NEWBIE here with Hearth?? And , Hello.

[RandyW]

Hello to all. My name is Randy & I live in Maple Grove PA.

My question is about hearth construction. More spicificly about going over the BRAND NEW 3/4" oak hard wood floor I just installed myself. Sub flooring is 3/4" plywood then 1/8" luan board, 15# felt paper, then the actual oak floor. All this is resting on 2-3/4" x 6-3/4" joists. I know its beefy.
My wife is dead set against me cutting out the flooring and starting at subfloor. I agree with her. Is there anything I can use to protect the floor with, as the heart will actually not be secured to the floor. Or is that not good. We may move the wood stove years down the line and wont be able to put floor back together again.
I plan to use metal studs to frame out an area 5'w x 4'd. Then a layer of cement board, sheetmetal, cement board, and top it off with some 3" flag stone I have laying in the back yard. There are some thinner pieces I can cut to cover the studs and boards for the sides. Does this sound like overkill or not. Reading some other posts I would think not.
Any suggestions to save the floor from damage would make the wifey happy. I do have access to lots of rubber roofing as a possible buffer between floor and frame.
Thanx in advance for any response. Randy

I forgot to mention I will be purchasing a Vermont Casting Encore Non Cat , chimney straight up through cathedral ceiling with 8" pipe.

 

[Hogwildz]

Welcome.
If you want a portable hearth. Why not just purchase a pre made hearth board. Not fixed, when/if you decide to move the stove, you can, and then move the hearth board also.

 

[RandyW]

Not crazy about the looks of those. Going for more of a cabin or cottage feeel lots of wood and stone in and around the house.

 

[Hogwildz]

What are the heat protection requirements per VC for your stove? Thickness only? R &/or K values given?
What you want to make sounds nice, but heres things to consider:
That hearth will be heavy. unless some sort of padding under it, at that weight, it might leave creases or indents in your wood flooring.
Might want to think about setting the hearth on some kind of padded substrate or even a pc of plywood between the steel studs & the wood floor.
Another thing to consider, if/when you move it, the flooring underneath might not match the rest of the flooring anymore. fading, wear etc on the accessible flooring, and untouched flooring under the heart. You have a good idea, just take into consideration the un-obvious things. That flag stone will be heavy at 3" thick and 4' x 5'. Is it one pc, larger pcs, smaller pcs? You'll want to set your studs up so that the heavy stone spans the studs. any of that weight between will most likely sag with only 2 1/2 sheets of Durock. Might want to space the suds closer together. Sounds like a nice looking hearth though.

 

[RandyW]

1/2" material K factor of 0.84 if Im reading online manual right.

 

[RandyW]

I was planning on running an "X" pattern with the studs to distribute wieght evenly instead of running them straight with or against the wall. flagstone is roughly 2' x 4' sizes give or take a couple inches but all are rectangular. would most likely run them in a pattern resembling bricks laid flat & staggered. I relise floor may be discolored but the nice thing about solid wood, sand and restain. It wont be moved for years to come so I guess I could screw the studs down and leave it at that . I guess plywood would be best if not luan considering price of each.

 

[RandyW]

I just noticed Berwick PA, home to Jimmy Spencer. That boy can eat haha.

 

[Hogwildz]

I was planning on running an "X" pattern with the studs to distribute wieght evenly instead of running them straight with or against the wall. flagstone is roughly 2' x 4' sizes give or take a couple inches but all are rectangular. would most likely run them in a pattern resembling bricks laid flat & staggered. I relise floor may be discolored but the nice thing about solid wood, sand and restain. It wont be moved for years to come so I guess I could screw the studs down and leave it at that . I guess plywood would be best if not luan considering price of each.

I have never seen it done with an x, but if it works, it works. Do you want it raised? If you want it lower, you can always do a layer or 2 of Micore 300 which would also protect the wood from scratching as the Micore 300 is a softer ceramic based board. It also has great K & R values. You could also lay the flagstone directly on the Microe if the micore is directly on the floor surface. then just trim the edges out with whatever you want. Just a though. Didn't know if you wanted it raised or figured the steel stuffing was the only way.

 

[RandyW]

I didnt relise that I could go Micore 300 only and the flagstone thats awesome. Where do I find out more about this magical stuff. I'll check back in the morning thanx for the tips its greatly appreciated.

 

[colsmith]

Going with what Hogwildz said, you could just put down some Micore in whatever amount you need for the required R value, right on top of the oak floor. Then put cement board or whatever on top of that for something solid to put your stonework on. Why do anything with studs at all, your floor sounds quite strong enough to support everything. (I could be mistaken, I was in the College of Engineering for 5 years, but I was in computer science, structural engineering is not my area.) So unless you want to raise the hearth up significantly, just build up from the floor you have. Eventually someday the whole thing could be taken apart, and your floor would be fairly undamaged I think since the Micore is rather soft, and with the cement board and stones on top of it the weight would be spread out somewhat.

If you want to raise your hearth way up, which is what we did, and we are very keen on it that way, you can just build a frame on top of your floor. The frame for our hearth was screwed in to some of the studs in the side and back walls, but is not screwed into the floor. We put a vinyl tile floor in our living room simultaneously with installing the stove. The floor is just sitting undernearth the whole thing and could theoretically just go back to being normal floor space someday. You can look at/read about our hearth building at the following link: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/6351/

With our hearth raised that much we have storage for several days wood underneath, and we have better viewing of the fire, and we can poke at the fire without hunching over. We also thought the pre-made hearths for sale were terribly boring.

 

[Gooserider]

I agree with the previous posts about using Micore, though I would suggest putting at least a few screws into the floor just to ensure that nothing moves until you want it to...

Another thing that I would suggest, is that we seem to be getting a lot of members having issues with their various VC non-cat stoves. I am not sure just what the issues are, but given the number of people having problems, I would be very much inclined towards talking to your dealer about getting a CAT stove instead of a non-cat. (You can do a search for the relevant threads) Some of the people reporting problems with the non-cats are folks that switched from cat model VC's and say the cats were easier to work and burned better. - I have an Encore Cat, and at this point am just as glad that I didn't get a non-cat.

Some people worry about replacing the cat, but it seems the aftermarket cats aren't that expensive, and last long enough that the cost isn't a big deal - many of the non-cat stoves will also have parts that need replacing at similar intervals and costs.

Gooserider