So for about a year I've been thinking of building a small raised hearth and adding stone veneer to the old brick fireplace. This project was low to lower than low priority. The veneers are expensive and the hearth is really fine the way it is plus I had other more needed projects in the works. Basically just an idea I was kicking around in my head. I was out with a couple guys Wednesday night having some beers and shooting the bo bo and that project came up and everyone said how good it would look. Wake up Thursday morning, go to Lowes(I sometimes feel like I should pitch a tent in that place) and what do I come across? Four boxes of stone veneer in a color that I liked plus two boxes of corner pieces. Normally 72 bucks a box but marked down to 35 because it was a special order return. I grab some young kid working there and ask him about them, no clue. Manager comes over and I ask him if he can do any more of a discount because there's a bunch of broken ones(wink wink) he says "yeah 15 more off". I'm thinking he means 15 % off the total but then he says"so 20 bucks a box, sound good?" Well yes good sir that does sound quite good, and so it was meant to be. So the veneers were had for 130 bucks out the door in a color I like, in enough quantity I need, with the corner pieces and with only one broken piece! So I'm pretty confident with putting these on and construction of the heart but I do have some questions for you fine folks. I've been researching hearth construction and seems most people frame it with lumber and then cover with durock followed by tiles or stone. Is this an approved method? Any worries about the wood frame? Do I need a certain r value, whats the r value of the durock? I'm not sure how much I can raise it yet and still get the chimney hooked up so that may prevent me from doing double layers of durock if I frame if from 2x4's. Here's my fireplace. I'm probably going to have to take the side pieces off the mantle. Also, some people have told me they like the old brick and wouldn't change it, none that live in my house though. What do you guys think? I'm not going to be able to get to this for a week or two and I'm sure I'll have more questions as this rolls along. I'll keep y'all posted.
Don't recall the r values off hand but we built our raised heart with 2 x 4 then cement board and topped it with ceramic tile.
Yeah, the manual is online. I'm gonna check it out tonight. I'll overbuild it if I can with a couple sheets of cement board. Just gotta be able to squeeze my hand up there to attach the flue collar. Thanks guys.
I worked with a stone mason for about 5 months, but for the life of me I can't remember doing a fireplace. Most of it was pools and hot tubs where there was already a gunite base. I'll try to talk to my brother, he worked with that mason for about 3 years after I moved on and I know he did several fireplaces. I'm not sure what you plan on using to attach the stones to the Durock, we always used thinset but I know some of the cheaper masons used regular mortar mix. I'd probably opt for the thinset, my fireplace (which was there when I bought the house) is covered with the same rock you are using and it was applied with mortar. Every now and then one of the rocks will fall off and I have to glue it back on. It will look great, and much better than the brick (IMO). One of the first things people comment on in my house is how nice the fireplace looks.
A friend of mine who is not a mason by trade but is pretty much good at anything he does told me to use thinset on the cement board. Said I could us it to adhere stone to existing bricks with no scratch coat, bricks are textured enough.
