need advice: building a hearth tomorrow for a T5

[tower of power]

Tomorrow we are building our hearth for our alderlea t5. we are building our house and with all of the other details we haven't put too much thought into our hearth - and forgot to ask for advice earlier. We've been thinking of building a foot high wood rectangle using 2 by 12s - screw the wood sides of the rectangle into the wood floor. We would then fill the box with various sized field stone with flat sides. two pieces are around 2 X 3 feet on the flat side and a foot deep. some stone pieces may have less than a square foot of a flat side. We would set the stones into mortor and bind them together using mortor. Then we put the stove on top.

will this work? Do we need some type of cement board under this hearth somewhere- perhaps over the wood floor and under the stones?

Another idea is to put gravel on the bottom (over the wood floor) and then place the field stones on the gravel - like sand under a rock patio.

thanks

 

[thechimneysweep]

Your hearth will need to be 1/4" thick, non-combustible, solid and unbroken, so pieces of stone on loose sand or gravel won't fly unless you put a piece of cement board or the equivalent underneath. If you're going to mortar, and your stones are at least 1/4" thick, you could put a plywood top on your frame and mortar the stones on top of that.

 

[fossil]

Are you planning on leaving those 2" x 12" 's in place, or removing them after everything's all set up and cured? Rick

 

[tower of power]

I was thinking of keeping the 2 by 12s in place - sand them, make them look nice. another thought i just had looking at the picture gallery was to put some tile over the 2 by 12s or some flat rock or even copper.

if we use mortar between the stones would we still need cement board on top of the floor? our stones are about a foot high already so we are not planning on building a platform to put the stones on top of.
but if we need cement board then it seems to make sense to attach some cement board on top of the wood floor then place our field stones on the cement board with mortar between the stones.

we are thinking of using the 2 by 12s because the field stone edges are ragged and uneve

 

[fossil]

The reason I was asking is that if the wood is going to stay, you need to make sure it's outside the required clearance to combustibles from the front and sides of the stove. Rick

 

[Highbeam]

Cement board is cheap and easy to install on top of the wood floor and then do whatever you want from there up. You need a stable and secure footing for the stove. I wouldn't want to set in on a pile of loose rocks. A picture might be helpful. You don't need to fill your platform with anything, it can be hollow.