Wall behind a woodburner advice please ...

[Taff10]

We currently have a stone / Cobb outer wall with wood studwork / plasterboard inside.

We want to put a wood burner near the wall in the corner of the living room and out wood burner fitters have informed us that the plasterboard and wooden studwork will have to go due to the heat.

I'm trying to find out a suitable alternative. The one edge of the corner is a stone wall so this is ok as it is,

From the corner of the stone wall to the window reveal is around 4.5m. Our fitters say to meet regs we only need 1.5m from the corner to have the plasterboard and studwork removed and a suitable alternative to be installed.

I have had a quote to have the 4.5m wall done with all the studwork / board to be removed and for a concrete block with a smooth lime render over the top installed. I am informed this will be ideal, however the £1600 quoted seemed a tad on the steep side.

If we only had the required 1.5m blocked / rendered and left the remaining studwork and plasterboard would there be a very obvious join which would look out of place?

Anyone have any other ideas on how we can get this done ?

Any comments on the price quoted ?

Thanks in advance ....

 

[Deluks]

I don't see why a fireproof board such as supalux can't be used in place of the plasterboard?
Even then you will still have a join unless you get the entire wall skimmed, and even then the new wall meeting the old plasterboard may crack due to differential movement, particularly with the heat.
Maybe a movement join could be put in (visible but neat) or disguise it with some bookshelves on the wall or other feature.

If you are prepared to rip down the plasterboard yourself and take it to the tip, and keep the studwork for the fire, you may save a mornings work for 2 men and another few hundred on the price of a skip. Ask for a breakdown of costs.

 

[Graeme1983]

We have got just tiles surrounding our wood burner, attached to the wall. The wall is actually made out of the local earth brick style, similar to cobb. Just tiles on the wall is standard practice here for over 100 years, but Im not sure on UK regs.

We also had an aluminium sheet screwed onto brick in the last house, with tiled floor. The aluminium backing sheets for fires having superseded the asbestos board in the last 10 years.

Im not sure what to say with regards to UK safety standards but 1600 quid sounds a bit steep and putting any concrete into an old cobb house seems to be against all the advice of UK period housing experts.

What about bricking the wall instead of concreting it, lime mortar in between?

 

[kbdiy]

How about a fireproof board with tiles on top. Our narrowboat has a wood-burner with a tiled surround on a ply back board. It chucks out a load of heat but is perfectly ok. Or perhaps a HETAS installer could advise better?