I live in an older house with a fireplace that was originally wood and was converted to gas by one of the previous owners of the house. Whoever put in the gas insert did a real half-ass job installing the gas line, hacked out the floor and busted out some of the apron brick in the process. I'm not sure how they did the repair but it looks like they just put mortar around the bricks, which were all loose when we bought the house. Picture shows what I'm dealing with...I pulled out the loose bricks and broken mortar, all the other bricks seem to be pretty solid. I just put in the wood pieces on the right side under the edge of the flooring because I had a gaping hole there. So what's the best way to fix this? Do I need to bust out some of the old mortar bed (hesitant to do this because I don't want to crack the rest of the mortar)? It looks like when the previous repair was done they put a thin layer of mortar under the bricks on top of the old mortar, which didn't hold. Any help here is appreciated.

Hi There, I am a newbie here and try to build a 6ft retaining wall, which needs county permit. It seems I need a site plan to create a design, but do not find it in my closing documents. Is there any way to find this info online? Or have to call the county record? Thanks, G