Hearth removal and DIY hearth pad (w/ pics)

[kiletravis09]

Ok so we bought this house about one year ago and the previous owner had installed a wood burning area back in the 70's. It had its fair share of use considering this house has been heated exclusively with wood since 75'. The old hearth was built with with long concrete blocks and had huge mortar gaps. A lot of the mortar was cracked and or missing so the possibility of an ember failing through and to the wood floor was pretty high. This is a pic of the old hearth:



So my wife and I are rebuilding the hearth area so that in the winter we can use it as a heating area, and in the spring through summer we can remove the stove and hearth pad and use the room as a den. We are also bringing the area up to current code for our insurance so that we can burn wood safely and legally!

So yesterday I started to remove the old block and mortar and was extremely surprised to find that that luckily nothing was glued to the floor. It seems they just put down a cement board and built on top of it which I'm glad they did. Less work for me

Once I got the old hearth area removed and disposed of it was time to start cleaning up the floor. Our house is about 130 years old and used to be used as a doctor's office and funeral home. The herringbone floors are all original and are in great shape, so once I removed the hearth I had the task of sanding and prepping the floors.



I sanded and sanded and sanded some more to try and get the dark color from the concrete pad out of the floor. Finally I said screw it and decided the faded shadow of the old hearth would give the floors some history. Maybe the future owners will appreciate that someone removed the hearth from the house and fixed the floor.

After the sanding and prepping was done it was time to poly the floor. I was pleasantly surprised that once the poly was applied and started to cure, the shadow left from the hearth started to blend into the floor a little better. Its still noticeable noticablebut not as bad. After three coats it really started to look good!



Now that the floor is done its time to start on the new hearth.

I used this forum to get an idea of what I wanted to do. I also used the specs of my stove to provide adequate clearances and insulation value. So I decided to use:
1 sheet of 3/4 in. particle board
2 sheets of durarock next gen cement board
14 sq ft of slate tile

Today I cut the wood and cement board and layered them together



Now once the pad was "built" it was time to tile it. Now I'm gonna say this. The slate looks awesome and really gives some character to the hearth pad. But it is a PITA to work with. If someone is wanting to do this I recommend using a title that is not natural stone. Unless you are used to doing time work. In which case I wasn't.

So before doing anything permanent I put all of the tiles down with no thinset to make sure I had enough and to also mark my cuts. I rented a wet saw for 12$ and got to work cutting the pieces.

Once everything was ready to lay I put down the thinset and started laying the tile. YouTube makes it look so easy haha
Once you get going it's not too bad but there is somewhat of a learning curve to using a trowel and thinset. This is the all I have done today:


Tomorrow I'll be applying the grout and also the wood trim that will be on the perimeter of the pad. I'll update with more pics once it's finished!

 

[Lake Girl]

Looking good!! So now that you've coated the area where the hearth was, are you going to light sand and coat the rest to spruce them up? My poplar T&G needs the same sanding and coating ... still putting it off as other projects are higher priority. Next year

 

[quotejso]

That stone looks awfully famiiar, I had to sort through many boxes to get suitable pieces. It sure looks good nice work I like the shape

 

[kiletravis09]

Looking good!! So now that you've coated the area where the hearth was, are you going to light sand and coat the rest to spruce them up? My poplar T&G needs the same sanding and coating ... still putting it off as other projects are higher priority. Next year

The floors were actually redone a few no the before we bought the place. They didn't do a very good poly coat so I'm thinking next spring I'll redo the poly coats on all the floors. Fun fun haha

 

[kiletravis09]

That stone looks awfully famiiar, I had to sort through many boxes to get suitable pieces. It sure looks good nice work I like the shape

Hey what did you seal yours with? I used a sealer from home depot and it left a horrible white dull haze on the tile. I like the glossy look on yours.

 

[quotejso]

Hey what did you seal yours with? I used a sealer from home depot and it left a horrible white dull haze on the tile. I like the glossy look on yours.

I just used the real expensive grout that's premixed with sealer. It's a real pain wiping the grout off those natural stone tiles.

 

[kiletravis09]

So I finally got around to finishing the hearth. I have a newborn at home that's only three weeks old so it's been kinda tough to find time to say the least! I think it turned out extremely well. It exceeds the clearances on all sides by 2 inches, it's easy to clean, and it's a lot more safe than the previous hearth.

Last night we were in the 40's outside so I decided to fire her up to see how she would do. Needless to say the house has been in the 80's all night and all day. Its going to take some figuring out!

This little Nashua has some serious heating power. I also filled the stove last night at 11 and at 9am I still had tons of coals. Today I went out to check the chimney and there is barely any smoke coming out so it's burning more efficient than I thought it would.

If anyone has any questions on how to do this feel free to ask. It was pretty simple and cheap. For everything including the rental of a tile saw it came to about 110$.

P.S. the wood is not beside the stove during operation

 

[Nick Mystic]

I notice in some of your photos that there is some scorching on the lowest area of stone on the back wall. Is this solid stone or just a thin veneer? For the stone to get scorched like that you must have some serious heat back there. Do you know what is behind that stone (covered) wall? If it is combustible you probably need to take some temperature readings back there with an IR thermometer after you've been burning for a few hours with a typical fire. Long term heating at relatively low temperatures can change to chemical properties of wood to make it possible to ignite at relatively low temperatures.

New hearth looks good.