The imagination of your fireplace like the great Houdini, poof!! And there it is. Well unfortunately it is not quite that simple and I'm sure you know that. But I would like to explain some of the reasons why your stone fireplace price can skyrocket and go through the roof (pardon the pun). Here are a few points.
1. Scaffolding required on the roof or interior.
There is no better way if it is needed.
2. Hardwood floors exist. They need to be covered. Obviously to cover so the chips of stone won't grind into your floor.
Solution: do the stonework before the final floor goes on in a new build.
3. Winter time, exterior application has to be housed in and heated.
There is no better time than the sun shine season but not in the late fall.
4. A manlift maybe required.
Probably not on a new build if the mason can get there before the final roof goes on.
5. A very common occurrence is the project is not completed by the other tradesmen (it is not ready for your mason to install the stone veneer).
Mason time is critical during the fall trying to beat bad weather make sure your project doesn't delay him. It may cost you.
6. Interior may be need to be housed in order to keep the dust off the drapes and walls.
Again if possible especially on a new build be ready for the stone work before interior finishing is done.
7. In some places it is nearly impossible to build a scaffolding in the middle of the valleys of a metal roof with a 12 - 12 pitch roof. In this case the stone veneer work must be done on the chase before the metal roof goes on.
The stone work on your fireplace is generally not priced by the square foot, as the exterior walls are, the reasons are very simple, that being, there are intricate details and very time consuming around different objects, corners and openings that occur many insteps and outsteps that have to be dealt with. Openings ie: fireboxes, mantels, stone veneer has to be chipped sized around them.
Also it is priced depending on whether the house is finished or not. Like above, if the home is completed and occupied it may have to be housed in to keep the dust off the drapes,walls and furniture.
The floors are a great concern, if the stone fireplace is built in a new home while the construction is in progress the fireplace stone work should go in before the final floors are laid.
For two reasons
1. so the mason won't mark the floor.
2. A piece of final flooring can be used for a spacer. This spacer is laid on the floor and the stone work is started on top of it after the stone work has cured and set the spacer can be taken out and the new flooring will slide right under the stonework because the spacer is the same size as the flooring.
What is the price of your stone fireplace? You can expect a fraction of the cost of full stone ( that is stone that is hammered and chiseled in order to fit together and look half decent). You can expect the finally work to be better than full stone. You can expect the price to be an affordable alternative to artificial stone veneer.
