Wrong dimensions - Help!!

[brickie in oz]

Re: Wrong dimensions - Help!!

Is there two flues?

[brickie in oz]

Peter's pictures of his oven.

More..............

[brickie in oz]

Peter's pictures of his oven.

The pictures are tiny, they should have loaded from your end?

[brickie in oz]

Re: Wrong dimensions - Help!!

You can send me the pics and Ill resize them for you.

I dont mind my email being public, I get a lot of spam as it is....

[peterthewolf]

Re: Wrong dimensions - Help!!

Oh, great Yes the door is out front of the chimney, *outside* it. The fix for that...plugged the chimney and let air/exhaust go through only the door into the world. So it's in&out but not up a pipe. Yep, some soot up there outside, but that we don't mind...it's outside...As long as we *can* plug the chimney as if the door was closed.

Understand folks, that I showed the plans to the stonemason, and he assured me that he'd make a "fantastic" oven that would work great. I deferred to his expertise...which it seems applied to some other old world clay deal, but not this kind of oven. Wish he could have communicated that. Man, I showed him the plans 4 times and asked questions, but he was set on that he was good at what he does. He has in fact done so much to make our home beautiful for so many years so we were trusting of this process, whoops. On this job, we may have bumped into pride issues or something.

Regardless, here's day 3 of firings; today's firing has gone all day and will continue overnight then through the weekend. If that doesn't cure it, ? I let go of trying to control temperature yesterday and just decided to keep 3 or 4 pieces of split oak burning all the time in there. The only variation was 250 to 350 on the floor averaged, 450-475 a foot up on the back wall, and about 450-500 near the dome peak. I figure at this point I'll just keep it going and cook it out. Insulation check is good - it's still only slightly warm to the touch on the exterior of the main dome. I'll be through 4/10's of a cord by the time we are done and so far it's not getting much hotter inside.

Got it on door height percentage, looking to make 63% ultimately. Smoke layer over clean air is still 12 to 13 inches above the floor, which is about 5 to 6 inches above the main flames, as the smoke goes up the chimney hole 18 inches tall in the tunnel to the door - and richer but about same if the chimney is plugged and only the door ventilates both directions.

As for photo resizing...I opened pixresizer and got ?eQ˝???7u≠??g?W#?(∆?ˇ∑?N_??≠... etc. Anything better suggested (for a mac)? I've got decent pictures...wish I could show you... Barring that, anyone if you'd like me to just email them to you, send me an email address an I'll do it that way. If you want your address more private, contact me at pwolf1@wolfskills.com. Thanks all!

[texassourdough]

Re: Wrong dimensions - Help!!

Hi Peter!

You made a comment about capping the chimney AND closing the door... The door should be BETWEEN the chimney and the oven...????? I take it yours is NOT?
Jay

[Neil2]

Re: Wrong dimensions - Help!!

Try the curing process first before you make any changes to the dome inside.

Note that the 63% ratio is important. If the ratio is to low (as in your case) the fire will be "choked". If the ratio is too high, the gas will escape before giving up their heat to the bricks.

Also note that this if for the firing phase only. Once it is up to temperature the ratio is less important. This may sound strange, but one approach/remedy might be a plug-able opening above your entry arch.

[Lburou]

Re: Wrong dimensions - Help!!

Uploading tutorial

[brickie in oz]

Re: Wrong dimensions - Help!!

Arghh I'm trying to do photos. I'm not making sense of the directions. Can someone talk me through this? I got as far as "uploading, please wait". Where is this "attachment folder" where they would be for additional steps to get it to arrive in the post?

Sounds like your pics are too big and need reducing in size to upload.

Try this free software PIXresizer - Download
Ideally the pics should be 800 pixels wide for internet viewing.

The pics appear automatically on your post when successfully uploaded.

[peterthewolf]

Re: Wrong dimensions - Help!!

Arghh I'm trying to do photos. I'm not making sense of the directions. Can someone talk me through this? I got as far as "uploading, please wait". Where is this "attachment folder" where they would be for additional steps to get it to arrive in the post?

[Lburou]

Re: Wrong dimensions - Help!!

I recommend you post some pictures before you break any bricks or do any modifications....After seeing the pictures, the corporate memory here will be able give you a good idea for your oven tune up

[peterthewolf]

Re: Wrong dimensions - Help!!

dmun&Texas - thanks. Wet makes sense, especially because we had it pretty soupy going into the slab. Less so for the dome layer. So firing: Last 2 nights I lit a fire before dinner, kept it going a few hours, capped the chimney and shut the door for a long smolder and went to bed. It was 150-170 this morning with small coals, just enough to throw some little sticks on to get going, so I started it back up and will fire all day until bed, same deal tonight. A few days? I'll keep you posted. Would I be correct to see more heat generally as water leaves? As for drying and keeping dry, other than cement seams between those rocks, it is *rocks* outside. Perhaps this means I'll actually be slower than say, stucco or something because these are not porous rocks. I'll pay attention to that and fire longer. Do y'all light up a small one during rainy seasons to maintain a level of relative dryness?

Faith- The dome is quite vertical, and pretty pointy at the top. I'll post photos separately. As for bringing down the dome, what do you folks think about pushing a round ceramic kiln shelf up into the point of the dome and bolting it in place with insulation behind it? Does anyone have a better idea? *Certainly* heat is wanting to go up, up , up, but it does get lost up there, and then wanders out the door within the smoke layer. I can tell this because it's twice as hot on the surface of the top of the arch that contains the chimney where smoke is exiting the dome, as it is on the oven wall for two feet up. I realize that putting a flat disc shaped thing up there wouldn't be "dome" anymore, but it certainly would force flame and heat to make that change to a more horizontal path, a (more) circular movement then just going up. The only other ideas we had were to have a metal worker we know make a new dome top in pieces of half inch steel, then crawl in, stuff insulation up and bolt the metal dome insert together in place in there. That's metal, is expensive, and could warp. I do not see how brick could be used, or even a patching fill-plug of clay-cement that holds to bolts we drill in first to stick it onto. That would not stay up in the making without building an elaborate form...then there would not be room to get in and put the material in..scratch that one. Back to the shelf idea...anyone have a better idea? At least by doing something related, we could get this 63% going.

[dmun]

Re: Wrong dimensions - Help!!

Smells like wet insulation to me. I think that has to be addressed before we start considering any fine points of dome proportion. Vermiculite concrete holds a LOT of water and that all has to be driven out. It also has the ability to re-absorb water so it has to be kept REALLY dry.

Photo uploading

[texassourdough]

Re: Wrong dimensions - Help!!

There is no question that having the dome be too tall creates a dead spot and impairs heating but it sounds to me like there is something else going on. You are almost certainly very wet. Vermiculite takes a long time to dry out. One big fire, and a bunch of little ones aren't nearly enough in my experience. Doesn't sound like you are mass challenged. Get a small fire going and keep it for days - slowly building it up. You have to push the heat in to get the water out.

Good luck!
Jay

[Faith In Virginia]

Re: Wrong dimensions - Help!!

One of the things noticed is you dome height to entry height. 30" dome and 15" entry is 50% the magic number for WFO's is 63%. So you may not be getting enough air to get the fire you need.

My oven has lots of thermal mass 7" all the way around so 4 to 5 hours is not unusual but I always start with a slow small fire to start.

I'm also wondering about the shape of your dome and how the air flows.