Arch & hearth masonry · Foxglove Hollow · master masons, father to daughter
The curve and the fire, kept properly.
Rosedale rebuilds arches on timber centering and re-lays hearths in honest firebrick — moderate-duty for the Sunday fire, high-duty for the every-evening one. Lime in the old walls, anchors in the new stone, drawings for all of it.
The family ledger
Two crafts, kept narrow on purpose
Services & rates
The rate sheet — arch & hearth
Quoted off the survey and held sixty days. Centering, lime, firebrick and the draw test are inside the number — the only extra is salvage voussoirs we must buy, quoted per hundred before you approve.
Segmental arch rebuildfrom $1,900
timber centering · voussoirs numbered · keystone last
Semicircular arch rebuildfrom $2,600
full ring on centering, spring lines re-cut
Hearth re-lay, moderate-dutyfrom $2,400
the Sunday-fire grade · fireclay joints struck thin
Rumford firebox, high-dutyfrom $3,800
the every-evening grade · smoke chamber parged
Crown, cap & draw testfrom $1,450
cast crown, flue inspected, gauge-tested with you watching
Lime repointing, per square foot$18–$24
hand-raked · NHL 3.5 in the field, NHL 5 up top
Recent work
The hearth book
Six jobs from the Hollow — arches over doors, hearths under kettles, one levee wall that deserved better. Every owner will light the fire for you; ask us for the introduction.
How it goes
Survey to strike
The same sequence on every job — the only variable is your project.
Visit one
The survey & the chip
The arch is measured to the millimetre and a mortar chip leaves the wall; the hearth is inspected for grade and draw. You keep a written number and the drawing it came from, held sixty days.
Week 1
Centering & rake
Timber centering bent to the drawn curve goes up under the arch; joints elsewhere are raked by hand to twice their width and vacuumed. The old wall keeps standing while the new one is being decided.
Weeks 2–3
Lay, point, fire
Voussoirs laid from both spring lines with the keystone last; firebrick bedded in fireclay with joints struck thin; everything pointed in lime matched to the chip and struck to the original profile.
Week 4
Strike & test
Centering struck once the ring has taken its set; the flue draw measured with a gauge in front of you. Then the thirty-year warranty is signed into your name, and the first fire is on us.
They rebuilt the schoolhouse arch with every voussoir numbered like sheet music, and struck the centering on a Friday with the whole village pretending not to watch. It held, beautifully, and so did the mason’s composure.
We burn every evening from October to April, and Rosedale was the only crew that asked. That question decided the firebrick grade, and four winters later the box still looks poured rather than laid.
The draw test sold me: a gauge, a number, and a mason who explained what the number meant while the wind did its worst. The sitting room stopped smelling of January the same week.
Grades, curves, cure
Asked at every hearth
The three questions the Hollow asks first, answered the way we answer them standing in the room with the fire going.
What firebrick grade do I actually need?
Duty is rated by how hot and how often. Low-duty suits a decorative gas insert; moderate-duty carries the Sunday fire; high-duty carries an every-evening wood fire and a Rumford box that runs hot. We ask how you live in the room before we pick the brick, because the room is the specification.
Why does the arch need centering?
Because an arch is compression all the way down and nothing at all until the ring closes. Centering is the temporary frame that carries the stones while the ring is open; it comes out only after the keystone is set and the mortar has taken. Removing it early is the one mistake an arch never forgives.
How long before the first fire?
Fireclay and lime set faster than they carbonate, but we wait two weeks for the smoke chamber and crown regardless — a fire is a chemistry test, and we prefer to take it on our schedule, not the calendar’s. The first one we light ourselves.
Do you do the flue as well?
Yes — crown, cap, flue tile and the gauge test at the end, all inside the quoted number. A hearth is a machine for moving smoke, and we treat the survey like a machine inspection because it is one.
Hearth season books opposite pointing season — arches and fireboxes run September to March, lime pointing April to October. The survey is year-round, and the first fire is always on us.
Thirty years on the ring and the box
If an arch we rebuilt settles, a firebox we laid spalls, or a joint we pointed fails inside thirty years, we return and correct it at no charge. The warranty follows the house, not the invoice.
rosedale@archhearth.example · Foxglove Hollow
Tell us how the room is used.
How often the fire burns decides the firebrick; the width of the opening decides the arch. The survey brings both answers and a written number inside the week.