Fireplace Brickwork
Fireplaces lend themselves perfectly to exposed brickwork. Our tiles work wonderfully to give your room the central focus point you want, in the style you choose.
Calculate How Many Brick Slips You Need
There are a few different ways of using our brick slips on your fireplace, and a few common questions we can answer.
Are Brick Slips Suitable For A Log Burner?
In short- yes. Bricks are fired at around 1,000°C so can cope perfectly well around a log burner, coal, gas or electric fire. The only variable is the adhesive used to apply the brick tiles. Our adhesive has been tested at high temperatures, so we always recommend using that one, with 10-15cm of clearance allowed to the brick slips. You should also use a cement-based mortar, like ours, rather than a lime mortar.
Due to the proximity to extreme temperatures though in an open fire, we cannot guarantee the use of the adhesive in those circumstances, this is not to say it wouldn't work, but it hasn't been tested for this application. Also consider the aesthetics- soot will most likely begin to cover the brick after a while.
What Brick Slips Are Best For My Fireplace?
The answer is simply whichever you think will look best. One way to make the decision easier though is through the collections we separate our brick slips into. If you want a modern sleek look - browse our contemporary collection, if you want a farmhouse look of old weathered brick, choose from our reclaimed collection. If you want something that has good colour and texture variations but not too much weathering, browse our traditional collection.
Different Ways to Tile A Fireplace
Chamber Only
Many people simply want the inside of the fire chamber as brickwork. The only consideration you need to look at is how to finish the tiling at the front of the chamber. We always recommend keeping the look of exposed brickwork, so never leaving an edge visible.
Chamber and Pillars
A popular way to use brick slips in a fireplace is to have them look as though they are holding up a beam. This look requires corner tiles to make sure the opening looks organic, scroll to the bottom of this guide for extra tips on the pillar thickness for installation.
Chimney Breast
The way we would always recommend above all others is to tile the full chimney breast. This is for two reasons- firstly, it means a more natural look, as you finish the tiles against the back wall, so there are no exposed edges to worry about. Secondly, it means you'll have more beautiful exposed brickwork-- natural variations in each tile mean that the more there is, the better it looks.
For this you will need corner tiles to use not only from the chamber but also around the corner of the chimney breast itself, providing there is a chamber.
Tips and other considerations
As always we recommend considering your mortar colour as well as your blend, see our mortar guide for more information.
Using our tiles inside a chamber, we always recommend applying them before the fire is in place, simply because it's awkward to get behind it otherwise. If your fire is already installed though, don't worry it is still possible- it just may take a little longer to install.
When creating pillars or tiling the whole chimney breast we always recommend trying to make sure the pillars are at a size where you can fit whole and half tiles (either side of the corner tiles), without the need to cut, a full tile is 215mm, mortar joint is 10mm and half is 102.5mm, so work on multiples of these but considering the 22mm tile depth and 3-5mm for adhesive too.
i.e 215mm(full tile) plus 10mm (mortar) plus 102.5mm(half tile), minus 22mm x2(tile depths) minus 4 x2(adhesive thickness) means an existing pillar at 275.5mm would be perfect for a brick and a half (2 corner tiles, each way around)
Add in another 215 full tiles plus the 10mm mortar joint would mean 500.5mm is perfect for 2 corner tiles and one full.
Add in another 102.5mm if you use a half tile in between and including the mortar joint the space would need to be 388mm.
The thickness of the adhesive can be between 3-20mm thick to help adjust these slightly, please bear in mind that you may need to order a little extra adhesive if you are using over 10mm, and you will need to keep the thickness consistent on whichever side.
Browse our brick slips to start your fireplace project, we always recommend ordering samples so you can see how each blend looks in your room, it can change depending on lighting and surrounding colours amongst other things.
