Building a hearth is one of the most rewarding projects a wood burner can do . . . since the stove is often a focus in the room you will find yourself often looking at the hearth . . . and marveling at its beauty . . . and will take pride in the workmanship whether it is your first tiling job or the latest of many. Building a hearth truly is a great project -- partly because it often results in saving money and partly since you can design it to fit your own needs (whether it be size or R-value requirement) -- but mostly because it provides the backdrop to your stove and I guarantee you will be looking at this every day when winter hits.
The key to building your own hearth I believe is to take your time, plan things out and not skip any steps . . . take the time to lay out things as you want them before setting the tile into place with the mortar. Start with a good foundation and you should not have any issues with cracking. In my own case I doubled up the plywood with two layers, added the 1/2 inch Durock and used the specified Durock screws every 6 or 8 inches and then mortared in thin slate tile with modified latex thinset . . . to date not a one has cracked.
Yep, I'm finding the majority of my time has been spent planning, making sure I don't skip ahead and end up with a hole in my ceiling in the wrong spot
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I am heading out tonight to buy a SuperVent double-wall ceiling kit from Lowes. I've already got the stove placed exactly in the ideal spot (with clearances taken into consideration, etc.). Here's the plan:
Use my plum bob to find the dead center on the ceiling of my pipe, and put a screw into the ceiling. From there I'll go up to the attic and install the ceiling support piece, making sure to hit the distance from the left wall exactly. The distance from the rear wall can move a bit to make sure it fits nicely between ceiling joists. This depends on the width of the ceiling support piece. Based on my joists, I
might have to back the stove away from the rear wall a bit but I'm not sure yet.
Once I have my ceiling piece in, I'll move the stove again to get it aligned with the ceiling adapter, using my plum bob. Once the stove is in place, I'll masking tape around the stove on the floor to map out my minimum floor protection. From here I'll know the minimum dimensions of the hearth, and we can start shopping for tile with that in mind. I'll stick with full tile pieces if possible, even if it makes my hearth floor a little larger than necessary. Then I'll dry fit everything on my plywood, cut my plywood, dry fit again, and then I can cut out my floor piece and start building up the hearth.
A question regarding clearances - if I have a 5 inch clearance from the corner of the stove to combustibles (when using wall protection), that means I need 5 inches of space between the stove and the combustible wall, right? Not 5 inches between the edge of the stove and my wall protection (e.g. durock or tile)?
Also still wondering about my electrical outlets. I think they will almost be covered by the wall protection if I didn't do anything special.