Floor buckled

[Tscarborough]

Jeez, they were chamfered that way? No fancy explanations needed, you shouldn't have used those bricks.

[dmun]

That's really weird. You would think the brick, if defective, would fail on the side exposed to the fire.

To address your question, I don't think you need to engineer in an expansion space, because the dome and the floor should expand at pretty much the same rate. Any space will just fill with wood ash anyway. I suspect it's a non-issue because you are going to have trouble packing in the bricks that tight in a confined, and non-uniform space.

Good luck.

[dublintom]

Originally Posted by Tscarborough

Jeez, they were chamfered that way? No fancy explanations needed, you shouldn't have used those bricks.

I'm not sure why the bricks being chamfered should make a difference. The chamfer was removed by means of applying the homebrew mortar which was perfectly in tact. They were laid perfectly level and tight together. The bricks had quite literally turned to dust underneath. Funny considering they were high grade bricks for building a furnace and a lot heavier than the standard firebrick. I'm just glad that the dome bricks were from a different batch.

[dublintom]

Ok I have replaced the floor with new bricks which are about 2mm shorter than the origional plus movement of the origional floor means that there are a few places where i have large gaps at the end of some bricks maybe 5 or 6mm. I am thinking of brushing in a dry homemade mortar mix and then spraying the joints with some water and let it dry before curing the oven again. I think this is better than letting them fill with ash.

[Lburou]

Originally Posted by dublintom

Ok I have replaced the floor with new bricks which are about 2mm shorter than the origional plus movement of the origional floor means that there are a few places where i have large gaps at the end of some bricks maybe 5 or 6mm. I am thinking of brushing in a dry homemade mortar mix and then spraying the joints with some water and let it dry before curing the oven again. I think this is better than letting them fill with ash.

What is the latest on your repairs?

[C5dad]

Wow,

Looking at the cracking on the bricks, I would think that they were not properly cured - the cracking looks as if it shrunk on the top and the bottom gave way. You see, the fires were not hot enough to properly cure the bricks so they were partially green. As the temperatures rose, the bricks dried out and shrank - which is to be somewhat expected- in the neighborhood of a few mm. As the fires progressed, the tops expanded with heat then contracted during cooling while the bottoms did not have the same luxury as they cured at a different rate.

So the question is, how are your bricks now?