Flooring - Solid wood, engineered or laminate up against hearth?

[ontheneck]

Thinking about re-flooring my kitchen, which now has floating Pergo. The edge of the current floor is only 16" from my Hearthstone Homestead. We've had it there for 7 years w no issues, though, as you can see, I extended the hearth a bit with some tiles. Wondering whether solid wood or engineered wood planking would pose either a fire risk or cause warpage close to the stove. I'm on Long Island, NY so temps these days rarely drop below 25 at night (this year, hardly below 35) and so I do controlled burns (usually no more than 600) of usually 5 hours , 8 at the most. I don't have one of those thermometer guns so I can't report an accurate surface temp., but when the stove is at its hottest, the dog lies comfortably on the Pergo closest to the tiles. Does anyone have first-hand experience with these flooring materials interacting with stoves to help guide my choice here?

 

[begreen]

If the tiled extension area remains, then I think the Pergo should be ok.

 

[ontheneck]

If the tiled extension area remains, then I think the Pergo should be ok.

Ok, I think so, too. But are you saying that the other wood options are out of the question?

 

[begreen]

No, not at all. We have solid oak flooring abutting our hearth.

 

[begreen]

There was a case many years ago when someone put down an inexpensive flooring product (stick on vinyl tiles?) in a cold basement room and then added a wood stove. After a while, the heat and dryness in the space shrunk the product quite notably, but that was unusual.

 

[ontheneck]

No, not at all. We have solid oak flooring abutting our hearth.

Excellent. Thanks much, Begreen.

 

[TomMcDonald]

All I can say is that if you decide on laminate, ensure you leave an expansion gap between the hearth and the new flooring as you would abbuting any solid object in the room. This may mean you'll need a piece of trim to cover the gap.

 

[begreen]

Yes, the radiant heat from the front of the stove will raise the temp of the flooring and dry it out a bit. Our oak flooring in front of the stove separates by a hair from this effect. After a week of not burning the wood returns to the normal size and the hairline cracks between the boards goes away. It's subtle and I'm probably the only one that notices it.

 

[xman23]

My oak flooring directly in front of the hearth stone has a few larger hairline gaps. So it does get a bit of heat. I never checked the temp.

 

[EbS-P]

I have installed both the solid core Vinyl plank and the cheapest version I could find. The more expensive solid core would be my choice for in front of a stove. But it was considerably more expensive 2-3 times more. I would lay it in such a way that I would finish at the stove if possible. If anything damages it would be much easier to take it all apart and replace the damaged planks if you end by the stove.