How to raise (sunken) hearth to floorboard level

[bp]

Hi,

I live in an old terraced house approx 100 years old. On the ground floor it has a suspended wooden floor. I have only lived here for 1 year, but since I moved in I noticed that as I walk towards the chimney breasts (in both groud floor rooms), there was a noticable incline in the floor, such that at the chimney breast end the floor appears lower.

I have lifted the carpet, inspected the floor and noticed that some of the joists either side of the chimney (in the alcoves) had been replaced but were not supported. They were just in mid air. I guess that over time the floor just saggged, and thus resulted in the floor not being level.

I used some quarry tiles and slate pieces to pack the joists near the alcove to the right height so the floor is level.

This has resulted in one problem. The origianal hearth (built with the house)now appears sunken as the surrounding floorborads are now approx 1 inch higher.

Now I do not want to expose the hearth as the end result is to lay laminate over the entire floor. There is no fire in the chimney and I dont intend to put one. I have just had it plastered inside and want to leave it open (ie decorative).

So, how can I bring up the hearth to the level of the rest of the floor. Two options come to mind

1) Fill with concrete. The hearth at the minute dost look too appealling anyway. DO I nned to lay down some kind of damp proof membrane for the concrete

2) floorboards (or any other wood). There is not enough depth to lay joist (or any other kind of strip) to attach the boards on to). So I could lay anypeice of wood the fill the gap.

Would either of these solutions be OK

Many Thanks

Bhupesh

[R]

...

I reckon fill with concrete to within 6mm of the board height and tile with attractive floor tiles and an edge tile around the perimeter to give a nice new hearth effect

[Andrew Gabriel]

You will probably find there's no damp proof course under the hearth infill as it was kept dry by frequent warm fires, and latterly by evaporation from the top. You may have problems if you put laminate directly over this. In my case, I dug out the hearth to at least a foot below the floor level, and then layed floorboards and extra joists as necessary.

You could put a damp proof membrane over it, but this will make it get more damp as there won't be any drying from the top anymore. In a house of this age, timber in contact was usually not protected from a damp hearth (as it wasn't expected to get that damp between being heated). If you can tuck the membrane between any timber and the hearth you might be OK, otherwise the timber will rot. Whilst you are down there, make sure there are plenty of airbricks to the outside. That will help for keeping nearby timber dry, but won't help for timber in contact with the hearth.