Mat to protect carpet in front of wood burner?

[teacher1984]

I'm not sure if our hearth is a little shorter than it should be but specks of coal etc have managed to damage the carpet in front of our multi fuel burner.

Does anyone know what I could buy to lay over the carpet whilst DH kneels & tends to the fire? I'm thinking some kind of hard wearing protective mat that can be rolled up when not in use?

Hope someone can advise as we're getting a new carpet soon and would love to keep it perfect!

Why don't you go traditional and get a hearthrug that stays rather than gets rolled up? Something dark coloured and speckly and ideally wool, possibly a ragrug from old jumpers.

I use a large thick cotton weave rug (it probably came from Ikea). All sorts of black marks, ash, wood splinters etc end up on it. It's easy to fold up and shake outside and it just about fits in the washing machine.

It goes over the top of my naice rug for about 5 months of the year.

Thanks for the replies - glad to know it's normal to get debris from the fire. This is a new house we've just moved into and we've never had a fire before. I'll have a look in ikea for something that will fit in the washer

we use a carpet offcut/sample in a dark colour
just get something cheapish as it will probably get a few little burn holes as well

when we fitted a new carpet, we had offcuts bound round the edges to make a mat to sit in front of the fire. We had a few made to replace if necessary.

We just get a cheap, darkish rug and replace every couple of years.

Caroldecker - where did you get the offcuts bound? And at what sort of cost?

It was about 10 years ago and the carpet store (john lewis) did it - It is called whipping and was about £5-£10 a metre from memory.

For an example, these guys cost £1/foot if you deliver and collect from them, so you should not have to pay too much more elsewhere.

It's worth investing in a pure wool rug as it's a naturally fire retardant material. I recently bought a lovely pure wool rug from these guys

I just got a cheap rug from the studio catalogue. £11.99 I think so I'm not fussed about throwing it away when it looks too bad and getting another !

We used to buy the squares of sample carpets which were normally sold off for a pound or so in the carpet shop.

Very complicated? I have small rug from a variety shop (like Wilkinsons, I guess). Cost £12-£15? Argos sells similar kind of thing.

You need to check that your hearth complies with the regulations for superimposed and decorative hearths. They are there to protect the structure of your house so are very important .

If your stove was fitted by a registered stove fitter, then you should be ok , but I'm guessing you don't know if you've just bought the house. The rules are here

www.stovefittersmanual.co.uk/articles/hearth-regulations/