Best hearth size?

[yalo]

I'm building a new house and never had a wood stove before but decided to put one in this house (and am excited about it!) I bought the stove already -- Woodstock's Ideal Steel Hybrid. The next step in the construction is deciding how big of hearth to make. I've see the guidelines for the minimum hearth size for this stove and that's not a problem as I left a pretty big space for it in my living room -- I'd like to make it comfortably big and am trying to figure out how big to make it.

The hearth will be in the corner of a room, and we will be cutting off the front corner at a 45 degree angle as well as cutting off the back corner at a 45 and tiling up the wall there.

Since I've never had a wood stove before I don't really know how big to make it. I know people like to store tools and stuff on the hearth. I'd be comfortable making the sides of the hearth up to 6' long, but I don't want it to look "too big" compared to the size of my stove either (the Ideal Steel is 29.5" wide and 27.5" deep).

So, do people have opinions about what the best size would be? Thanks.

 

[xman23]

See my avatar. Not your stove, but my Oslo. Each of the side walls is 5' . The goal was to make the hearth as small as the clearances would allow. I used a rear heat shield. The stove corners are 14" from the walls. There is plenty of room on the hearth for poker set and a small metal container that holds my stove gloves. I don't keep any wood in the house. I made a full size tape outline on the floor to see what it was going to look like.

 

[tekguy]

My hearth is 5X5' - plenty of space to the sides and front - looks fine to me - no worries about sparks burning the floor - I also overbuilt it in reference to 'r' value that way in the future I can pretty much pick any stove I want and install without worry if I decide to change the stove

 

[CentralVAWoodHeat]

Mine is 5'x4' and goes all the way up to the top of the ten foot ceiling on both walls

 

[Babaganoosh]

What material will you be making the hearth out of?

 

[begreen]

It doesn't hurt to make the hearth larger to accommodate tools and wood.

 

[Babaganoosh]

It doesn't hurt to make the hearth larger to accommodate tools and wood.

Exactly, I love some of the set ups where there are alcoves built in for wood, maybe a small one for kindling.

 

[madison]

Corner heath install pictures in avatar.

Bigger especially out front, as suggested above, especially if your flooring surround the hearth is something you need to protect or worried about dirt, embers etc. Ours is tile on a slab so it was not an issue.

 

[BobUrban]

That is 8'6" wide. I added the tiles in front when I went from a side loader to front loader and I think about going all the way across wth the pavers but I am afraid my house will tip over. They are 10lbs a piece.

The step wall section is like 32" and I can load it up with a couple days worth of wood if I like. Room for all the tools I forged as well. Go big if you have the space. At least that is my opinion

 

[OhioBurner©]

I think this is something that is up to you, as long as you meet the minimum specs the rest is up to you, available space, cost, etc. I'd go as big as you can. One of my hearths is pretty large, I'd have to measure but I'd say close to 12 feet wide. I can stack a couple weeks worth of wood there within a step or two of the stove, and I'm sure the extra thermal mass helps regulate the heat somewhat. My other hearth is pretty large too. The one thing I'd do differently if I was building it would be to make them a bit deeper. It sucks to have a huge wood stacking area that is only 16" deep when all your wood is 18-24" long.

I just put in a stove in front of one of my existing hearths - had to make an extension for the stove. I went minimum since it sticks way out into my living room. If I had a do over on that one I would still have gone minimum depth, but would have made the width wider since the width doesn't really take up usable room space like I thought it would and it just seems and looks silly with the huge stove over a narrow hearth pad, only a smidgen over 6" wider than the stove on each side.

 

[Poindexter]

My current hearth comes out 22" from the front of the loading door, the next one will be at least 34", maybe 40" out from the loading door. I hate ember burns in the carpet, and I like having a big warm place to stand when my feet are cold.

 

[Babaganoosh]

Pics! Pics!

 

[StihlKicking]

Make it as big as your budget and room space will allow. It's kinda like a shop, you can't have to much space.

 

[Simonkenton]

Make it big. I have never seen a wood stove hearth that looked too big. The more room the better.