Hardscape Design – Outdoor Fireplace Demolition (Part 2)

And so the decision was made – to tear down a 12 foot outdoor fireplace structure on our patio. Why? Let’s take a look.

The idea to demolish our outdoor fireplace was first introduced by our landscape designer. Up to that point, we had never considered the idea. Tear down a $15 – 20K structure? Seriously? Are you completely insane?

Reasons to Tear Down an Existing Outdoor Fireplace

After all, the addition of a fire feature on a patio is highly desirable right? Why would someone pay to rip down a perfectly good, useable, existing fireplace, and then pay again to build a new fire structure? From a financial perspective, completely idiotic.

But, we can’t always base our decisions solely from a financial perspective. Trust me, this wasn’t a decision we entered into lightly. I thought about all the possible alternatives for this fireplace to make it work for us.

The brick certainly needed an update and a good cleaning. I thought about white washing the brick or even painting it. I considered refacing the brick with flagstone, updating the granite surfaces and giving the fireplace a fresh new look.

But the deciding factor to tear down the fire structure and the one thing we couldn’t change, was the location of the fireplace. It is located too close to the house to allow for ample seating in front of the structure and the view from this angle of the yard is less than desirable.

If I was building the fireplace, I would have placed it either in the screened in porch, further back in the yard, or at the opposite end of the patio. But c’est la vie! I have to deal with it now and focus on our future landscape design for the yard.

Outdoor Fireplace Demolition

The demolition begins! As you can see from the picture, this fire structure is monstrous – at least 12 feet high!

The workmen began the teardown using a pickaxe, and quickly realized that wasn’t going to “cut it”. Out comes the jack hammer.

With brick flying everywhere, I took this picture from inside the house.

The jack hammer is very efficient in breaking apart the existing brick.

At this point, I’m starting to think…oh shit! Did I make the right decision?! I’m kinda freaking out seeing this massive structure disappear!

A huge pile of demolished brick is on the ground, but notice that the workmen are being very careful not to harm any of the nearby landscape? I plan to reuse those boxwoods.

Now to break through these cinder blocks. The noise from the jack hammer is deafening!

OK, now I am starting to see it – the space is looking very open!

We are in the final stretch of this demolition.

Removing Rubble from the Construction Site

I’m impressed with how quickly the rubble is cleaned up with each foot that comes down. The workers used wheel barrows and a backhoe to remove the bricks from the area.

Wow, totally gone. This ginormous structure we have been looking at for 2 years is no where to be found. So weird. The patio looks completely different.

Ok, now I am starting to feel better about our decision…I love the open space.

 And I love the view from this angle of the yard 🙂

We are considering adding a fire pit to the demolished space. In a recent prior post, I discussed the differences, uses, and advantages of an outdoor fireplace vs. a fire pit HERE.

Do you think it was a wise decision to remove the fireplace? Care to guess how many ton of brick was removed between the fireplace and a thousand square foot brick patio?

Stay tuned for more updates on the patio project and thank you for following along. Hoping I can offer insight into your next outdoor project.

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