Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp, the
Speaker 1: House Whisper on demand on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty Live everywhere in HD on the iHeartRadio App. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to home Where. Every week we help you better
Speaker 1: understand that place where you live. I am Dean Sharp,
Speaker 1: the house Whisperer, custom home builder, custom home designer, and
Speaker 1: most importantly today, your guide to transforming your ordinary house
Speaker 1: into an extraordinary home and talk about needing guidance. Today
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about now that we've rounded
Speaker 1: the corner into the holidays. It's the very first Saturday,
Speaker 1: very first weekend in November. Halloween just behind us, now,
Speaker 1: nothing but holidays before us. The weather is shifting everywhere,
Speaker 1: a little bit everywhere, a lot in some places. The
Speaker 1: point is this, we're gonna be talking about fireplaces today.
Speaker 1: Fireplaces are emblematic, they are nostalgic, They can be practical.
Speaker 1: They are often problematic when it comes to your home
Speaker 1: because of furniture layouts, all sorts of stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and making the most of a fireplace that you've got
Speaker 1: all of it. We're going to try and discuss today
Speaker 1: to help you understand your fireplace better, making a place
Speaker 1: for your fireplace. That's what we're calling today's show. And
Speaker 1: of course we're going to take some calls. And when
Speaker 1: we take calls, we take calls about anything that you
Speaker 1: want to talk about regarding your home. You set the agenda.
Speaker 1: It can be a construction question, a design question, DIY,
Speaker 1: whatever the case may be. Or you can call me
Speaker 1: and talk about your fireplace, whatever you want to talk about,
Speaker 1: whatever is scratching your head regarding your home. I'm here
Speaker 1: to help you through it. The number to reach me
Speaker 1: eight three three two. Ask Dean A three three the
Speaker 1: numeral two ask Dean eight three three to ask Dean.
Speaker 1: The phone lines are open, Yes now, yes they are.
Speaker 1: And producer Michelle Cube standing by ready to take your calls.
Speaker 1: And if we do all of this right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: bring some light into your morning, even though it's gonna
Speaker 1: be dark outside, and we're gonna make you feel glad
Speaker 1: that you were here. The team is here for you.
Speaker 1: Sam is on the board wrangling our live studio audience.
Speaker 1: There they are, those crazy kids. Good morning Sam, Good
Speaker 1: morning Dean. How you doing. I am exhausted. I stayed
Speaker 1: up way too late last night, but I'm on my
Speaker 1: eighteenth cup of coffee, and so as a result, you
Speaker 1: know what, things are looking pretty good at the moment
Speaker 1: when the Dodger hangover, doing real real well for you.
Speaker 1: Huh uh oh, my goodness. Glad to have you with
Speaker 1: us as always, Sam as I mentioned producer Michelle Cube,
Speaker 1: the legendary Michelle Cube. I wish she was near mic
Speaker 1: right now, but she is busy standing by to take
Speaker 1: your calls. The number again eight three three two. Ask Dean,
Speaker 1: give us a call, even if you just want to
Speaker 1: talk to Michelle. She's ready, all right, KF I am
Speaker 1: six forty live streaming live like I'm here for real
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Speaker 1: a technical glitch, actually a little power outage that messed
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Speaker 1: ability to connect. And we're back. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go into it technology, right, it's great until it's not,
Speaker 1: and then it's great again. So we're here. If you
Speaker 1: were listening right at the top of the show and
Speaker 1: you're like, I thought Dean was going to talk about fireplaces,
Speaker 1: and then we just took a right turn and abandoned
Speaker 1: the whole thing. No, we didn't. We just had to
Speaker 1: run a little fill And now we're here. All right,
Speaker 1: we're talking fireplaces today. Plus we're going to be going
Speaker 1: to the phones taking your call. Let me give you
Speaker 1: the number eight three three two ask Dean. Yes, I'm
Speaker 1: really here. Eight three three the numeral to ask dean.
Speaker 1: Producer Michelle is standing by, ready to take your call.
Speaker 1: Anything you want to talk about regarding your home today,
Speaker 1: anything at all, construction diy, you know, design questions, anything
Speaker 1: that you're scratching your head about about your home. We'll
Speaker 1: put our heads together. I'm here to help. That's our
Speaker 1: goal here. Okay, let's dive in and get to where
Speaker 1: I wanted to go about a half an hour ago.
