Due to regs, hearth takes up 36% of room space?

[Buel]

Hello.

 

We were planning on adding a fireplace to our new build house but have been told that the hearth will have to protrude 1000mm in the room area by the wood burning stove supplier (for safety reasons). The room dimensions are only 4067mm x 3627mm so that's 36% of the room already taken up by the hearth!

I'm guessing that most people with fireplaces / log burners don't have significantly bigger rooms than us so please can I ask if this is a common issue and, most importantly, is there anything that can be done, or is 1000mm the rule?

Image of fireplace dimensions attached.

[mr kipling]

I make it nearer 9.5% but my maths may well be off 

[Buel]

Sorry for not making it clearer - we were advised 1000mm and the room is 3627mm width.

[waterbuoy]

But the room is more than 4m long and the hearth is only 1.4m?  Agree with it being the order of 10% of area, but about 1/3 of width of room.  You are still left with a room width of more than 8' at the narrowest point 

[Buel]

I will try and explain better tomorrow. The sofa width takes up 980mm too, you see (facing the fire).

[benedmonds]

We found this was a problem in our narrow living room, so went for a morso inset stove.  

[Stubby]

8 hours ago, Buel said:

I will try and explain better tomorrow. The sofa width takes up 980mm too, you see (facing the fire).

Make the whole floor space hearth then it will look like you don't have one at all ! ?

[Ratman]

Building regs stipulate you only need 300mm (12 inches) in front of your stove. The deciding factor for you will be to decide how far the door opens out? Obviously you dont want ash/embers falling from your door out on to the floor. I’ll measure my hearth when i get home but it defo aint anywhere near 1000mm deep front to back, and my stove is inset to the fireplace, signed off and certified so obviously conforms to the regs or i wouldn’t of received the cert.

[difflock]

In our new build, I installed a small steel plate below the wood stove, with a suspended oak floor beneath that, probably NOT to approved specifications,

but 25 years later all I got is the odd scorch mark on the oak flooring, where I was a tad(alcohol induced) slow in lifting glowing embers.

N.B.

The wood stove is relatively long legged, so I had no concerns about excessivly downward heat.

[Tom D]

I think the regs are that there has to be 300mm of hearth in front of the stove and 150mm from any combustible surface.