One of the things that we include on all of our chimney installations is a fresh air intake. In the houses that people my age grew up in, there were air leaks throughout a typical house – windows, doors, through vents – I’m talking air leaks everywhere. Things have changed and while we don’t really consider air leaks to be a good thing, it did allow for those old fireplaces to draw air a lot better. This meant that when you burned a fire, the smoke went up the chimney and not into the room where the fireplace was located.

Since modern homes are constructed much tighter than they used to be, the fireplaces don’t draw as well. That’s where the fresh air intakes come in. If you look at the picture above, you can see on the left-hand side, the small 3″ flexible metal flue. This is where we get our fresh air.

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This is what the fresh air intake looks like in the fire-box. Pretty small and located at the bottom of the fire-box, there is a sliding vent that you open when using your fireplace that draws air from outside to feed your wood burning fire.

Yes, it’s that simple and we have recently started to see municipalities making the installation of these intakes mandatory. We weren’t required to install these in the city where the Cottonwood Modern house is getting built, but we think it’s a good idea so it has become a standard detail in our office.

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A look at where the metal flex pipe enters the fire-box from the side – it isn’t pretty but it gets the job done and you’ll never see it once everything gets put in place.

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In all of the fireplaces we have 4″  wide x 9″ long x 2″ tall cream splits in a herringbone pattern … except the fireplace in the Great Room where we have a running bond pattern to accent the horizontality of the fireplace. “Splits” are basically solid bricks  that are laid on their edge with a minimal amount of mortar and they are responsible for providing a decorative finish to the interior of the firebox and also acting as a refractory – pushing the heat back out into the room. These splits come in different colors and cost around $1.60 per brick.

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I thought I would end of this post with a look into the Great Room. This is a large room and a regular sized fireplace would have looked ridiculously small in here. The end of this room – the part that is completely open in this picture – shall remain open as this is one of the cantilevered glass boxes with floor to ceiling glass.

Should be pretty nice when it done.

Cheers,

Bob

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