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For the past month I have been gutting and working on my living room. Since I am about to replace some wood in my old floor and redesign my hearth set up, I wondered what others had done.
My current one is factory made and was about $300. It has a steel frame, stone on top, particle board on bottom and who knows what in the middle. We bought it last year because we spilled candle wax the one that was here when we moved in. The wax melted into it and smoked when the stove got hot. Unfortunately, since replacing my old smoke dragon with the Fireview, I realize that my "new pad is too small for the new stove. I intend to build a new one in the next few weeks. I regret the lousy timing of my wax spill and stove upgrade.
My hearth is 7 feet wide and 6 feet deep. I built it for a stove without heat shielding. (3 feet rule) It sounds big, but when you expect a big storm coming it's nice to bring a few totes of splits in and store them by the stove.
You have seen both of the hearths here, Vic.. The only regret I have is with the one in the my studio. I like the size of the foot print, but I wish we'd made the supporting framing for it smaller, so there was a deeper "toe kick" area. I find it's easy to jam a toe up against the woodwork and leave a scuff mark. Other than that, I love the size and I love the height which I feel gives the stove a nice "presence" in the room. You can sit on the sides of the tiled surface but it doesn't eat up too much floorspace, important for me since I frequently use the floor to do larger layouts for floorcloths or awnings/deck canopies.
Just about to put mine in - recessed into floor, ceramic board, cement board, some sort of tile. Thinking of limestone but worried about strength of tile and scratching with having to move stove every year to sweep (don't ask)
Built myself . . . mainly because it was cheaper . . . but also because I knew exactly what it had for a R value when completed . . . and I have to say, I was rather proud of it when finished . . . although I still haven't put up the wood trim on the edge as the living room renovation was put on hold for a bit (my wife and I needed to take a break from the work.)