Owning a beautiful fireplace inside your house is a dream for many homeowners. A lot of people consider it is a place where family and friends can gather around to have fun and share a warm and cozy environment together.
On the other hand, to build an effective fireplace for your home, you need to use the proper type of render in order to protect your home from the extreme heat of the fire that it generates explains professional renderers in London, First Renderers Ltd.
Importance of Rendering a Fireplace
According to the article posted by the U.S Department of Energy, it is important to create an effective thermal barrier on the walls surrounding your fireplace to prevent any fire hazards that may occur. Because of this, a lot of people have rendered their fireplace in order to protect it from fire and other potential damages.
Although a majority of the people who are building or renovating their fireplace know that it needs to be rendered for safety purposes, most of them still ask which particular type of render should be used to effectively protect the surrounding walls of their fireplace.
What Render to Use in a Fireplace?
Well, based on the information provided by Stovefitter, rendering a fireplace generally involves using a particular mixture of sand, cement, and lime over the brick walls that surround the fireplace to protect it from damages that may result from the extreme heat of the fire. So, based on the components mentioned in the mixture, we can derive that the best type of render to use for a fireplace is the lime render.
Lime render is the best type of render to use because it contains lime which enables your walls to expand appropriately when exposed to heat. This expansion makes it possible for the surrounding walls of your fireplace to absorb the heat that a fireplace emits to protect itself from excessive deterioration and damages.
How to Render a Fireplace?
Now that you know that the best type of render to use for a fireplace is the lime render, it is time to identify the essential steps needed to render your fireplace properly.
The first thing that you need to do before you start rendering is to bead the edges surrounding the area of your fireplace. It is advisable to use stainless steel beads so that it can effectively withstand the pressure and heat that is generated by the fire.
Install the beads using durable clout nails and ensure that it covers all the surrounding edges. After that, apply a scratch coat that is 7mm up to 10mm thick to the fireplace walls to serve as an initial resistance against heat.
By definition based on Merriam-Webster, a scratch coat is the first layer of coat applied to your walls that contains surface lines that were scratched to increase its bond strength with its succeeding coat.
After applying the initial coat, the next step is to put on the topcoat of the render and then leave it to dry for a week or two to allow it to cure.
After the topcoat cures, apply the finishing coat using as a gypsum finishing plaster or heat resistant plaster to complete the fireplace render.
Benefits of Having a Fireplace
Provides Added Comfort
A fireplace supplies you with an additional source of comfort for your house during cold weather or whenever your heating system is not sufficient. The warm environment that it provides enables you to keep your home more comfortable and cozy without needing to increase your utility bills.
Energy Efficient
A fireplace enables you to lower your energy bills and heating expenses significantly. Furthermore, it allows you to save precious energy that can be used for other purposes and at the same time make your home more eco-friendly and efficient.
Improves the Ambiance and Beauty of Your Home
Your fireplace creates a warm and inviting atmosphere inside your home. It attracts the attention of your guests and improves the beauty of your house.
A fireplace helps you entertain your family, friends, and relatives during celebrations and gatherings. Moreover, it provides you a place where people can come together to enjoy good food and conversation.
Alternative Source of Food and Light
Fireplaces can be used to cook your food or heat your coffee and tea. You can use a wood stove inside your fireplace to cook or use wooden logs to roast marshmallows, hotdogs, and nuts.
Furthermore, you can create fire on it to light your home or use it to produce heat whenever the electricity goes out.
Final Words
To summarize, the best type of render to use for your fireplace is the lime render because it allows the walls surrounding your fireplace to expand appropriately whenever it encounters extreme heat. This process allows your fireplace to protect itself from fire damages which in turn, protect you and your family from harm and accidents.
Having a fireplace inside your house not only improves the beauty of your house, but it also provides multiple benefits that you and your family can enjoy.
