Tiling a woodstove hearth with small tiles & heavy stove

[ProgressHybrid]

Hi there,

We bought a 700 pound Woodstock Progress Hybrid and will be making a tile hearth flush with the surrounding wood floors. My wife wants to use small 1/4" thick ceramic or slate tiles placed in a herringbone pattern for the flooring the woodstove will sit on. In looking through tile hearth pictures, I have only ever seen people using mostly larger (10x10" or 12x12") tiles for the hearths they built. The stove we have is very heavy. Is this the reason I've only seen pictures of people using larger tiles? Is it possible to use smaller tiles (like in the attached picture below)? Or do they have more risk for cracking due to being smaller?

Also, what is an acceptable type of material to attach the tiles to the Durock below (what type of thin set is fire rated)? And what type of grout can be used for a hearth? Or do we just have to use some sort of masonry mortar for everything???

 

[gloves12]

Huh, good question! In my searching, I haven't seen anything about special thinset or grout - I'm just using standard stuff that is designed for my tile size (I'm using 13") for floors - that seemed to be what other people where using for their hearths, but maybe I've been misreading. I hope not =)

Per tile size, what kind of base, is it a pedestal, or feet? I guess I could just google -- legs, k, also GEEZ that's a pretty stove, and it loads north-south, cool!

 

[edyit]

i went with larger size tiles because there was less work putting them down compared to putting down smaller sized tiles. once the mortar and grout are set up it shouldn't matter what size the tiles are.

 

[sportbikerider78]

Normal mortar/thinset is fine. When you do small tile jobs, you typically use unsanded grout because it fills smaller voids better than sanded.

Bigger tiles are also much eaiser to skid around large wood stoves on. You might find that one leg sits on a grout line and the other 3 don't. You may have some interesting leveling to consider so it doesn't rock.

I used a porcelain slate (look) tile with black grout that has held up really well to placing my Englander. I skidded it quite a bit and no marks whatsoever.

 

[toddnic]

There are a number of things that I considered when building and finishing my hearth for the Progress Hybrid. First, I enhanced the subfloor so that it was substantial enough to hold the weight of the woodstove without flexing. Second, I used 1/2 inch Durock to help with the overall floor stability as well as the fire rating. I used 1/2 inch slate in 12" squares to cover the hearth. You could easily use smaller squares but I'm not sure that I would recommend using 1/4 inch thickness. The most important thing to remember to keep from cracking the slate or ceramic tile is in how you move the woodstove across it. I laid 3/4 inch plywood strips across the hearth and moved the stove on large dowels (Egyptian style). The legs were on 2x4's. I then used a rolling floor jack on the 3/4 inch plywood to position the stove. After it was in its final position, a friend and I lifted one side at a time and first removed the 2x4's. We then removed the plywood strips. This minimized the impact on the slate and we had no damage.

 

[larry08]

I bought one back in the spring when they were on sale and finally got around to installing it last month. I've been doing breakin fires this week. I made my hearth using faux brick porcelain tile from lowes. I laid down 3/4 plywood, 1/2 cement board and the thinset and tile on top. I think you'd be alright using small tiles. I'd just make sure you "back butter" them (apply thinset to underside of tile). It will help fill in any voids and adhere to the Durock better.

 

[Rearscreen]

PH owner also here. A suggestion, under the legs themselves use some type of small metal block the thickness of the tile so the weight is squarely on that. Tile up to it. Kind of reminds me of when I was a kid my folks took us to Cape Canaveral and was told that the crawler that would move the rocket to the launchpad was so heavy that it would crush the stone underneath the tractor pads into sand. Oh and lucky you, you get to experience this amazing heater/cooker for the first time.

 

[Simonkenton]

I don't see why the small tile would not work.
But you must have a sound subfloor.
You need 1 1/4 inch of subfloor. So, if you already have 3/4 inch of plywood, you need to add 1/2 inch of plywood. Use lots of liquid nails and screw it down well. Then put on the half inch of Duroc, with thinset, and lots of Duroc screws.

 

[sportbikerider78]

I bought one back in the spring when they were on sale and finally got around to installing it last month. I've been doing breakin fires this week. I made my hearth using faux brick porcelain tile from lowes. I laid down 3/4 plywood, 1/2 cement board and the thinset and tile on top. I think you'd be alright using small tiles. I'd just make sure you "back butter" them (apply thinset to underside of tile). It will help fill in any voids and adhere to the Durock better.

Looks great. You never regret the money you spend on stone. That is my new philosophy on home building.