Hearth Pads for Wood Stoves: Size, R-Value, Stove Boards and Ember Protection
Updated November 2026
Most of the confusion around hearth pads comes down to one thing nobody explains up front: there are two completely different products sold under the same name, and they are not interchangeable.
One is an ember pad. Usually thin steel, sits low to the floor, and does one job — catching hot coals and ash that drop when you open the door to reload. The other is a thermal pad, built up with insulating material and rated with an R-value, which protects the floor from heat radiating off the bottom of the stove.
If your stove needs thermal protection and you put an ember pad under it, you have not actually protected anything. The reverse is just wasting money on insulation you do not need.
Have a pellet stove? See our pellet stove hearth pad guide, with pad sizes for 30 pellet stoves from ComfortBilt, Drolet, Harman, Quadra-Fire, PelPro, US Stove and King, and corner pads. This guide covers wood stoves.
Quickest answer: pick your stove in our hearth pad size calculator and it lists every pad that fits, cheapest first.
Quick answers by floor type
Every Drolet and Englander wood stove manual says the same thing in its floor protection section: the stove is suitable for installation on a combustible floor, as long as it sits on a continuous non-combustible floor protector — steel, grouted tile over a non-combustible sheet, cement board or similar. No R-value is required. Here is what that means for the floor you actually have. For a line-by-line budget, see our wood stove installation cost breakdown.
| Your floor | What you need |
|---|---|
| Hardwood, engineered wood or laminate | A steel or glass ember pad sized to your stove's manual. This is exactly the situation the pad is built for — the floor is combustible, the pad protects it. |
| Vinyl plank (LVP), sheet vinyl or linoleum | Same: an ember pad sized to the manual. Vinyl marks easily from a dropped coal, so do not shave the 16" in front of the door. |
| Floating floor | Same as above. The pad simply sits on top of the finished floor. |
| Carpet | Cut the carpet and underlay back so the pad sits flat on the subfloor. A pad laid on carpet shifts and leaves gaps at the edges. The manuals do not address carpet directly, so confirm with your local code official. |
| Ceramic or stone tile | Tile only counts as floor protection if there is a continuous non-combustible sheet beneath it — the manual requires this in case the grout cracks. Most tile over a plywood subfloor does not have one, so the simple fix is an ember pad on top, or a clear glass pad if you want the tile to show. |
| Concrete slab | No floor protection required, per the manuals. |
What size do I need? Take the stove's footprint, add 16" in front of the door opening and 8" at each side (the USA figures), and that is your minimum pad. For most Drolet and Englander stoves that lands inside our $189 pad; three larger models need the next size up. The full model-by-model table is below.
Which one does your stove need?
You do not guess at this. The stove's manual tells you. Every wood and pellet stove sold in North America lists a floor protection requirement, and it will say one of two things: either it requires non-combustible floor protection, where ember protection is enough, or it specifies a minimum R-value.
Drolet and Englander stoves fall in the first group — the firebox sits high enough that the floor underneath does not get dangerously hot, so a steel ember pad is all the manual asks for. Pellet stoves are covered in our pellet stove hearth pad guide.
Some other brands fall in the second group. Several Ashley, US Stove and Vogelzang wood stoves, for example, call for a floor protector of at least R-1.4 on a combustible floor. For those, use our Hy-C Type 2 stove board, rated R-1.56, in the size your manual requires. Its listing has a fit chart by board size covering Blaze King, Hearthstone, Jotul, Osburn, Pacific Energy, Quadra-Fire, Regency, Woodstock and more.
If you cannot find the manual, the model number plus "floor protection" or "R-value" in a search usually turns up the spec sheet. Or call us with the model and we will look it up.
Sizing it
The pad has to extend past the stove on every side, and the front gets the most. The manual gives clearances, usually something like 16 inches in front of the loading door and 8 inches on the sides, measured from the stove body.
People underestimate the front clearance constantly, then end up with embers landing on bare floor a few inches past the pad. Measure the stove footprint, add the required clearance to each side, and that is your minimum pad size. Round up if you are between sizes. For another brand's stove, enter its size in the hearth pad size calculator and it does the arithmetic.
Corner installs are their own thing. A rectangular pad in a corner either wastes a triangle of floor or sticks out awkwardly into the room. A corner-cut pad follows the wall and puts coverage where the stove actually is. If your stove is going in a corner, get the corner pad — it is not a style choice, it just fits better, and that same corner is usually where wall heat shields earn their keep.
