Today’s fitting in Streatham, South East London involved re using a period mahogany surround with slate and an open chamber.
Our customer had an amazing mahogany surround, the corbels are roaring lion heads. We removed the surround and knocked out the dated 1930’s brickwork to the builders opening.
Then re fitted the surround with slate hearths, slate slips and the original brickwork chamber.
A simple idea allowing the amazing surround to be reused to better effect.Uncategorized
If you have a fireplace that is already fitted on the sub hearth or flat tiles, we can have slate or granite hearths cut to fit the contours of your fireplace. This allows a hearth to be fitted retrospectively. It is done by taking a paper template of the required hearth and then arranging for our stone mason to shape the hearth. We do not charge to take the template, hearths are charged at the widest points and then a cutting fee added.Uncategorized
Today we fitted a Esse 500c defra approved wood burning stove. Unfortunately next door had punched an RSJ through the flue while converting the loft, so it was a rare case of installing a flue liner to allow the stove to work. The liner was installed by a company recommended to us by one of our trade customers.
In most instances chimney flues are fine for most stoves if they pass a chimney sweep test. 99% of flues are fine, exceptions usually being if you or your neighbours have had a loft conversion or suffer from subsidence.
Gas stoves must ALWAYS be fitted with a liner, to make sure the fumes are expelled quickly from the flue as they can still be flammable.Uncategorized
Today’s job is double removal and fitting of fireplaces in St Johns Wood, North West London.
We are taking everything off the wall, removing the cast iron inserts and plastering the chamber walls before replacing the surrounds and making good.Uncategorized
We have reached the point where we need a second large van. Easily solved I thought, the moneys in the bank, we’ll buy a second hand one. Not so easy it seems. We’ve had vans sold whilst we were on route to view, been told that the vans out of the country at the minute…what! Its for sale on Gumtree!!! Had adverts that restrict contact to email and after lengthy enquires via email had the reply of just “yes”…how does that even make sense!!! We should have known really, when we purchased our first van it took days of looking and a last ditch 14hr drive all over London finally ending up in Colchester, Essex before we found one that wasn’t a complete banger with 5,000,000 miles on the clock! So if anyone reading this is trying to sell an immaculate long wheelbase, high top Mercedes sprinter with 5k on the clock drop us a line!! Oh well back to looking, Gumtree here We come…..Uncategorized
We will be busy fitting 4 fully restored original fireplaces in Sydenham, south east London. For the first time in 4 months, after some early starts and a lot of late finishes we are up to date and running smoothly in the workshop, just in time for me to take 2 weeks off. So it can all build up again!! Uncategorized
Busy day today. We loaded 3 fully restored original Victorian combintion fireplaces on the van, and Paul set off to Guildford to re-install them. Back at the warehouse I cracked on with some restorations for one of Londons most exclusive shops. After a considerable amount of cutting, grinding, welding and polishing we have 4 almost unrecognisable fireplaces. Days like this are pretty satisfying.Uncategorized
Our workshop has recently expanded from unit 10 to incorporate units 8 & 9. Giving us some much needed space to work in. We even have a fully working office with desks and computers now!!! Today Myself and Josh worked on several fully polished original combination fireplaces for a London shop and finished some bedroom combinations being fitted in Guildford tomorrow. Also spending some time working through the mountains of silverware purchased from the Savoy Hotel by a customer.Uncategorized
Paul tiled a hearth in a flat in East Dulwich, South East London today using Fired Earth tiles. We are returning later in the week to fit the original antique combination fireplace. Once the job is completed we’ll add a picture.Uncategorized
Hello and welcome to RPS Fireplaces blog. We specialise in restoration and fitting of cast iron and stone fireplaces for both the trade and public. We are currently based in Sydenham (se26), London. We work all over London, Kent and the south east. We have recently completed jobs in Guildford and Reading. RPS Fireplaces is run by partners Richard Preece and Paul Silver. We founded the company in July 2012 after 30 years combined experience with in all sectors of the fireplace trade. Many thanks Richard PreeceUncategorized