Stone fireplace

[Ben H]

4 yrs old, fake lick and stick stone, 20 ft tall, 7 ft wide. My concern is the floor framing under it. No form of precaution was taken with this beast. Do you think it should have been beefed up at all? Seems like an awful lot of weight to me. No sigh of anything moving yet.

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[Jim Katen]

That stuff doesn't weigh very much. It's not like real stone. If you don't see any signs of movement after four years, there's not a problem.

[John Kogel]

I think it helps that the big hollow box behind the faux stone is nailed to the wall. So the downward thrust on the sides transfers to the wall, as long as it is well nailed, that is.

[mjr6550]

It could be about 3500 pound. As John said, much of the weight is probably transferred to the wall.

[Jim Baird]

I think your concern may be rooted in the aesthetic revulsion that the beast creates. The impression, whether or not it is real, of all that weight looming so high and so close, just gives me the willies, or, as Mark Twain said "the jimjams and the fantods". I have seen many like this, and never understood why anyone ever thought it looked good.

One I saw similar to it was made of real river rock but was well supported by concrete slab, and it contained tubing through which water exuded in an effort to make a faux waterfall. Trouble was that on the way down the water drops made a significant splatter effect that drenched a wide area in front. At the time the dwelling was still under construction, and I am sure the designer/builder was trying to solve the problem he had created.

[gtblum]

It needs some mahogany!

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