Which pad fits which stove
We pulled the floor protection section out of the owner's manual for every wood stove we sell — seventeen models across both brands — and the answer to the first question is the same for all of them: continuous non-combustible protection, no R-value required. An ember pad is the correct product. The only thing you are actually choosing is size.
Clearances are identical throughout too — 16" in front of the door opening, 8" at the sides. What differs is the finished pad dimension each manual publishes. These are the USA figures; Canadian requirements are larger.
Drolet wood stoves
| Stove | Protection needed | Minimum pad (W × D) | Smallest pad we sell that fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deco Nano N | Ember only | 31¼" × 38¾" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| Deco II | Ember only | 31¾" × 35½" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| Deco Alto | Ember only | 32¾" × 37⅜" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| Fox | Ember only | 31¼" × 38¾" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| Spark II N | Ember only | 31¼" × 38¾" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| Escape 1200 N | Ember only | 31¼" × 38¾" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| Escape 1500 | Ember only | 31⅞" × 36¼" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| Escape 1800 | Ember only | About 41⅝" × 41¾" * | 46¾" × 54" black steel — $285 |
| Escape 2100 | Ember only | About 44⅛" × 47⅞" * | 46¾" × 54" black steel — $285 |
| Columbia II | Ember only | 31⅞" × 36¼" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| Blackcomb II | Ember only | 31⅞" × 36¼" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| Heritage | Ember only | 33½" × 36⅜" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| HT-3000 | Ember only | About 44⅛" × 47¼" * | 46¾" × 54" black steel — $285 |
| Bistro cookstove | Ember only | 39⅞" × 38⅜" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| Chic-Choc cookstove | Manual does not state | 54⅝" × 43" | Modular system + extension |
Englander Blue Ridge wood stoves
Englander is built by the same manufacturer as Drolet, on the same platforms, and its manuals use an identical floor protection format — so the requirements read the same way.
| Stove | Protection needed | Minimum pad (W × D) | Smallest pad we sell that fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blue Ridge 100 | Ember only | 31¼" × 38¾" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| Blue Ridge 300L | Ember only | 31" × 37⅜" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| Blue Ridge 300P | Ember only | 31" × 37⅜" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
| Blue Ridge 500 | Ember only | 32⅝" × 41" | 41¼" × 44" black steel — $189 |
* Our calculation, not a figure printed in the manual. These three models publish the requirement as offsets rather than a finished size — see the note below — so measure your stove and confirm before ordering.
Availability note: the 41¼" × 44" pad shows its live status here: Ships Nov 6. The 46¾" × 54" black steel pad ($285, Ships Nov 6) clears every requirement in the tables above except the Chic-Choc. The 44" × 36" tinted tempered glass pad ($299, Ships in 1–3 days) covers every stove that lists the $189 pad except the Bistro, provided you set it with the 44" side running front to back.
Three things fall out of those tables.
The $189 pad covers fourteen of the seventeen stoves. Every model except the Escape 1800, Escape 2100, HT-3000 and Chic-Choc fits the 41¼" × 44" black steel pad. The widest published requirement among them is the Bistro cookstove at 39⅞", and the deepest is the Blue Ridge 500 at 41" — on those two the margin is an inch or so rather than the comfortable gap the smaller stoves leave, so measure carefully and do not assume you can shift the stove around on it afterwards. People routinely spend two or three times this because nobody told them the small one was enough.
Three models state the requirement as offsets instead of a finished size. The Escape 1800, Escape 2100 and HT-3000 do not print an overall pad dimension. That is not an omission — we traced the Escape 1800 back through the 2012 revision of its manual and the floor protector table has always been written this way. For these models the spec is a distance measured out from the appliance: 16" from the door opening at the front, and 8" at each side. Behind the stove, the protected area only needs to reach as far as the stove's own rear clearance where that is less than 8".
Worked through against each stove's published dimensions, all three need more than 41¼" of width — about 41⅝" for the Escape 1800 and 44⅛" for the Escape 2100 and HT-3000 — so the 46¾" × 54" black steel pad ($285) is the smallest we sell that clears them. Those are our calculations, not Drolet numbers, so check them against your own measurement. Give us the model and your floor plan by email (info@stovesource.com) or text at 1-888-866-8206 and we will run it with you.
The Chic-Choc is the one genuine outlier. It needs 54⅝" of width, and the widest full-depth pad we stock is 54" — five-eighths of an inch short. The modular system with an extension panel is the way to cover it. Its manual is also the only one of the seventeen that omits the R-factor sentence entirely — it states neither "no R factor required" nor a minimum — so call us before ordering rather than assuming ember protection is sufficient.
