Black limestone hearth - cracked joints & lifted flags.

JustAnotherSaver

Silver-Surfer wrote: »

Chop it out and rebed it then. Nice little bank holiday weekend job.:beer:

Alternatively...

carry on painting the living room, hall & landing, since that's something i can actually do & in the meantime get in touch with the guy who did the job & tell him it needs sorting, when can he come out

Silver-Surfer_2

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Alternatively...

carry on painting the living room, hall & landing, since that's something i can actually do & in the meantime get in touch with the guy who did the job & tell him it needs sorting, when can he come out

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5461785

Well that's debatable.

JustAnotherSaver

Silver-Surfer wrote: »

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5461785

Well that's debatable.

Me painting a wall has nothing to do with stains coming through.

I could stain block it right this instant .... and go totally against what Sovereign Chemicals advise.

And considering i've had some of the tradesmen we've had in comment on a good paint job on the interior woodwork (bannisters, spindles, doorframes etc) i think i'll take their praise after seeing it first hand than your criticism based purely on not liking my posts/threads

Thank you.

Silver-Surfer_2

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Me painting a wall has nothing to do with stains coming through.

I could stain block it right this instant .... and go totally against what Sovereign Chemicals advise.

And considering i've had some of the tradesmen we've had in comment on a good paint job on the interior woodwork (bannisters, spindles, doorframes etc) i think i'll take their praise after seeing it first hand than your criticism based purely on not liking my posts/threads

Thank you.

Having seen the standard of work from your tradesmen it's not much praise.

JustAnotherSaver

Silver-Surfer wrote: »

Having seen the standard of work from your tradesmen it's not much praise.

Answer me this....

That post of yours in that quote ^^^

And especially the one before it.

What goes through your mind when you come to make those posts? What is your reason for making those posts?

See if i can be helpful ... i think oh look, there's this person in need of help & i know i can help them & i know what it's like to feel stuck with seemingly no help on offer. I'll help them as best as i can.
And it makes me feel good.


So you....

What's your thought process & reasoning for posting pointless unhelpful stuff like the previous two posts?

Why not simply move on? Why instead to you decide to be unhelpful?

JustAnotherSaver

I know this is all diagnosis over the interweb so not the most ideal

oh & the guy is coming out to sort it before anyone repeats to get in touch with him.

But is it possible - NOTE: possible, not probable....

Is it possible that since this room has a cause of damp from below the floorboards that this is why the cement is a little soft & the flag lifted off?

When i say the cement is soft, i don't mean like water, or sloppy. It is 'hard' but you can dig your nails in to parts of it kind of thing. Not a lot, just a bit.

Kind of hard to explain.

But anyway is it possible that the underfloor damp was contributing?

Or is that not possible at all?

rustyboy21

Been ill, so just picked up on this question again.

As I said previously, slabbing the hearth up before installing, would solve these issues no worries. Look at the link below and you will see they have a height of approx 2 inches with slate or tiles covering the sides of the hearth. They have been done this way for years with no issues.

The hearth is then laid out on a thin layer of mortar, purely used to level the hearth in place. It looks like the mortar they have used is the same as my lads would use to render the brickwork in the fire chamber and to make good the firechamber. It is sand and cement mix. The stuff used with slabbing is sand, cement and some aggregate of sorts, with metal rods sunk into the mix on setting, to re inforce it more.

Never had an issue with a slabbed hearth in over 25 years of selling fireplaces, I wouldnt sell a non slabbed hearth in my shop, the reason why is what you are experiencing.

Whether you can get your installer to slab it up for you now is open to discussion, I would be easy on accusations, If he was told to do what you wanted and was supplied with the materials, then it would be more goodwill than fault correcting.

Think of the Mortar used as as making a cake. If you only put a thin layer of cake mix in a tin and bake it, it will take minutes, compared to a 6'' thick mix, which would take a vast amount of time longer. The mortar looks really thick, so could take months to totally dry.

Looking at how it has been bedded down, does concern me a bit It should be totally filled, not just lobbed in in a few parts. You are leaving air pockets underneath the hearth, which when heated up, will expand, also causing the hearth to pop off it's bed.

That is why Slabbing is the only real, sure fire way of getting a correctly laid hearth.

http://www.vicfires.com/31_hearth/

This will explain all the reasons why the hearth is slabbed and all the Jargon.

cyclonebri1

However this guy seems to have slabbed this hearth base on quicksand, point being slab what you will, it goes down by the layer. If the bottom bit is shat then it fails, as here.

JustAnotherSaver

Installer is going to fix up the flag.
Mentioned the underfloor damp as cause for failure.
Going to re-bed the singular flag to see how it gets on. If it fails again then it's stove out & re-bed all 3 flags.