We had a plan of attack.
Drywall or cement board around fireplace.
Cement board is pretty rigid and has pitting little holes in the board.
Add cement board to the entire area you ll be tiling for us that means the floor and all 4 sides of the fireplace leaving room for wood mantle.
Im doing a stucco application this weekend around a fireplace and im very excited to start it.
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Hardiebacker board is not designed to take the place of stone drywall or other materials used near or on your fireplace.
Before the tile can be placed cement board must be installed.
I would use a roll of field mesh and mesh the entire thing with sheetrock.
Around a fireplace you can use hardiebacker board to prepare an area for tile installation either stone or ceramic.
The board scratches real easy and if you are good with a spackle knife you could easily mud all the imperfections in the board sand primer and then paint.
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But thats what we do with stucco.
Instead it was designed to be a subfloor or backing material for another material installed on top of it.
Cement board is notorious for cracking its very hard to finish simply with mud.
The cement board creates a sturdy surface for the tile installation.
But on the metal surround use high heat adhesive to attach the cement boards.
Almost like a stucco.
It might make sense to use concrete board then a sheet of 5 8 fire resistant drywall on top of the concrete board.
Tile around fireplace drywall vs cement board my fireplace paint ceiling user name.