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First the questions:
I read somewhere that if you add some washing-up liquid to the water in the cement, you can get away with using far less water for the same workable consistency because it reduces the surface tension of the water - does anyone know anything about this? I tried it on some smaller projects and you do need less water, but I didn't on the hearth as I was worried it might reduce the strength or something.
I've been looking for insulation and someone suggested using stonewool. Someone else gave me some (10 year old) glasswool that they used on their oven, though not enough for the entire insulation. I googled both products and was a bit worried by some of the results. One company wanted the equivalent of about 500 USD just for insulating slabs to put under the oven! However, I did locate vermiculite... I'll put the information in the vermiculite thread in a moment. The only thing is, my hearth is alread quite high - I'm worried I'll have to use a step ladder when I use it.
So, stonewool, 10-year-old glasswool, stepladder, keep looking, what do you think?
Anyway, here are the picks. I used my tried and true learning-by-doing-hope-no-one-ever-sees-this method of construction, and its still standing. Btw, the righthand corner is not in fact lower than the rest, it just looks that way because the frame walls are uneven...
I read somewhere that if you add some washing-up liquid to the water in the cement, you can get away with using far less water for the same workable consistency because it reduces the surface tension of the water - does anyone know anything about this? I tried it on some smaller projects and you do need less water, but I didn't on the hearth as I was worried it might reduce the strength or something.
I've been looking for insulation and someone suggested using stonewool. Someone else gave me some (10 year old) glasswool that they used on their oven, though not enough for the entire insulation. I googled both products and was a bit worried by some of the results. One company wanted the equivalent of about 500 USD just for insulating slabs to put under the oven! However, I did locate vermiculite... I'll put the information in the vermiculite thread in a moment. The only thing is, my hearth is alread quite high - I'm worried I'll have to use a step ladder when I use it.
So, stonewool, 10-year-old glasswool, stepladder, keep looking, what do you think?
Anyway, here are the picks. I used my tried and true learning-by-doing-hope-no-one-ever-sees-this method of construction, and its still standing. Btw, the righthand corner is not in fact lower than the rest, it just looks that way because the frame walls are uneven...
, I decided to go with the Vermiculite. I put it down two days ago, and now, like everybody else, I'm suddenly worried. In this case that the Vermiculite particles were too big... they're 4-8 mm and the consistency is more like chocolate coated popcorn than oatmeal. All the pictures I can find seem to show a different consistency. How big is the US Vermiculite then? Will I be ok with mine?
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