For corner installs the manuals publish a second set of dimensions. The depth drops to roughly 25–29", but the diagonal across the front runs from about 51⅜" on the Deco II up to 58⅜" on the Bistro, and 70⅜" on the Chic-Choc. Our corner pads are 54" and 60", so the larger stoves need the 60" and the Chic-Choc needs a modular build. Give us the model and we will check the diagonal against the pad before you order.
Every hearth pad for wood stoves
Our full range of full-depth pads, lowest price first:
| Pad | Shape | Type | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 41¼" × 44" black steel | Rectangular | Ember | $189 |
| 32" × 42" Hy-C Type 2 black steel | Rectangular | Thermal, R-1.56 | $229.99 |
| 36" × 48" Hy-C Type 2 black steel | Rectangular | Thermal, R-1.56 | $269.99 |
| 46¾" × 54" black steel | Rectangular | Ember | $285 |
| 44" × 36" tinted tempered glass (10 mm) | Rectangular | Ember | $299 |
| 36" × 52" Hy-C Type 2 black steel | Rectangular | Thermal, R-1.56 | $299.99 |
| 54" corner black steel | Corner | Ember | $349 |
| 54" × 46¾" modular system | Rectangular | Modular | $369 |
| 60" corner black steel | Corner | Ember | $389 |
| 54" × 46¾" tinted tempered glass (10 mm) | Rectangular | Ember | $399 |
| 48" × 48" Hy-C Type 2 black steel | Rectangular | Thermal, R-1.56 | $437.99 |
| 44" × 36" clear tempered glass (10 mm) | Rectangular | Ember | $449 |
| 54" × 54" corner modular system | Corner | Modular | $489 |
| 60" corner modular system | Corner | Modular | $525 |
| 54" × 46¾" clear tempered glass (10 mm) | Rectangular | Ember | $869 |
Freight is shown at checkout, before you pay. The Drolet pads above the $189 one ship by freight truck straight from the distributor, so freight for your address is calculated at checkout. You see the full total before you place the order, rather than a separate freight bill emailed after you buy. No Sales Tax in any state.
Two things worth knowing about this table.
If your manual specifies an R-value, look at the Hy-C Type 2 stove board. It is rated R-1.56 to UL 1618 Type 2 and comes in 32" × 42", 36" × 48", 36" × 52" and 48" × 48", plus an 18" × 48" extender. The Drolet modular systems are insulated too, but only to R-1.03, so they only meet manuals that ask for R-1.03 or less; there is a modular extension panel ($135) if you need to add coverage. Call us with your stove model and we will confirm the rating meets what your manual requires before you order — this is exactly the situation where buying the wrong pad is expensive.
The glass pads are the option most people do not know exists. Same ember protection as steel, 10 mm tempered glass instead, and they disappear visually against a nice floor rather than sitting on it as a black rectangle. There are four, in two sizes and two tints. The 44" × 36" tinted at $299 is the one to look at first — it is the least expensive way to get the stove off a black rectangle, and it covers most of the smaller and mid-size stoves when set with the 44" side running front to back. Step up to the 54" × 46¾" tinted ($399) for the Escape 1800, Escape 2100 or HT-3000, or if you simply want the larger footprint. The clear versions, at $449 and $869, show the floor beneath almost completely — the least intrusive floor protection made, and priced accordingly. If the stove is going in a finished living room, the glass is worth the look.
Stove boards and Type 2 hearth pads
"Stove board" is the trade name for a manufactured floor protector, usually a cement or mineral board with a steel or stone-look face. A Type 2 board (UL 1618) is both an ember pad and a thermal pad, so it meets a manual that asks for an R-value as well as one that only asks for ember protection. That makes it the safe choice for a stove whose manual you cannot find, and for wood stoves from brands such as Ashley, US Stove and Vogelzang that ask for around R-1.4.
↔ Swipe the table to see more →
| Stove board | Sizes (in) | Rating | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hy-C Type 2 stove board, black | 32 × 42, 36 × 48, 36 × 52, 48 × 48, 18 × 48 extender | Type 2, R-1.56 | $129.99–$437.99 |
| Hy-C Gray Slate Type 2 stove board | 36 × 48, 36 × 52 | Type 2 | $269.99–$299.99 |
| American Panel Type 2 stove board | 40 × 40 and 48 × 48 corner boards (single or double cut), six stone patterns | Type 2 | from $343.99 |
Check the R-value your manual asks for against the board's rating before you order. For the Hy-C black board it is R-1.56; for the others, ask us and we will confirm it.
