Your fireplace hearth, repaired and measured in Eagles Nest

Finish materials that suit a hearth

Hearth finishes come in many forms. One fireplace maker lists tile, slate, brick, concrete, metal, glass, marble and stone as noncombustible materials that may cover a hearth extension, and each of them repairs in its own way.

At the free inspection our pros identify the material you have, explain how it repairs and show where a patch will be visible. You choose between a spot repair and a wider replacement with the tradeoffs laid out in the estimate.

Replacing one cracked tile on a sound hearth

A single cracked tile over a solid base is the simplest hearth repair. The tile is cut out without disturbing its neighbors, the old setting bed is scraped back, and a replacement is set flush and grouted to match.

Everything depends on that base being sound. Before promising a one-tile repair, we check the tiles around it and the base under it. If the crack came from movement below, a new tile would only crack again, and we tell you that before you pay for it.

Tile found laid over plywood

Some hearth extensions turn out, once the old tile comes up, to be thin tile set on plywood or particleboard. The finish looked like a hearth, while the material under it can burn.

The code expects hearths and extensions of concrete or masonry on noncombustible support. When we find wood under a hearth finish, we stop, show you and price a proper extension. Tiling over that wood again is off the table.

• Work stopped when wood is found
• The finding shown to you
• A proper extension priced on noncombustible support

Hearth tiles that have shifted out of line

Tiles that have slid, tilted or opened their joints show movement in the bed or the base. A hearth whose grout lines have wandered is telling you the tiles are no longer held firmly.

We check whether the movement is old and stable or still happening. Stable shifts can be reset during a finish repair. Active movement is traced to its cause first, because resetting tiles over a moving base only straightens them for a while.