Hearth Modification....lets see your pictures! and hear your advice

[Dustin]

I currently have an insert in a fireplace with a raised hearth.


I want to take the raised hearth down to floor level, and place a free standing stove there instead of an insert.


Chimney is fully lined...



Has anyone done this? How much of a pain was it? I have also thought about removing some of the bricks above the fireplace opening, and setting the stove on a raised hearth, but I don't know what this would do to the structure itself.


Here is a picture.

 

[PARAL]

Benefit of the raised hearth is the airspace gives ample clearance to combustibles. If you were to lower it to ground level it would have to be quite a bit larger to give necessary clearances. I have a floor level insert and it is more difficult to load and watch since it it low down. That's all I got for ya. Good Luck!

 

[jadm]

I have a raised hearth too and wouldn't change it. Puts fire at eye level for viewing and much easier to load.

What about extending the hearth you have out so you can sit the stove on it?

Have you looked in the 'gallery' section? NOt sure if that is what it is called but there are a lot of pictures of hearths and stoves there that might give you more ideas.

Good Luck

 

[burntime]

How far dwon do yo want to bend to put wood in?

 

[Shari]

Here's the photo gallery link: https://www.hearth.com/gallery/pics/woodcoal/index.html

To advance to the next page, click on the link near the top of the page.

Shari

 

[gpcollen1]

I would keep it as is, move the tools to the right, store wood to the left side of the hearth and put some tile/stone on the floor in front.

I installed my Castine on the raised hearth and love it.

 

[Corey]

I think this project could go either way...depending on the mason's whim the day they built your FP. It could be that you tear out the hearth and find a bunch of ugly old cinder block on the bottom ~16" of the fireplace face, or maybe it is faced with brick. You could always salvage some brick from the hearth for a patch job if you're careful taking it out. You might have enough to patch up the opening of the FP, too - and make it look like a solid wall. Overall, though I don't think this is going to be a weekend DIY project. You're going to need some fairly competent masonry skills, knowledge of all the codes and clearances for your new stove and possibly a few specialized tools. I know every time I work with masonry, I'm always trying to track down a brick stretcher before the job is done. This same advice goes for chopping out the FP opening bigger. I think you're going to run into a substantial amount of structural issues and who knows what condition the brick is in behind the face.

If I was really going to go commando on this project, I'd probably plan to tear out the hearth, hope I had enough brick to do a nice patch job and make a good looking wall / short hearth out of it, but if not, be prepared to add a new 'face' of either brick or stone to the FP to give it a clean look. Overall, this seems like a lot of work for not much gain. Though I'm probably guilty of doing even more for even less! So good luck what ever you choose.

 

[fossil]

Before & a couple of afters. I love the raised hearth. Rick

 

[elmoleaf]

I had a raised fireplace hearth that I removed to install a freestanding stove.
It was only two courses of brick high, which sat on a concrete hearth extension that was flush with the subfloor. It was topped with slates and the interior was filled with sand.

The ugly issue I ran into were a few concrete bricks were now exposed that'd originally been hidden by raised hearth. Those didn't match the color of the brick surround above. Also, the edge of the firebrick of the hearth floor were now exposed, and that yellow color didn't match anything either.
Originally, I didn't care because I was going to tile over all the brick anyway. Never got to it. I ended up mixing some paints together and got a nearly invisible color match to red bricks. So, I just touched up 5 or 6 mismatched bricks and now they blend right in.

My new hearth didn't need an R value, just spark protection. I put concrete board and granite tile on the concrete extension, which put the new surface level with the surrounding wood floor. To meet front clearances, I did have to remove some finished wood floor and extend the conc. bd/tile over the wood subfloor.
It's great not having a raised hearth anymore to trip on or stub toes.