Hearth extension panels
Two products in the range are not stove pads at all, and buying one by mistake is an easy error to make. These are shallow glass panels meant to extend an existing non-combustible hearth further into the room — the usual fix when an insert's manual asks for more coverage in front of the door than the masonry hearth already provides.
| Panel | Depth | Width | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18" × 50" tempered glass (10 mm) | 18" | 50" | $269 |
| 20" × 70" tempered glass (10 mm) | 20" | 70" | $549 |
| 18" × 48" Hy-C Type 2 black steel (R-1.56) | 18" | 48" | $129.99 |
Do not put a freestanding stove on any of these. Every stove in the tables above needs at least 35" of front-to-back coverage once the 16" front clearance is added, and these panels are 18" and 20" deep. They are for fireplace and insert installations where the hearth itself is already non-combustible and only the forward extension is short. Check the required extension distance in your appliance's manual — it is given as a distance forward of the opening, not as a finished panel size.
Hearth pads for pellet stoves
Pellet stoves need ember protection, usually 6" past the front and sides, and most fit a smaller pad than a wood stove. We worked out the pad size for 30 pellet stoves, ours and other brands, in the pellet stove hearth pad guide. The short version for the stoves we sell:
- The ComfortBilt 36" × 36" pad (from $499) fits the HP21, HP22, HP22N, HP50S and HP61. It is too narrow for the HP75C and Alpine HP42.
- The Englander 25-CBPAH is the one pellet stove we sell that needs an R-value (R-0.2), so use a Type 2 board such as the Hy-C.
- ComfortBilt stove + pad combos save up to $249, from the HP50S + pad at $2,199 to the HP22N + pad at $2,999.
Common questions
Can I put a hearth pad on a wood, laminate or vinyl floor? Yes — that is what it is for. The Drolet and Englander manuals state the stoves are suitable for a combustible floor as long as they sit on a continuous non-combustible floor protector, with no R-value required. A steel or glass ember pad sized to the manual meets that. See the floor-type table at the top of this guide.
What about carpet? Cut the carpet and underlay back so the pad sits flat and solid on the subfloor. A pad resting on carpet moves and leaves gaps. The manuals do not address carpet specifically, so check with your local code official.
Do pellet stoves need a hearth pad? On a combustible floor, yes. Pellet stoves drop ash and embers when you open them just like wood stoves. Sizes for 30 models are in our pellet stove hearth pad guide.
How much is freight on a hearth pad? It depends on the pad and where you live, and it is shown at checkout before you pay. Large pads and glass ship by freight truck from the distributor; enter your address at checkout to see the exact amount.
What if the stove is going on a concrete floor? Then you may not need a pad at all. Drolet's manuals state that no floor protection is required where the appliance sits on a non-combustible floor such as concrete — which is why a slab-floored garage, shop or basement install often skips this cost entirely. Details in our garage and shop guide and basement guide. Confirm against your own model's manual before assuming.
Do hearth pads have an R-value? The steel and glass ember pads do not. R-value measures thermal resistance, and a thin sheet has essentially none. That is fine for stoves that only need ember protection, which covers every Drolet and Englander wood stove we sell. If your manual lists a minimum R-value, you need a thermal (Type 2) pad instead, such as our Hy-C Type 2 stove board, rated R-1.56. Check that R-1.56 meets your manual's minimum before ordering.
Does an insert need a hearth pad? Often not — many masonry hearths already extend far enough in front of the opening. Check your insert's manual for the required distance, and if it is short, a hearth extension panel is usually the fix rather than a full pad. Our wood insert guide covers it.
Can I build my own? You can, but the pad has to meet the manual's spec, and a homemade pad is exactly what an insurance adjuster looks at after a floor fire. If your manual calls for ember protection only, a manufactured pad is inexpensive enough that it is rarely worth the risk.
Related guides
- Hearth Pad Size Calculator
- Pellet Stove Hearth Pads: Sizes for 30 Stoves
- Best Drolet Wood Stoves: All Models Compared
- Wood Stove Fans and Blowers
- Fresh Air Intake Kits: When You Need One
- Wood Stove Installation Guide
- How to Install a Pellet Stove
- Wood Stove for a Garage or Shop
- Wood Stove in a Basement
- Mobile Home Wood Stoves
- Which of our brands fits your house
Shop hearth pads for wood and pellet stoves at StoveSource — authorized dealer, No Sales Tax in any state, freight shown at checkout before you pay. Give us your stove model and floor type by email (info@stovesource.com) or text at 1-888-866-8206 and we will tell you which pad your manual actually requires.