Custom Sized Hearth Pad

[Somesawguy]

Is there a place to get a custom hearth pad that is 56"x56"?

Can I use a couple of the smaller rug style ones and put them together? Does the seam need to be sealed with something?

 

[woodchuck357]

I use a piece of plywood covered with split bricks held in place by an 1" by 2" oak border.

 

[theswampthing]

Why not just build one? Did mine with cement board and slate tile. It was under 100 bills and looks good.

 

[Somesawguy]

Do you have any pictures? What did you use to hold the tiles down? Regular tile cement?

 

[theswampthing]

Do you have any pictures? What did you use to hold the tiles down? Regular tile cement?

I'm pretty busy today cause of the snow. Going to get a load of firewood, but I'll answer your questions and post a few pics for ya later.

 

[philoshop]

The cement board is screwed to the existing floor structure. Tile is adhered to the backer board with what's called thin-set mortar. Comes dry in a bag normally, but I think it's available in small premixed buckets which would save you some hassle. A notched trowel is used to put the thin-set down, then lay the tile. When everything sets up you put grout in the gaps. It's really not very difficult to do. To do really well takes experience, just like anything else, but laying tile for a project like this is not tool or skill-set intensive. I'd be happy to walk you through it if you're interested. It'll be a whole lot nicer looking than the rug things. And you can tell your friends that you did it. Careful though, next will be the bathroom, and that takes more skill and more tools.

 

[woodchuck357]

No pics, but my bricks are just laying loose. I laid them out, marked the board, cut it, screwed and glued the finished border on, and set it in place. Then replaced the bricks. I like the idea of cement board. Next one will have cement board between the brick and the plywood. Stove comes down when winter is gone, so nothing is attached to the floor. Total cost of mine, as it sets, was about 10 bucks.

 

[dave_376]

I built mine out of 3/4 plywood, 3/4 oak for the boarder, and 12 ceramic tiles. I used liquid nails to glue the tiles down and silicon for grout. It is going on year 2 and looks better than the one the stove shop wanted $400 for. I had most of the materials kicking around the house but I guess it would cost around $50 to build. During the off season I hide it behind the sofa against a wall.

 

[theswampthing]

this was done with hardibacker under slate tile. I screwed the board down, then did thin set win a 3/8" notched trowel. Spacing was 1/4", but had to fudge a little because the tiles were cheap and not all the same size. There isn't any grout in this pic, cause I had to set the stove. The other guys pretty much said everything already. I'm just showing a pic and you did it. Keep in mind, there is a code for this, so if you care, make are you look at what the manufacture recommends for install as far as thickness of the pad goes.

 

[slowp]

The builder did this one. I just picked out the tile.

 

[Mad Professor]

I used 1/2" cement board with two locally quarryed granite slabs on top. The quarry will cut stuff the size of half your house, but two slabs let two people handle the installation.

I can get contact info to the quarry. Shipping might be expensive.