Do you suppose someone is buried behin....naw that couldn't be.

I'd be tempted to get a metal decorative cover and be done with it. The POs could have found problems and the units are no longer safe to use so they sealed them up.

mxypix wrote:

"Do you suppose someone is buried behin....naw that couldn't be."

Good Lord, that never occurred to me! I heard that a soldier died in the house during the Civil War (not sure which side but I think Union) and the neighbors have a "bullet" the PO found in the yard....but surely not what was suggested! Now I'm almost afraid to get the cement out of there, for fear of what we might find.

But hey, they could also have stuffed a bunch of Confederate bills up the chimneys before sealing them in!

Can you lower a light and a camera on movie mode down the chimney to see the back side of the cement?

If you do decide to dig an electric jack hammer might be a tool of choice.

Here is a link that might be useful: Poe

It's possible that the house had chimneys that were too deteriorated to use and the fix was too expensive, so they filled them to provide a solid core and to prevent use.

How far up does the concrete extend?

This is probably not fixable without removing the external part of the chimney and then the concrete fill and then rebuilding the chimneys ... not a DIYand not cheap.

My first thoughts were exactly as lazygardens has listed and would bet that was the reasoning behind the concrete.

I doubt the fire box is filled with concrete; the weight might cause a structural failure. It is probably just a cement stucco coating on a panel. What does it sound like when you knock on it?

so what was the answer to cement in the fireplace and why it was done? I’ve got 5 cemented fireplaces in a house i just purchased

Me too!

Cement is a powder mixed with fine or coarse aggregate to make mortar, concrete, stucco, etc. It can't be solid concrete so its probably a cement based stucco on a panel. Knock on it to see if its hollow and then chip it out with a hammer and cold chisel.

I would call a chimney sweep and ask them to check it out. They should be able to tell you about the general condition of the chimney and how far up the firebox is filled in. My guess is that closing up the firebox is based on the chimney being old enough to be suspect or otherwise in unusable condition. It may have been required by an insurance company to render it totally unusable and not a potential fire hazard to obtain a lower premium.