Speaker 1: The fireplace, you know how, is a fireplace kind of
Speaker 1: like an appendix. I like always starting fireplace shows with
Speaker 1: this question. It's it's here's how. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: vestigial organ for a house from a homes When you
Speaker 1: think about it, it's inefficient, it's outdated. Some people are like,
Speaker 1: why do we even have this thing? That's how. It's
Speaker 1: like an appendix. Right, It's no longer needed to cook
Speaker 1: food on to light a room or to keep most
Speaker 1: most houses warm unless you have a mountain cabin, and
Speaker 1: you know, and everybody knows that story. But generally speaking,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of human beings here in North America
Speaker 1: are not fireplace dependent homes. And yet there they are,
Speaker 1: right and for good reason, because a fireplace is so
Speaker 1: iconically the former center the very heart of a home. Right.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was so central to all things home
Speaker 1: that you know that came with the phrase a hearth
Speaker 1: and home. Hearth and home inseparable, right, because this is
Speaker 1: the warmth, this is the source of food, and so
Speaker 1: on and so forth. So most people these days can
Speaker 1: be divided into two clear camps. People who are sick
Speaker 1: and tired their fireplace and want to get rid of
Speaker 1: it or wish they could. Other people who don't know
Speaker 1: what to do with it but really like the idea.
Speaker 1: And so there we are. Most people also don't use
Speaker 1: their fireplace. I would say upwards of seventy percent of
Speaker 1: homeowners with a fireplace never touch the thing, and so
Speaker 1: it just sits there. I'd like to change that, and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why. I think the idea of fire
Speaker 1: is powerful magic for human beings. As a designer. I
Speaker 1: love it as somebody who encourages you and coaches you
Speaker 1: to build a beautiful home. I love fire, fire and water,
Speaker 1: the two most natural elements that just kind of creep
Speaker 1: into our souls as human beings. We are simply evolved
Speaker 1: to be a part of it. So I don't like
Speaker 1: the idea of purging fire from a home, open flame
Speaker 1: or the flame effect because of all the benefits that
Speaker 1: it has on us, just psychologically and emotionally. A couple
Speaker 1: of things you need to know about those benefits, those
Speaker 1: things that are physically ingrained in us. Now. Eighteen hundred
Speaker 1: K what does that mean? Eighteen hundred K. That is
Speaker 1: a color temperature, not heat temperature, but color temperature of
Speaker 1: lights and things like that. You've heard me talk about
Speaker 1: this on lighting, Like three thousand K is a bright light,
Speaker 1: not really blue tinted, not really amber. If you get
Speaker 1: below three thousand K three thousand kelvin, then light begins
Speaker 1: to warm up and go amber. If you get above it,
Speaker 1: it starts to go bluish and kind of weird toward daylight,
Speaker 1: which is five thousand K. Well, fire, the color temperature
Speaker 1: of open flame, whether be it a fireplace or a
Speaker 1: candle burning is eighteen hundred K. It is the magic
Speaker 1: color temperature. And I say magic because at eighteen hundred
Speaker 1: K that dancing light decreases blood pressure, relaxes muscles. And
Speaker 1: I don't mean from the heat, I just mean from
Speaker 1: your visual perception of it. You become calmer and more sociable.
Speaker 1: This is from millions of years of gathering around the
Speaker 1: fire with your tribe to tell stories, to eat food,
Speaker 1: and to be safe at night in the dark. Fire
Speaker 1: light's a limited area which creates what we would call
Speaker 1: an intimacy zone. In other words, that light itself creates
Speaker 1: a little zone that becomes a room unto itself. Bright flames, crackling,
Speaker 1: dancing rhythmically against the dark background holds your attention and
Speaker 1: they induce a state of mild hypnosis. This is true.
Speaker 1: And this is not just me saying this because I
Speaker 1: like fire. This is the actually the results of a
Speaker 1: study at the University of Alabama that hooking people's brains
Speaker 1: up and monitoring them as they go a mild state
Speaker 1: of hypnosis induced by staring at the bright flames of
Speaker 1: a crackling fire, and when pupils dilate in soft light,
Speaker 1: faces become evolutionarily more attractive, which you know, the whole
Speaker 1: idea of a candle light dinner that is not just
Speaker 1: a novelty, that is a really really good way to
Speaker 1: feel sexy about the person who's sitting across the table
Speaker 1: from you, large dilated pupils in eighteen hundred K candlelight.
