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Height & Thickness Of Fireplace Hearths & Fire Surround Back Panels?

August 25, 2011

We often get asked how thick fireplace hearths and back panels are.

1. The average industry standard hearth is 50mm thick. This is created by a 20mm horizontal section with a 30mm vertical section (called the riser) joint together underneath. The total height is hence 20mm + 30mm

2. At Creative Fireplaces, our back panels are made from 17mm – 20mm thick sheets of marble. As the marble is cut from a bolder overseas using a machine with hundreds of blades there is an allowance per batch of marble of plus or minus 3mm. We make the entire fireplace out of the same batch of marble to try and maintain colour and thickness consistency. By doing so all off-cuts are thrown away, and this is the reason why a 54 inch fireplace costs the same price as a 48 inch fireplace (as we use one slab of marble)

Curved & shaped fireplace hearths

1. Curved & shaped fireplace hearths have become increasingly popular in modern times, and are still on average 50mm thick. A bowed hearth is made by cutting small pieces or sections of marble and sticking them vertically under the horizontal section of the hearth. The overall arch (curved shape) is then manually rounded to achieve the overall bowed effect.

2. Some stone fireplaces are made from thick sheets which are 50mm thick as the material is too fragile to work in thinner sheets, however almost all marble fireplaces will be made in the method described above.