Real river rock fireplace

[cidley69]

I live next to river and would like to make fireplace facing from river rock.

Is there method to split faces off rocks to make real rock veneer?

[Darell_n]

A wet demolition saw would do the trick. That's a ton of work, though. Choosing flatter oval stones would be much easier.

[sxtasy]

you could cut them down, as mentioned it is a hell of a lot of work. Where is your fireplace? If it is in the basement or close to a foundation wall, perhaps you could get away with using full thickness rock?

[cidley69]

Thanks for replies guys.

Was hoping there might be some special hammer and technique for splitting the rocks.

May end up be more work than I can handle.

[BMDUBS]

I used to build these 15 years ago with old Romanian guy that was an amazing craftsman. No splitting was required. We built forms and then chose the rocks individually as we installed them so that the flattest side would be facing out.

[InRich]

River rocks so ugly. Why would you wanna do that, terrible idea.

[CanmoreOrLess]

Are you even allowed to take stones from a river? Legal issues possibly. I like the look of real rocks, the fake crap looks like a toupee. We all see it buddy and no it does not look real, anyone telling you otherwise is a liar.

[cidley69]

I like stacked rock look, but wife vetoes me.

I think natural river rock would be nicer than faux

[BerserkerCatSplat]

River rocks can be potentially dangerous near fires, if a porous rock has absorbed a lot of water during its time in the river and is heated by a fire, the water trapped in the rock can pressurize and flash to steam, causing the rock to fracture or explode.

Dry rocks well clear of the bank are (probably) fine, ones actually submerged are risky.

If your facing never really gets warm, likely no big deal then.