Please chat to me about hearths for wood burners?

[lolalotta]

OK, so just moved house into a 1930s property. We might be getting a wood burner (eeeeeeek!) Just thinking about hearth stones, what does your wood burner stand on and who sorts that out??? Instalation company or builder??? Also wondering what would suit a 1930s property? Am loving this look www.housetohome.co.uk/living-room/picture/coastal-cottage-living-room I think it could suit...we hope to restore the original floorboards and would love to expose the original brickwork but am unsure of wether this is even practical/ possible!?! What do you all think?

[Bowerbird5]

We have an inglenook and have sandstone flags now.We had tiles but DH chipped two so when we had to change the stove we changed the hearth. We have a Charnwood Country 16 but it heats a good size tank of water and seven radiators. We joined two fire guards together and hooked them onto the wall when kids grew up we just filled in the holes and painted over.
Size of stove depends whether a room heater or running radiators from it. Ours heats our whole house although we recently bought an Everhot for the kitchen. Very easy to light Charnwood.

[Canyousewcushions]

We're in a 30s house. Ours sit on slate hearths with oak floor boards- it looks great. If we'd has some original 30s tiles we'd had tried to have kept them!!

I'd have happily had exposed brick but they weren't high enough quality when the fireplaces were reopend so have fireboard which is fine- plain and neutral.

We bought timber 1930s fire surrounds- they are really cheap as not very fashionable at the minute and often a bit on the art deco side which I love. But I am one who likes decor to reference the property period without going all out retro. The timber ones I'd this era have quite big openings and I got some modern tiles with a geometric look which we've put between the surround and the opening. We get loads of compliments on it.

[Junime]

How do you view people's profiles to check out pics?

[Junime]

Hi all, I'm sushi looking to replace our ugly 1930s fireplace with a woodburner :)
Have any of you living in a 1930s property found that out gets too hot in your living rooms as they aren't huge.
I'm looking at either a 4 or 5 kilowatt stove--what did you all go for?
My other question is how do you get on using the baby guard as they look quite big! Our daughter who be up and about soon so thinking about safety

[MrsJamin]

We are also buying a 30s house with a woodburner, at the moment there's exposed brick which I'm not mad keen on so looking into cheap options to make it look better. Would love some tiles - lolalotta your orange ones sound very exciting! Would love to see a pic. Pudden I love your set up, will try and do something like this I think.

[Alwayscheerful]

Lola

I have had 3 different wood burners and the clearview is fab, really worth the extra money.

I think we have the 8kw pioneer, very little waste and heats up quickly but that is mostly down to the quality of the wood (it needs to be nice and dry) and the draw of the chimney.

We have seasoned wood delivered and tonnes of heatlogs, be sure tomusenthe extruded ones with a hole in the centre.

[ElectricSheep]

Also my burner gets going easily enough, but it does take about an hour to really warm up the room. That said, I often have to open the door to the hall to cool down a bit! And it warms up the room above which has the chimney breast as the flue gets really hot too. I think it must be very good for the house with the combination of ventilation as air is drawn in and all the brickwork being regularly warmed - no damp problems!

[ElectricSheep]

Thanks, Pudden Will do some more research for a mantle. At the moment I've just got a bare plastered wall which I quite like. But I used to have a fire surround before the burner and it was useful. (I dry my washing on a chair in front of the fire overnight when I'v forgotten I need something for the morning, but I'm always worried about the fire risk).

Lola Odds are, if there's already a hearth there and it's for a fireplace that was originally solid fuel you've got nothing to worry about. You can probably just put down whatever sort of new hearth you decide on on top. But with regard to the weight issue, I'd have a look in another part of the room and see if you can work out what sort of floor it is.

[lolalotta]

Oh Pudden, your woodburner looks lovely!

[Pudden]

lolalotta I've got a Morso Panther and it gets going straightaway- a few bits of kindling ( chopped up pallets) and some twists of newspaper and then a couple of logs.

