Fireplace Saga

Back in the late 1970s when this area of DuPage County became a real estate "boom town" a lot of residential construction occurred.

Some of it was shabby and even local communities made mistakes. Did you know that Naperville didn't meet the Federal standards for evacuation streets? Probably not.

Here in Wheaton, the city made some terrible mistakes. These included the retention ponds including #1 through #4, which it seems were inadequate. It also approved and inspected the installation of at least 500 defective manufactured fireplaces. They were defective because of improper installation, but the code inspectors didn't catch even one flawed installation!

It took two serious fires to bring light to the fireplace issue, and the city condemned the few ostensibly defective fireplaces it could find. "Better late than never."

I've spent a few $thousand having the fireplace in my condo removed to meet city requirements. That included an architectural drawing mandated by the city. Go figure.

The final step is tearing up portions of a $5,000 floor to repair it so it looks like new. Here is a photo of step one; removal of sections which ended at the now removed fireplace. It is a "floating" floor comprised of interlocking bamboo sections and on top of an underlayment which meets HOA guidelines and was approved by management in writing for installation about 5 years go. This type of floor makes this relatively easy. Only $500 in materials to do this simple job. But we had to find a distributor in Georgia who carries this particular floor, as it is no longer manufactured. I'm one of about 330 people in this HOA who have had had to go through this process.