The fireplaces we sell from the Gallery range are made from 100% natural stone and too some extent are porous so will need sealing to protect them.
Limestone is the worst and is extremely porous and anything will stain it simply brushing dirty hands over it will leave a mark and also with it being light marks can be seen very easily.
With marble its more of a polished smoother finish which closes the grain although it is still porous and can also be stained simply.
The Carrara marble we sell is a light marble with a grey vein that runs through it so would also show up any marks althougth it is a smoother stone it is more difficult to stain but if you were to spill say red wine on it it will soak into the marble.
So how do you protect your new fireplace surround i hear you ask we sell two types of Stone Sealer on our website.
The Gallery Stone Sealer and the Lithofin Stain Stop Sealer are ideal for protecting your new stone fireplace.
These products are simple to apply and will soak into the stone and from a protective barrier so nothing will soak into the stones, if liquids are spilt they still need to mopped away as soon as possible so do not allow anything to sit on the surface.
So if you do own a marble or limestone fireplace mantel be sure to seal it after or before installation to ensure it looks great for years to come.
Posts Tagged ‘Fireplace’
Marble Fireplaces do they need sealing too
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011How much should i pay for fireplace installation
Thursday, May 5th, 2011I have had a customer ring me today and ask how much they should pay for a fireplace to be installed and whether we could fit the fireplace for her.
I asked where abouts she was and Plymouth came the reply, now thats a little far for our local fitter to travel too we do operate within a 100 mile radius of us in Ripley Derbyshire and any further afield we use a good network of fitters we have approved to make sure the job gets done correctly.
Now there is no set standard price for fitting a new fireplace or stove as it depends on how much work has to be done to your chimney breast to fit the new fireplace.
The more work you do yourself including removing the original the cheaper it will become and we always say to our customers to expect to pay around £250 to £400 for a typical fireplace fitting charge.
Now some people will gasp at that price and say is he there all week but with courses for gas safe and Hetas costing 100s of pounds each year its pretty reasonable i think.
What you can be assured of when using a registered fireplace fitter is that it will be installed correctly and you will be given the correct compliance certificate.
So please avoid the DIY masters and the local builder who says i can install that for you it really is not worth the risk, so if you are within our fitting radius give us a call if not we can give you a nuymber for someone who will fit it for you
Feedback regarding our recommended fireplace fittter
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010We always have emails sent us here at Castfireplaces thanking us for our service and how much they like the products etc. We do recommend proffesional fireplace fitters to install our fantastic fireplaces and we do have numbers for fitters in most areas.
Today we have had an email from one of our customers thanking the fitter for such a great service so i thought i would share it with you so you can all see we only deal with decent honest proffesional fitters who will not rip you off or overcharge.
As they are recommended by us we feel it reflects on what we do as a company so we only want to be associated with the best.
What i mean is if you have a great shopping experience with us we want the fitting to be the same so you tell everyone how happy and pleased you are you bought it from Castfireplaces.
If the fitting turns out to be a nightmare we think it reflects on our company so thats why we only recommmend fireplace fitters who we have seen there work and most of them met personally.
Anyway have a look at the email sent below from our customer and she has even posted a picture of the finished article.
Hi Mark
I wanted to provided some feedback that you may wish to post re our recent installation:
We wanted to say thanks for the excellent job that Tony did in installing a fireplace in our house in Plumstead.
The finish was immaculate and we were very pleased with the final result. Tony was a pleasure to deal with, he is a knowledgeable tradesman who gave us good, honest advice. Additionally the cost of the installation was competitive compared to other companies. We can highly recommend Tony’s work and we will have him back to do more in future.
Thanks again
Related Products
Pembroke Black Gas Fireplace
Smoke from my fireplace coming from another Chimney Breast
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010An email this morning from one of our customers reads
Hi Mark,
The solid fuel package is perfect! It came very quickly and was easy to install. I would definitely recommend castfireplaces to friends, family etc.
