Continued Design Ideas

[Derkp]

Craig, My construction photos are here somwhere search for Derkp. Tscarborough's build play by play is great too.

Good luck,
Derk

[clofgreen]

A couple of questions: Can Perlcrete be used for the hearth and can I form it up as shown to hold the front together and support the chimney?

[Tscarborough]

Not usable for any exposed or wearing surface.

[clofgreen]

Can it be covered with ceramic tile?

[david s]

The Daniel RHodes kiln building bible advises against the end walls being outside the arch, they should be inside it, although it does require more brick cutting. One would presume that an oven would have the same requirement.

[brickie in oz]

Originally Posted by clofgreen

You're singing my song and its music to my ears. Vault is easy. Easy is better. Vault is better. Maybe I got no brain but this is a no brainer. Vault it is. Thanks.

Craig

My build is now available in ebook format for the Kindle.
You can download a PC viewer from Amazon too.

[Tscarborough]

It can not be covered with tile. It has decent compressive strength, but almost zero strength in any other measurement.

[Derkp]

Search the site for perlcrete, vermicrete, there are many posts concerning this interesting substance. I used 4" directly under my oven on top of 4 inches of regular concrete work.
Derk

[Derkp]

Craig,

My design is almost identical to your #1, except I found 4 -1/2 arches exactly loike yours, and put the first 2 plus a keystone right next to the last barrel arch, then a firebrick spacer or two and then the other 2 -1/2 arches. The flue straddles the two full arches.

Derk

[clofgreen]

Having decided to build a vault oven I started doing some research on this forum. There seems to be a lot of debate about arches and what makes them work and what makes them fail.

This is my first choice vault. It follows the taper of the brick except half way up where it flattens out slightly to give me a 17" inside dome height (30" x 40" x 17" I.D.). I will cover this with 1 inch of refractory mortar then 2 inches of perlcrete then 4 inches of perlite. I think that the vault will be sturdy and that mortar and perlcrete will make it even more so. I like the simplicity of this design (fewer cuts) but started to wonder if the vault will fail.



This led me to study a catenary vault. If I cut my larger bricks in half at a diagonal they can receive the vault. It follows the taper of the brick except at the top third where it flattens out to follow the catenary curve. This vault is 15 inches high and the design looks sturdy but I wonder that all that mass at the bottom will be a heat sink.



Please comment remembering that I want to make as few cuts as is reasonable.