Is it necessary to have a hearth for a gas fireplace? Demo ideas?
by
Debbie
+6
When we moved into our present home there was a dual wood burning/natural gas fireplace. We had it converted to natural gas only. It has a large raised brick hearth that I am not fond of. I would like flooring to extend right up to the face of the fireplace. Is it possible to demo the hearth ourselves, if code allows? Does anyone know what might be under the brick? Would it be a concrete slab? Wood frame? Our house is 25 years old. If the hearth can be removed, painting the fireplace will be next. That red brick makes the room look awfully dark. Any ideas on painting would be appreciated. Thank you!
There's lots of painting ideas on Pinterest. It's probably just subflooring under your hearth but you won't know until you start the demo. I would do the demo myself. Good luck!
It would probably look better without the hearth, but being brick, it may be a stinker to remove! If you do get it off perhaps you could put a stained board on the wall under the fireplace.
Do what I did with mine, went to home depot and chose tiling and put it down and then used border tile at the edges to finish off
This work I had Home Depot do and it looks Great
Check the building code for your town/county. A hearth may be required.
If that's the case, find out what you can do to change it.
A hearth is not necessary even for a wood burning fireplace. For safety it's there to catch any embers. You can remove it for a gas conversion.
Always check your local building code. Then talk to a local handyman about demo’ing the bricks. go to You Tube and pull up the topic of fireplace hearth redos.
im so excited for your fireplace makeover! It looks like the hearth bricks integrate with the fireplace surround bricks. Building code will require some kind of non flammable material surrounding the fireplace
We had the exact problem that you are facing. We removed the brick hearth and changed our ugly brick. Here is the link to my Hometalk post. Maybe it will help you.