We bought our cast iron fireplace from you about 5 years ago and bought it with the gas insert. Whilst we have enjoyed using the gas insert we felt converting it to solid fuel would be far more beneficial to us in terms of heat output and cost.
Our house is a 1906 mid terrace with a living room (where the fire is) and a dining kitchen. There’s a fireplace in the kitchen but this has been capped off and an electric range now stands beneath the stone head. About 5 minutes after lighting the fire smoke started to come out of the two spot lights above the range. This continued until the fire went out. I opened the window in the sitting room and this seemed to help reduce the amount of smoke coming from the spots. The fire lights easily and goes really well but I don’t know what I can do to stop the smoke in the kitchen. Be grateful if you could give me some advice. Some websites mention down draught others refer to vacuums and a local contractor talked about relining but I don’t want to spend big bucks! Hope you can guide me in the right direction
Now this appears to be quite a serious problem and i have advised our customer to have the chimney swept and tested before using again.
Smoke coming from the fireplace into the room should never happen and smoke is toxic.
All chimneys should be swept prior to using for solid fuel and indeed gas and is the first job to do before fitting and using any fireplace, most chimney sweeps will also test the chimney for you to see if it is in sound condition.
If not it can be lined with a 7″ solid fuel liner so its not the end of the road for a solid fuel fireplace if it is found to be faulty.
Please do not continue to use a fireplace that does not take the fumes away correctly it really is dangerous
Toulouse Highlighted Fireplace Package Pine Bedford to Derby
Monday, August 30th, 2010Hi Mark
Thanks so much for our beautiful fireplace. It arrived exactly when you said it would, between 9:30 and 10am! The service and value we received from you was second to none. The fireplace was cheaper than anywhere else and the mantel on the surround was customised for our smaller width chimney breast at your suggestion. I have never received such wonderful customer service from a company before. We were updated on our order and when we could expect it at all times and we couldn’t be happier. We have your recommended fitter coming to fit the fire on 18th September, and it can’t come soon enough. Thanks to your company we now have the fire we always wanted but didn’t think we’d be able to afford! I have already mentioned your company to a few friends and won’t hesitate to recomme you to more!
Thanks again
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Toulouse Highlighted and Pine Bedford
Pembroke Black Gas Package to Chichester
Sunday, August 29th, 2010Hi Mark
It was really easy ordering our fireplace online.Mark was very helpful in helping us to choose the right fire for the surround we wanted.Our Pembroke Fireplace arrived early on sunday as promised.
Excellent service from start to finish
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Pembroke Black Gas Fireplace Package
Regular maintenance for Solid Fuel Stoves and Fireplaces
Saturday, August 28th, 2010So you have your new solid fuel fireplace or stove installed the last thing on your mind is maintenance and cleaning of chimneys and flues etc.
Most of the time this is very seriously overlooked and a lot of customers do not even have the chimney swept before installing a new real fire fireplace or stove.
As most people are aware fitting of a solid fuel fuel appliance must be done by HETAS registered fitter or have it signed of by Building Control inspector from your local council.
Bizzarely after that there is no further regular maintenance required by law, in my opinion this is very shortsighted as burning solid fuel can also create carbon monoxide which is a silent killer if the fuel is not burnt correctly i have read online about a death from a blocked flue for a Kitchen Range.
There are no regulations currently that say solid fuel fires of any type must be serviced and chimneys swept once a year. It would be good to have a regime in place or guide line so people know how often to service the fireplace, flue etc they have.
I understand most people would detect a fully blocked flue but how often have you heard people say sometimes the fire blows back smoke into the room, normally there is an underlying reason for this do not leave it have it investigated by HETAS registered fitter.
As a guide chimneys should be swept once a year by a decent sweep try the NACS which has sweeps numbers all over the uk they will give you free advice as to how often you will need it cleaning depending on the fuel you are burning.
As the flue is the only source for the toxic fumes escaping make sure it is in good condition so smoke does not enter your property right through the run of the chimney if in doubt have a chimney sweep test it for you and if found to be faulty it can always be lined.
