Start of the restaurant/bakery oven Brick Oven Photos Discuss Start of the restaurant/bakery oven in the Good Background Information forums; Very depressed her and wondering what the consensus of our members would do. Firing the oven today as usual for ...

[Dutchoven]

Very depressed her and wondering what the consensus of our members would do. Firing the oven today as usual for baking for our Farmer's Market. Smelled kind of a funny smell and decided to investigate. We have cracks in our oven like nearly everyone does and I decided to open the backside of the oven enclosure because that is where the smell led me. After opening the enclosure and pulling back the insulation I could see some soot and then saw some smoke coming out of the crack on that side. I have read many of the posts regarding others who have had the same issue. Was wondering ultimately what was done and how the repari if any has served. It will be a commercial oven and I guess it is better to deal with it now. We were hoping to be open in the next month to 6 weeks, so aside from being depressed about the crack we are stressed about time.
Incidentally I couldn't look at the other crack or the rest of the dome yet!
Looking for any advice
Best
Dutch

[Gromit]

Dutch,

I have fired my oven about ten times and on Wed. I decided to pull back the insulation to take a look at the other side of a crack that developed some time during the curing fire. I was not prepared for how bad the outside of the oven looked. It looked like hell--one huge crack that you could see daylight through and a ton of smaller cracks all over the place. Lots of soot on the underside of the blankets. I think my soldier course is severed in about six places.

I have strung a steel cable over the entry arch and anchored that to the slab. I then attached two more cables to the "arch cable" and circled them around the soldier course; those are tightened down with turnbuckles. I am not very concerned about the soot and smoke that gets through--it doesn't get past the 1st couple of blankets. One false move with my copper brush though and I think I could have blown out my soldier course wall. I will post pictures later this evening.

[DrakeRemoray]

Dutch, I think I would just get some extra refractory mortar and slather it on there if you can access it...

I used some furnace cement for smaller cracks. It has a little bit of elasiticy in it...I got it in a caulk like tube from the local ace hardware...

Hope that helps!
Drake

[Dutchoven]

Got a bucket of premixed heatstop 50 and looks like I will patch it up tomorrow. Will try to repair any other cracks on the oven while I am in there and then start curing it again. Thanks for the replies!
Best
Dutch

[mfiore]

Good Luck, Dutch. Hang in there!

[DrakeRemoray]

Hey Dutch, How did the patching go?
Drake

[Dutchoven]

Just finished it today actually. Shanghai-ed the neighbor into crawling into the oven for me to do the final pointing using the Rutland fireplace repair mortar that comes in a tube. He is a very resourceful guy with lots of experience in construction so I knew he would be up for the task. That and he fit through the door better! Earlier in the week(in between the many rain showers we have had here for 6 DAYS) we opened the enclosure from the back side, pulled out all the insulation, gave it a good inspection and then used the angle grinder to take out what would come out pretty easy. Then tuck pointed the gaps with Heatstop 50(traded the premix bucket back for the bagged mix). Will be starting some fires this week to sort of re-cure it if we can get the insulation back on without it getting too wet! Will let you know more later in the week.
Thanks for asking Drake!
Best
Dutch