Speaker 1: So for all of these reasons and more, the fireplace
Speaker 1: is something if we can keep it present, irve it
Speaker 1: perfect it, utilize it, and make it work for you,
Speaker 1: is worth keeping. Worth keeping. Absolutely not always in the
Speaker 1: same place, which is hard news that I have to
Speaker 1: break to people occasionally, but to have a fireplace in
Speaker 1: your home, not necessarily to heat the house, but to
Speaker 1: warm your soul, well worth it, all right. So when
Speaker 1: we come back, let's talk about some of the rules
Speaker 1: for fireplaces, especially in the state of California, because of
Speaker 1: all states, we've got the most rules in regards to
Speaker 1: open wood fires and such. We'll talk about those rules,
Speaker 1: those limitations, and then I'm going to start giving you
Speaker 1: tips as to how to decode, interpret, and understand your
Speaker 1: fireplace better. All of this and more.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty Kfi.
Speaker 1: Dean Jarp the House Whisper. Welcome home on this dark,
Speaker 1: cool what looks to be a lovely November two, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, the first weekend in November. The weather is changing,
Speaker 1: even though you know, it's not as cold as some
Speaker 1: people want to be. For some of you, it is.
Speaker 1: For those of you who are listening outside of southern California,
Speaker 1: almost undoubtedly it is. But regardless, the weather has definitely
Speaker 1: taken a turn, and many of us are starting to
Speaker 1: think maybe it's time to snuggle up and start getting
Speaker 1: a little cozy next to the fireplace. So we're talking
Speaker 1: fireplaces this morning, giving you some pearls to understand the
Speaker 1: fireplace that you've got in your home. All right, I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you something that nobody's ever talked to
Speaker 1: you about before. Right now, I'm going to help you
Speaker 1: decode exactly where that fireplace really starts and stops so
Speaker 1: that you could understand what your possibilities are in refacing it.
Speaker 1: Probably the majority of folks who have a fireplace in
Speaker 1: their home and actually want to do something with it
Speaker 1: are looking to change out the mantle, change out the
Speaker 1: brickwork around the outside of the fireplace, or they've got
Speaker 1: some funky stone work or some lava rock or something that,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever the case may be, that they're just
Speaker 1: like Hugh, I wish I could get rid of that thing. Well,
Speaker 1: here's the good news. You probably can't. And it's probably
Speaker 1: not as involved as you think. Because the fireplace itself
Speaker 1: the structural fireplace, and I'm talking about a masonry fireplace.
Speaker 1: If you have a prefabricated fireplace, we'll talk about that
Speaker 1: in just a couple of minutes. But a structural masonry fireplace,
Speaker 1: one that's made out of brick and block and concrete
Speaker 1: and so on. The wall line. Take a look at
Speaker 1: the actual wall line, not the build up of the fireplace,
Speaker 1: but where the wall is itself. Ninety nine percent of
Speaker 1: stroke uctual masonry fireplaces, the real fireplace that you don't
Speaker 1: want to touch or mess with, starts right flush with
Speaker 1: that wall line, right where your dry wall and studs are.
Speaker 1: That's how they were built. Now you can verify this
Speaker 1: what you do. Don't have a fire burning when you
Speaker 1: do this. But what you can do is grab a
Speaker 1: little flashlight and get down on your hands and knees
Speaker 1: and pop your head just a little bit inside that
Speaker 1: firebox and look up at the very top of the firebox.
Speaker 1: There will be a large piece of steel. It's usually
Speaker 1: about four to six inches wide. It's an L to
Speaker 1: piece of L steel L metal. You can't see the
Speaker 1: L because the L is running up the wall, but
Speaker 1: you can see the bottom of it. Okay, that piece
Speaker 1: of steel is the lentil. The lentil. It is the
Speaker 1: structural header kind of like over a doorway, because that
Speaker 1: firebox is a sort of a doorway, right. That lentil
Speaker 1: marks the front of it marks the beginning of the real,
Speaker 1: actual structural firebox. Now what does that mean. It means
Speaker 1: this everything outside that lentil into the room from the
Speaker 1: front edge of that lentil forward. Everything that's there is optional.