[Pudden]

I haven't used these personally but a few people have used it on another forum and recommend them

www.stove-glass.com/stove-glass-heat-resistant

[GrumpyOldHorsewoman]

I have a double-doored one in my sitting room, which is upstairs and thus far the floor has not given way. It sits on tiles which look terracotta, but dark and is inside a large, brick inglenook. I don't have a mantlepiece apart from the jutting top of the brick fireplace. I love my log burner, but the glass in one of the doors cracked last time it was lit and now needs replacing - hope it's not too £££

[stealthsquiggle]

They are very very heavy - even the mini one which we replaced in our sitting room, and then recycled into the dining room to replace the horrible gas fire nearly killed DH and I whilst moving it.

We have not had to worry about floors as we are using existing hearths on a solid floor, but I would say that everything anywhere near gets hot - even the cat retreats to the other side of the room when our main wood burner gets going

[EeyoreIsh]

We've just set everything up for a wood burner in our victorian house.

We put fire safe plaster board around the sides and back. I've also seen bricks or slate.

We had horrible green 1970s tiles and concrete. We levelled this out and put slate tiles on top. We checked building regs to make sure it all meet requirements.


We simply put the slate tiles on top of the old tiles. That meant we had a height difference between the floor boards and the hearth.

Our slate tiles were from wickes. We got them super cheap :)

it looks fab

[lolalotta]

Also just wondering how long it takes a wood burner to get going or does it vary from model to model?

[lolalotta]

Always which Clearview do you have? We are interested in the Pioneer 400...do you love yours?

[lolalotta]

Electric, just had a peep under the carpet that is currently down and there is quite a large hearth of orange (!!!) 30s tiles at the moment...have no idea how solid the floor is IYKWIM???

[lolalotta]

Right, I just need to work out how to check out profile pics on Mumsnet...such useful info/ thoughts to consider ladies, I really am grateful! We are off to a wood burner show room tomorrow to have a good look round...feeling quite excited!

[Pudden]

Electricsheep- the underneath gets fairly hot- I should have a brass rail attached so I can dry my huge underpants on it! It has special screw things embedded in it and then bolted onto the wall. If I was doing it again I wouldn't opt for this as the weight of the mantle (solid oak) has pulled it away from the wall slightly and it has drooped a bit

[ElectricSheep]

Pudden May I ask, does your mantelpiece shelf get hot? Is it solid wood, oak? And finally, (!) how is it attached?

[ElectricSheep]

The slate is about 8mm thick and I bedded it on about 10mm of ordinary mortar. Underneath was a screen of concrete already there.

If you are installing on to floorboards you need to investigate what is underneath. You have 2 options - either lift the floorboards where the burner/hearth is going and create a concrete/stone base on which to bed your hearth, or do it over the floorboards. Depends if you've got a suspended floor really because burners are very heavy . If I was installing on a suspended floor I'd deffo want some kind of reinforcement to floorboards - probably extra joist reinforcement in that area would be your only realistic option?

[viewwitharoom]

Ours is local stone (Caithness) from flagstones. Its actually 3 pieces, one set into the inglenook and two squares at the front to make a rectangular hearth. This allows for an expansion gap as our fitters advised that they had seen problems with cracking when the hearth was one piece. If in doubt go for a larger hearth to avoid problems with sparks spitting, and to give plenty of room for log basket and fire irons etc. I thought our hearth was too big initially but now 6 months on it would seem to be just perfect.

[Joycey29]

Ours is slate. We have a 1930's and our fireplace was smaller than expected once opened up. We went for the Contura built in and we love it!

[FishfingersAreOK]

We have just brick. Builder did it as part of refurb and then got woodburner installers in to fit stove. Picture on my profile....though not a great shot as from duff camera on phone. Could have had plastered to the corners if we had wanted. We are in a 30s house.

[lolalotta]

Thanks for the link, will have a look Pudden!
AND thank you everyone else for taking the time to reply, it is so interesting to read about everyone else's experiences!
I have been wondering about a slate, but wasn't sure if it would go with the floorboards?