It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Grimley_Feindish" saying something like:
I'm reinstating a Victorian fireplace in my front room, one with the cast
>iron insert rather than firebrick. The fireplace was opened up to the
>builders hearth when I moved in so I've been busy bricking this up to follow
>the contours of the insert and form a nice flue etc. What I'm stuck on is
>whether I should leave the half inch(ish) gap around the insert and the
>brickwork, or back fill it once it's fitted?
>
>I've been looking about for info and found two general schools of thought,
>typically contradicting each other. One says leave a gap, the other says
>back fill it with a cement/vermiculite mix. Anybody had any personal
>experience or have a knowledge of such things?
uk.d-i-y x-posted