My husband and I want to build a permanent (non moveable) hearth pad for a new Vermont Castings non-catalytic wood stove. It's replacing an old wood stove that we have already removed. We have also removed the original pad, which was just standard tile grouted directly to the subfloor!
I've read the articles on the hearth.com web site, including the VERY excellent Hearth Design for Wood, Pellet and Coal Stoves article. In fact, I've been reading this web site for years for all of my firewood and wood stove information.
But I need a little help with the specifics of our situation, and a little help understanding what the Encore manual says about hearth pad requirements.
We have a 4'x5' space of subfloor ready for the pad, surrounded by 3/4" solid hardwood flooring. We would like to keep the pad as close to flush with the floor as possible. In other words, we would like it as close to 3/4" thick as possible. But thicker than that is acceptable, and as I understand it, is probably necessary.
The stove sits in the middle of our small living room, piped to a brick chimney in the middle of the house. (Pipe and chimney are all ready to go – nothing extra to do there. Clearances are all good – no walls anywhere near where the stove will sit.) So the pad is something we walk over all the time. If it needs to be more than 3/4" thick, we'll put a curved wood molding around it to prevent toe stubbing and make it easier to roll furniture over it.
As I know has been mentioned in other threads here, the current Vermont Castings Encore manual states, "For installation with the heat shield attached, use an approved 1/2” (13 mm) noncombustible hearth pad with k = 0.84 BTU in/ft2 hr °F or an equivalent material with an R-value of at least 0.59."
What confuses me is this part: "approved 1/2" (13mm) noncombustible hearth pad." Is there really something out there that is only 1/2" that satisfies heat resistance requirements? I know they're talking about prefab stuff. But what is it made of, that it satisfies their requirements in such a thin pad?
What we had hoped to do is lay something fairly thin (Durock, etc.) and then lay 1/2" thick slate tile (Home Depot stuff, all prepped and ready to lay) on top of that. But that doesn't achieve the necessary r-value of .59.
I'm reading more threads here and finding some of you recommending avoiding this tile, and Home Depot tile in general. Maybe that's a good thing. We could use thinner ceramic tile instead of the 1/2" tile we've been planning on.
I've read here and elsewhere about Micore 300, but it sounds like it's going to be hard to get where we live and might take significant time to shipped. So unless it's our only hope, we'll probably have to skip that solution. (If anyone happens to know where to get it quickly around here, please let me know. I know there are dealers in Denver, but they're 1-1/2 hours drive from here.)
And I'm just noticing rock wool or fiberglass batts mentioned in the K Values – What does it all mean? article. I don't see much about that anywhere else. Where would one get that in a form that would work for this, and how would it be used in a floor installation?
Any help is greatly appreciated. We'll be picking up the stove next week and we're currently heating with electric baseboard heaters until we get this thing installed. It would be great to be up and running with the new wood stove ASAP – but of course, safely.
- Rachel
I've read the articles on the hearth.com web site, including the VERY excellent Hearth Design for Wood, Pellet and Coal Stoves article. In fact, I've been reading this web site for years for all of my firewood and wood stove information.
But I need a little help with the specifics of our situation, and a little help understanding what the Encore manual says about hearth pad requirements.We have a 4'x5' space of subfloor ready for the pad, surrounded by 3/4" solid hardwood flooring. We would like to keep the pad as close to flush with the floor as possible. In other words, we would like it as close to 3/4" thick as possible. But thicker than that is acceptable, and as I understand it, is probably necessary.
The stove sits in the middle of our small living room, piped to a brick chimney in the middle of the house. (Pipe and chimney are all ready to go – nothing extra to do there. Clearances are all good – no walls anywhere near where the stove will sit.) So the pad is something we walk over all the time. If it needs to be more than 3/4" thick, we'll put a curved wood molding around it to prevent toe stubbing and make it easier to roll furniture over it.
As I know has been mentioned in other threads here, the current Vermont Castings Encore manual states, "For installation with the heat shield attached, use an approved 1/2” (13 mm) noncombustible hearth pad with k = 0.84 BTU in/ft2 hr °F or an equivalent material with an R-value of at least 0.59."
What confuses me is this part: "approved 1/2" (13mm) noncombustible hearth pad." Is there really something out there that is only 1/2" that satisfies heat resistance requirements? I know they're talking about prefab stuff. But what is it made of, that it satisfies their requirements in such a thin pad?
What we had hoped to do is lay something fairly thin (Durock, etc.) and then lay 1/2" thick slate tile (Home Depot stuff, all prepped and ready to lay) on top of that. But that doesn't achieve the necessary r-value of .59.
I'm reading more threads here and finding some of you recommending avoiding this tile, and Home Depot tile in general. Maybe that's a good thing. We could use thinner ceramic tile instead of the 1/2" tile we've been planning on.
I've read here and elsewhere about Micore 300, but it sounds like it's going to be hard to get where we live and might take significant time to shipped. So unless it's our only hope, we'll probably have to skip that solution. (If anyone happens to know where to get it quickly around here, please let me know. I know there are dealers in Denver, but they're 1-1/2 hours drive from here.)
And I'm just noticing rock wool or fiberglass batts mentioned in the K Values – What does it all mean? article. I don't see much about that anywhere else. Where would one get that in a form that would work for this, and how would it be used in a floor installation?
Any help is greatly appreciated. We'll be picking up the stove next week and we're currently heating with electric baseboard heaters until we get this thing installed. It would be great to be up and running with the new wood stove ASAP – but of course, safely.
- Rachel
