What Would Make A Marble Hearth Crack Repeatedly?
We recently received an email from someone asking for advice on marble fireplace hearths. The lady had purchased a marble
hearth from a local showroom (nothing to do with us) and the hearth had cracked after installation for no apparent reason. They had installed a standard Valor Black Beauty fire on the marble carrara hearth and for some reason the hearth cracked down the middle. The local showroom offered a replacement and the replacement hearth was cut and rejoined into sections, yet still cracked
What can cause marble hearths to crack?
1. Essentially a marble hearth will crack if it is incorrectly fitted. This means if the hearth is not bedded on sand and cement then there is no heat soak and the hearth risks cracking as the heat can not be absorbed and has no heat soak
2. Natural marble hearths (such as Carrara) have veins and small cracks within the material. This vein is sometimes rumoured to lead to cracks if they are deep within the material. For this reason all natural marble slabs are filled by standard from the country of origion and this problem rarely occurs
3. Micro marble hearths are more stain resistant than natural marble & arguably more resistant to cracking due the resin in the material. This is an ambiguous and many specialists have different views