Lehi · Utah County
Installing and Upgrading Fireplaces in Lehi
Installation work here splits neatly into two jobs that share almost nothing. Which one you have depends on whether your fireplace is older than your grandparents or younger than your car.
Job one: making a historic fireplace usable again
Plenty of homes near the older part of Lehi have a handsome original opening that nobody dares light. The masonry may be sound and the flue almost never is, because it was built for coal, sized for coal, and in many cases never lined.
The route back to a working hearth is normally a sealed insert with an insulated stainless liner running the full height of the chimney. That does three things at once. It gives the appliance a correctly sized flue instead of a cavernous cold one, it isolates the fire from masonry of unknown condition, and it turns a fireplace that pulled heat out of the room into one that puts heat into it. The original brickwork and mantel stay exactly as they are, which is usually the whole point.
What we will not do is drop a modern appliance onto an unlined historic flue because the opening happened to be the right size.
Job two: upgrading what the builder put in
Newer homes usually have a functioning fireplace that simply is not very good. Small flame picture, no blower, a plain surround, a firebox chosen because it hit a price point on a spec sheet.
Here the constraint is the existing vent. Its type, diameter and route decide which appliances can physically go in, so that is the first thing we establish rather than the last. Where the vent will take it, moving to a better sealed unit with a proper burner and a blower is a genuine change in how the room feels, not a cosmetic one. Where it will not, we say so before you have chosen a model.
Things worth deciding early
Whether you want heat or you want a picture, because the two lead to different appliances. Whether a television is going above it, which affects mantel design and clearance more than most people expect. Whether the surround material is going to change, since that is far cheaper to plan alongside the appliance than to redo afterwards. And what the gas line can actually deliver, because a larger unit on an undersized supply is a disappointment waiting to happen.
Questions
Installation in Lehi — common questions
Can I put a wood-burning insert into the old fireplace in our downtown house?
Often yes, provided the opening takes the unit and we can run a full-height insulated liner. The liner is not optional on a chimney of that age. We measure the opening, the flue and the smoke chamber before recommending a specific model.
Is it worth replacing a fireplace that works?
Only if it is failing to do something you want. If you want heat rather than a flame picture, a sealed unit with a blower is a real upgrade. If you are happy with it and only want the wall to look different, keep the appliance and spend the money on the surround.
Can you make the opening wider?
In a framed chase, sometimes. In a historic masonry chimney, widening the opening is structural work on a load-bearing element and it is rarely worth it. We would look at a wider appliance in the existing space first.
How far ahead should we plan?
Order in late summer if you want it running by the holidays. Appliance lead times are the long pole, not our schedule, and the popular models get scarce once the weather turns.
Also in Lehi
Our other services here
Chimney Sweep Inspection Chimney Repair Fireplace Repair Gas Fireplace Caps & Dampers Dryer Vents All Lehi services
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