So enjoy your winter fires and as good sound advice get your chimney swept just as you start to reuse the fireplace after the Summer so if you do have birds nest etc in the flue it will be removed before you light the fire.
Happy Burning and just to let you know our local sweep is cleaning my stove Thursday next week
Digging for Coal at Castfireplaces
Thursday, August 5th, 2010All visitors to our current unit in Langley Mill must bring a pickaxe and shovel and on arrival will be issued with Miners lamp due to the fact on the searches returned from our New Purchase we have a mine shaft directly under our unit.
I say Mine shaft as thats what it says on the report infact it turns out to be just a Bell pit which is basically a hole in the floor where coal is close to the surface and was dug in the 1800s but some local Langley Millians.
Thats a shame i said i could see a supply of coal for my Tiger Plus Stove at home and a free supply of coal for all my mates solid fuel Fireplaces.
Anyway it may hold things up a little with the purchase but i am informed extra deep foundations were done when factory was built (thanks to Amber Valley Building Control) and they did test drills but no shaft was found.
So it looks like i will have to continue to split logs for my stove and pack up the mining before i even get my hands dirty.
The way our solicitor made it sound it was as if Fred West had built the Factory but thats his job to inform me of anything they discover.
Right im off to take the dog out and dream about the things i could have bought if i was a mining millionaire never mind Mark another Day Hey!!!!
Have a look at this little photo it made me smile how stupid would you be to mine like that
All the hard work for new fireplaces is done
Tuesday, July 20th, 2010After beavering away for most of the day apart from meeting customers at the workshop i have today completed all the hard work for our new fireplace packages from altering all our current limestone listings with the new mantel sizes and doing all the dimension drawings.
All this work is hidden unfortunately so im now sat in my office thinking what exactly have i done today ive added a couple of brand new products but thats all our customers can see im afraid.
If i look a little closer all the new items are in our admin section they just need options adding and photograpahs attaching to the text so im sure all the hard work is done.
Anyone who has anything to do with websites will know how tedious and time consuming it is if its just a couple of things its great and really quick but when adding over 50 now packages (with mantel size changes) it makes for quite a few days work.
Still it will be worth it i have added our New Monarch Arched insert cast with the Brompton surround which is due into stock around October and added this to the item so customers can view it but orders will be refused untill it is in stock.
This gives our customers a chance to view new products and it will be changed once we have shipping arrival date so they can be pre-ordered online.
Speaking of pre-ordering i have today ordered some new thing related to our website and i will explain more when it is confirmed they are arriving cant wait for that.
So expect to see many new items being listed Thursday and Friday and hopefully come the weekend it will all be online.
Oh forgot to say within 30 minutes yesterday of adding 48″ Brompton package to our website we sold one to
Mrs S of Windsor who will be the first to take delivery of new mantel even before mine arrives at home to replace our pembroke.
Introducing the New 42″ and 48″ Agean Brompton Limestone Mantel
Monday, July 19th, 2010So at last the new brompton mantel arrives in the 42″ and 48″ versions we have been waiting for and im sure you will agree it has well worth been waiting for.
It opens up a whole new option of limestone surrounds that have previously only been available in 48″ versions and larger to customers with smaller chimneys.
So now if you do have a small chimney breast and you want to use a limestone surround we do have an option for you not only in the brompton mantel but also the Ripley and our new plain corbel design.
Im the same at home i have a 48″ pembroke fireplace on my 50″ chimney breast and Rhian already tells me this is being removed and new 48″ Brompton limestone going in its place with the Henley arched insert.
So we do have them in stock ready to go with more arriving shortly and today i will be adding pictures and size options to our website so they will be available to buy from later today.
Im 100% sure these will become a great fast seller of ours and at the price we sell them for they are an absolute bargian.
Just one more thing they are 100% solid agean limestone which is a natural product so rest assured we do not compromise on quality to deliver our outstanding prices.
Take a look at the preview photo below as to what is heading into our front room
