Hole in the wall gas fires

[MrsMontyD]

My heating engineer has recommended a border of granite around a hole in the wall gas fire, otherwise he says we’re likely to find the plaster cracks over time. It defeats the object of a minimalist look so I’m not keen. Anyone have any experience?

Obviously you need to surround the hole with Not Plaster

Suggest render
You never use plaster in those situations.

Render on a chimney breast ?

You said it was a hole in the wall gas fire
You render the interior of the hole
Not around the chimney breast wall

Just the hole
This is normal
No one lines the hole in stone, that’s just Wierd unless you’re looking for that look of course

No, the idea was have granite around the hole, like a frame.

I have a hole in the wall gas fire and it does crack slightly over the winter - I just go over the cracks with the plaster in a pot stuff from b and q in summer, not ideal but it’d look awful with a border of granite, imo…

Never done that I’m afraid ( I’m an Architect)

Heat could crack a skim plaster coat but the fire should be insulated to avoid that

In designing open fires ive rendered internally. I have used smooth render on a chimney Breast too when an older fire was being installed.
I’d go with that as an alternative if the fire has a risk of heat escape which it sounds like it might

But I’d get a second opinion as it sounds like someone’s trying to get you to spend more money.

We've had two hole in the wall fires and on both have had limestone slips around the fire. We were similarly advised about the risk of plaster cracks so went with the slips.

(Edited to say that the fires were from two different shops / installers and they, and everyone else we had quotes from, said similar)

Any chance you’d share a photo?

This is one of them. Both are very similar.