Speaker 1: Everything beyond it is a veneer. I don't care if
Speaker 1: it looks like it's built like a tank out of
Speaker 1: brick that runs from Florida ceiling. It is veneer, and
Speaker 1: veneer means that it could all come down. It can
Speaker 1: all come down in a couple of hours without touching
Speaker 1: and having anything to do with the structural fireplace itself
Speaker 1: or the firebox. Okay, so the edges of the firebox
Speaker 1: as they wrap out towards the room at the top
Speaker 1: will terminate in this lentil and where the front of
Speaker 1: that steel is, that's the end of the structural firebox.
Speaker 1: And you can take off relatively easily everything outside of it.
Speaker 1: That usually means taking everything off and flushing it down
Speaker 1: the wall, which means you can start from scratch, which
Speaker 1: means you can get rid of the old mantle. You
Speaker 1: can get rid of the nineteen eighties whatever that's going
Speaker 1: on there, or the old broken up brick or the
Speaker 1: filthy brick, and start again with other veneer. We can
Speaker 1: go up with our own stone, our own tiles surround
Speaker 1: the sky is the limit, and we have cleared the
Speaker 1: decks for a brand new design for the front of
Speaker 1: that fireplace as it relates to the decor and the
Speaker 1: design inside the room. And again we are not touching
Speaker 1: the structural firebox at all. Now this is doubly true
Speaker 1: if you have a prefabricated fireplace, a not a masonry fireplace,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people I'm still surprised how many
Speaker 1: people don't realize they have one of these. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing again, no fire in the firebox. Take a
Speaker 1: look inside and you see instead of up above. Instead
Speaker 1: of seeing bricks leading up into a metal damper, you
Speaker 1: just see a lot of sheet metal. And the actual
Speaker 1: quote unquote a firebox brick line I'm using air quotes
Speaker 1: for bricks, is actually three panels, a back panel and
Speaker 1: two side panels that are stamped to look like bricks.
Speaker 1: They're made out of a high heat concrete. They're called
Speaker 1: refractory panels. And if you find that you've got oh yeah,
Speaker 1: look at that. It jiggles a little bit when I
Speaker 1: tap on it. Then what you've got there is a
Speaker 1: prefabricated fireplace, which is essentially a sheet metal appliance. And
Speaker 1: again with those, the rules stay just as true. In fact,
Speaker 1: with those you have even more options because not only
Speaker 1: could you remove all the veneer that goes right to
Speaker 1: the flush wall, you might even be able to create
Speaker 1: some recesses in that wall above, because all that's coming
Speaker 1: out of the top of that firebox there is likely
Speaker 1: a ten or twelve inch stainless steel pipe that is
Speaker 1: running up a flue pipe running up inside a wood
Speaker 1: chase or stuccoed chimney up to the roof. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of space in there. Now, you can't touch that thing.
Speaker 1: You can't push anything combustible right up against it. You
Speaker 1: can come within a couple of inches of it on
Speaker 1: all sides and have lots of options when it comes
Speaker 1: to the framing work around those fireplaces. Not to mention
Speaker 1: the fact that a fireplace like that can actually be moved.
Speaker 1: It can be raised, it can be lowered because it
Speaker 1: weighs when you remove all the stuff around it, about
Speaker 1: the same amount actually less than a gas dryer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a lightweight sheet metal appliance, and it can
Speaker 1: be moved around. It can be raised up in the
Speaker 1: room so it's more visible, it can be lowered, whatever
Speaker 1: the case may be. So there you go. One of
Speaker 1: the biggest tips for a major change of the firebox
Speaker 1: and the fireplace is understanding where the real firebox stops
Speaker 1: and where the veneer begins. Remember only heard it here.
Speaker 1: All right, We're going to pick this conversation up again,
Speaker 1: but we're at the top of the hour, so when
Speaker 1: we come back, I'm going to take a call or two.
Speaker 1: All right, you're Home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisper
Speaker 1: on KFI.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty