Plastering a fireplace

I’m going to be plastering the inside of a fireplace that will house a woodburning stove. I’m getting different opinions on what to use on the inside wall. Does anyone have any experience/ advise? Ta

Do not plaster it (assume your talking straight finishing plaster) – it will crack.

yes .. don’t 🙂

the heat from the stove will crack the plaster and it will come away from the brickwork. If you must have a smooth finish behind the burner use some heatproof board (e.g. supalux) and be prepared for a slightly rough finish (it’ll look fine though :))

yes do it with fireproof cement.

(this is a real thing and what the lads who did my fireplace used)

I rendered mine on the inside with a bit of flexible additive in the mix and apart from a few hairline crack which were small enough to be painted over it’s been fine (for 3 years anyhoo).

I’ve just done this, I boarded it out and plastered it…..

Then I read all about that being a crap idea so I pulled it off and rendered it. Render was a sand, cement and lime mix (5:1:1 I think) with sharp sand. Did it in 2 coats, first was a right git to get to stick to the bricks (get them wet) I ended up kind of flickinng it on. Second coat was easy and is surprisingly easy to get smooth. Now it’s done and painted you don’t notice it’s not plaster unless you look and there will be a stove to hide it soon.

We used ordinary plaster, you can’t see the cracks from more than 3 feet away.

They guy who put in my wood burner put in a steel curved box, sprayed with stove paint to match the stove. Thats the way to go!

Have done two wood burner installs.

First with fireproof render, looked okay,

Second one I just repointed the bricks and cleaned with brick acid. Looked a treat when finished, if you like the brick look.

plaster board is rated as fire / heat proof so should suffice ( it does around al the gas fores i fit)

I do this for a living and use Like LUCAS i use a 5:1:1 mix plastering sand, lime, cement. It can hair line rack slightly but paint should fill these. I have tried the fire proof plaster but i found it to be a pain in the arse to work with. As Ormancheep also said if you have decent brick work cleaning it off and repointing is a good option and can look some much better if done properly.

Cement. Hasn’t cracked yet.

The bloke who did mine used a lime-based render and was careful to see that it dried out slowly. Also told us only to use emulsion paint, as did the plasterer who did more of the room.

Polished porcalain tiles, 600x300mm, 12mm thick, 2mm grout line.

Cream on the back and sides, black on the hearth, which I cast from concrete.

Looks amazing