Oven floor

[Dave Sickles]

I jst got done laying the haringbone floor,what fills in some of the little gaps?.ash from the burn in process?

[Gulf]

Yes, ash does fill in small gaps. However, a pic of the oven floor would help.

[Chef Ryan]

I also just finished my floor and I have some small gaps (biggest one is maybe 1/8th of an inch). I have extra fire clay and was considering filling the gaps with that as much as possible. I am not sure if this will help or is even needed but I have the extra and I figured it would help with better heat retention.

[david s]

The oven floor takes the greatest beating from the fire. If a brick does crack and you want to replace it then un-mortared joints are best. In addition each brick will be able to expand at a different rate. If you mortar the joints between the bricks then you reduce their capacity to move slightly. Best to let them fill with ash as advised by Gulf.

[roroman]

hi, do you cement the first row to the oven floor, or just between each brick in the row( side to side)??

[slschoming]

Don't mortar the floor bricks to the dome wall so they can expand and contract with temp changes free from each other.

Are you building your dome on top of floor bricks or did you cut your floor bricks to fit inside the dome? If you are building the dome around the floor bricks you should leave a small gap (the width or corrugated cardboard) between the walls and the floor. if you are building on top of the floor then you can put down some thin cardboard underneath the walls so the mortar doesn't attach the walls to the floor bricks below. You can leave the cardboard and it will burn up when you start firing your oven.