Quarry tiles for hearth

[White Rabbit]

x-no-archive: yes I need to replace old broken red (quarry?) tiles in hearth of open coal fire. They are rather thick: seven-eighths of an inch thick. Do I have to use some special tiles that are heat-resistant (to withstand the occasional hot coal that may fall from the fire) ? Or can I just use any old 'quary tiles'?

Thanks for any help.

[Lee]

You can get any 1" thick red quarry tiles from most tile suppliers (Ruabon and the most common Welsh quarry tiles

and these will be more that sufficient for a heath and will withstand the temparature easily. The only thing to watch out for is that modern 1" thick quarrys are 8" x 8" whereas the older ones were 9" x 9"

Lee.

[White Rabbit]

That's reassuring, thanks. The tiles that need replacing are 6" x 6" - guessing at 1950 vintage.

[asher]

Watch out for metric tile sizes when you're getting replacements. Some '6"' tiles I bought to repair some outside quarry tiling at my house were actually 150mm x 150mm (6 inches is 152mm). In my case I just used

4mm tile spaces when laying them instead of the 2mm used originally so that the new tiles would line up with the old pattern.

Asher.

[Jerry Built]

Ah. So.

Quarry tiles are "fired". I hope that your hearth never ever gets that hot.

J.B.