Customer Reviews

Building a Fireplace: Step-By-Step Instructions for Contemporary to Classic Styles (Schiffer Books)

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If you are an amatur builder and want to size your new firplace, this is not the book for you. The book focuses on the building steps from contractor's or builder's point of view and not designer's point view. You will find many good ideas on custom fireplace construction. However, you will not find how to size your fire chamber, the geometry of the fire chamber, the relationship between the fire chamber and the flue size or chimney hight, and many other specific data necessary for designing the fireplace.

This fireplace idea book hardly delves into what it takes to start and finish a fireplace project. I bought it sight unseen hoping to find step-by-step instruction on setting a brick firebox, flue, and chimney. No luck. There are some valuable instructions. However, they're limited to only portions of the overall project. You'd need to be a master mason to impart the information and complete the projects highlighted in this book. The book is titled, "Building a Fireplace Step-By-Step Instructions for Contemporary to Classic Styles." It is misleading, realistically it should be called "An Idea Guide for Master Fireplace Builders."

This book's bad writing really interferes with learning anything from it. It was translated from German, and it looks like the publisher just printed up the literal, first draft translation with little to no smoothing. Judging from all the extraneous details, non sequiturs, and transitionless paragraphs, I doubt it was well written in the original. You can pick up a smattering of ideas about the odd fireplace construction, but nothing comprehensive. I've taken note that the publisher Schiffer churns out schlock.

Good book for learning to construct your own fireplace with how to instructions