Blue Stone over hardwood

[NealR5]

Hi All,
I'm about to install my T6 and I was told by a mason that it's accecptable to builld my 1 inch thick Blue stone ember protetion directly over my hardwood floor. He suggested " a vapor barrier with lath and a scratch coat". I'm aware that I will need to drill into my hardwood and thats okay by us.

Does this seem like good advice?

thanks
Neal

 

[heavy hammer]

As long as it is the correct dimensions for the stove install it is fine. If you take the hardwood flooring out what is under it probably plywood floor which is wood, so it should not make a difference.

 

[Pug]

I have always laid my tile that is on a hardwood or plywood floor on backerboard/cement board which is easy to lay down and helps keep the floor from moving around cracking the mortar between the stones.

 

[Lake Girl]

Depending on the age of the house, it could be more tongue & groove... running the opposite direction. Most installations seem to be cement board and then stones or tiles.

 

[begreen]

If you don't want to drill the hardwood floor use a 3/4" plywood base, then cement board screwed to the plywood and mortar under the stone.

 

[jrems]

If you don't want to drill the hardwood floor use a 3/4" plywood base, then cement board screwed to the plywood and mortar under the stone.

I did something like this. Incase I wanted to remove it later I put down a thin ply layer then thin hardy backer then mortar/ 1" thick stone. Only the trim was nailed down. If it's in a corner with a 500 lb stove on top your not going to have to worry about it moving

 

[kennyp2339]

What's underneath the wood floor, how big are the rafter, how are they installed and what's the spacing between them? You got to go into the mind frame of can my floor support 1,200 lbs in that area or does it need additional support underneath.
Figure the hearth is going the weight 500 lbs all said an done, then another 450lbs for the stove, plus another 20lbs in wood when the stove is loaded, plus additional weight on any wood you leave on the side of the stove for future loadings.

 

[mass_burner]

If there wasn't something already there, I wonder why folks build these elaborate hearth pads.

If it were me, I'd look into some glass tiles they make for thus purpose now.

 

[begreen]

Main reasons are looks, insulation requirements, and a desire to raise the stove up.

 

[NealR5]

Thanks everyone.
I spoke with a general contractor and there is no problen with the weight of the stone. The 800 lbs of stone will to be spread over 60 plus sq. ft. The harth is a fairly simple (flat) design one that will please my wife fit the room and provide the proper ember protection.
As I mentioned in a previouse post I'm a firefighter and I would never be able to walk into my station if I burn my house down. hahah
Here are two pictures one of the stones near my stove and the second is of a window I broke while trimming branches that will be close to my chimney. GREAT MOVE ugggg I think everyone will enjoy my mistake.

 

[Simonkenton]

Oops! On the tree trimming. I'd llike to have that on video.
Don't feel bad, I was cutting down a 95 foot white pine on a mountainside, after the tree hit the ground it started sliding, got onto me and I wound up with a broken femur, and wound up with a metal knee after 2 surgeries.
A broken window would have been much preferable.

Statistics show that logging is the number 2 most dangerous job in America and I know why.

 

[NealR5]

I have had a few calls with patient's with a broken femur. One about two weeks ago and when I asked if she needed pain medications she said " Do me unconscious". The femur is one strong bone and it take a lot of force to break it. I believe your statistic about loggers.

 

[Simonkenton]

Neal are you a paramedic, or what?

 

[Squisher]

As a sidenote an accident like that is one of the prime reasons you never should fall a tree from the lowside or the downhill side. Sometimes you do what you gotta do and all accidents suck. Sorry to hear of your painful lesson.

I highlead logged/woods work for over a decade. It is extremely perilous work. Major accidents and worse are far to common.

 

[Simonkenton]

Well, squisher it was a bad day for me. I have felled many many hundreds of trees, many of them bigger than this one. I am from the flatlands of Georgia so I was up here cutting a big tree on a steep NC mountain.
I dropped the tree right where I wanted it. Felled it so it went uphill.
What I wasn't aware of was that, sometimes, a tree dropped like this may begin to slide downhill.
I was walking away from the tree, heading downhill, when after about 20 seconds of staying still, it began to slide downhill, and it was all downhill for me after that. Lucky I wasn't killed.
That was a bad day for me but look who won! Here I am up and about but that GD white pine tree is dead!
Now with my new titanium knee I have returned to the forest with my fierce Stihl and have cut down dozens of trees just like that one, some even bigger, and have had no problems.

By the way squisher I spent one of the great summers of my life in BC. Saw Jeremiah Johnson at the theatre in Atlanta in 1973 and got all amped up to live like a mountain man.
My buddy and I spent that summer roaming the wilderness near Ft. Nelson BC. Rented horses, rode through the wilderness for many weeks, killed a moose to eat usw. What a beautiful, rugged and dangerous piece of God's Green Earth.

 

[NealR5]

Neal are you a paramedic, or what?

I am a firerfighter paramedic.

 

[Simonkenton]

Neal I was a paramedic for 14 years in Georgia. Of course worked lots of femur fractures.
Doc was xraying my knee and showed me the xrays, fractured femur right in the knee joint. I knew I was in a lot of trouble.
You know you are having a bad day when you are laying in the ER thinking, "If only I had a mid-shaft femur fracture, life would be so much better."
And I was right. Doc put the knee back together with screws. Guaranteed me a "100 percent recovery." Well, he was off by 100 percent.
A year later it had failed, went to another doc he told me the distal femur was dead, necrosis due to poor circulation, went in 4 months later for total knee replacement. Spent the better part of 2 years on crutches.

Anyway, be careful when cutting down a tree.

 

[kennyp2339]

Simon that's a horrible story, but glad you made it with a full recovery, I'm also an emt for 15 yrs and a firefighter for 14 yrs and counting, my area is the femur fracture / head injury capital of NJ due to the ski resort and mountain biking area's, femur fractures from the mountain are so common that all of our rigs carry 2 traction splints each, before we moved the helicopter LZ to the ski resort parking lot we would average 10 fly outs a weekend ( trauma center is 50 miles away) and our record was 18 fly outs in day, at one time we had 2 helicopters on the ground loading patients and 2 circling overhead, side note- that day one of the old timers said it reminded him a Vietnam with the birds circling, we even had the coast guard up here to take patients to the hospital.

 

[madison]

Neal,

I would investigate if the ember protection of the squares of bluestone is to code. ie what if an ember falls between the cracks? I would guess this is a mute point if you are using grout between the individual pieces

 

[begreen]

Neal,

I would investigate if the ember protection of the squares of bluestone is to code. ie what if an ember falls between the cracks? I would guess this is a mute point if you are using grout between the individual pieces

Good point. If not grout, sand should be used.

 

[Simonkenton]

Kenny that is a wild story, medevac choppers circling like Vietnam! Hell I didn't know there was any skiing in New Jersey. What is the vertical drop of your mountain?
Is that the Hare traction splint you are referring to? That is what we used, I have been out of the field for 20 years.
I gotta say the second doc did a good job with the knee back 8 years ago. I just finished building a log cabin and am now an over the road truck driver, knee doesn't give me too much trouble. I was pinned under that big pine tree for 35 minutes, doc told me that another 20 minutes under the tree and I would have gotten amputated.
Look on the sunny side, I would have gone with the "Captain Ahab" model artificial leg, made of whalebone. I thought that looked so good on Gregory Peck in Moby Dick.