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I was helping to redo the hearth on a 100 y/o fireplace, and as I pulled up the bricks and moved sand out of the way I noticed wood installed on an angle (subfloor?). The fireplace is in the middle of the room on a 100 y/o house built on stilts/pilings.
I've spoken with a few people but they don't know enough about fireplaces built this long ago.
Is the wood/subfloor suppose to be like this? It's a pretty big gap.
The wood was used as a concrete form for that back in the day. Concrete was poured to the sub level needed top hold the finish hearth. It typically extended into the fire box, actually it was poured usually before the firebox is built and was used as a base the continue the firebox construction. It was poured after the brick is built up to the level where the concrete could be poured 4+" thick. The reason for the tapered form are such as the concrete doesn't need to be that thick at the edge. 2-3" at the thin edge works since it get another covering over it.
