Ashes between the floor stones

[nachtwacht]

Hello,

I have build a very simple WFO about a year ago with the intention that if I liked it, I would build a permanent WFO.

With this first build I found myself having one problem. I did not mortar the floor (like nobody does) but with the floor getting hot and cooling down and the stones shrinking and expanding every time, I now have ashes between the stones. The stones where simply lined up against eachother, not in a heringbone struckture or anything. The rest of the oven was build on top of these stones.

It is not a very big problem but is there any way to prevent this from happening ? Normaly I would say mortar the stones to the support that I build but it seems to be common practice to just put the stones in a small bed of sand and not mortar them.

Thanks in advance

(excuses also if this question has come up before but I tried searching but could not find anything)

[Bec1208]

Re: Ashes between the floor stones

Hello,
With this first build I found myself having one problem. I did not mortar the floor (like nobody does) but with the floor getting hot and cooling down and the stones shrinking and expanding every time, I now have ashes between the stones. The stones where simply lined up against eachother, not in a heringbone struckture or anything. The rest of the oven was build on top of these stones.

Not sure what the problem is, are the ashes in the joints affecting your pizza or bread?

[cobblerdave]

Re: Ashes between the floor stones

Gudday
The term "stones" has me wondering do you mean "brick".
Most of the ovens I have experience with have firebrick as the hearth material. It's an industrial material so they are exact in shape and size. Layed on a clay and sand slurry they are flat with no gapes.If you are considering a new oven consider the forno plans its a well proven oven.
Regards dave

[Les]

Re: Ashes between the floor stones

nachtwacht,

You are correct in not mortaring the floor. It should be free to expand and contract. But there are limits, you do need to contain the perimeter or they may shift to extremes.

[nachtwacht]

Re: Ashes between the floor stones

Hello, thanks for the reply's.

Fortunatly the ashes are not affecting my pizza's because the ashes are between the joints. However, since the stones keep expanding and contracting the joints are becomming bigger and bigger forcing the stones to go outward a little more and more every time. (That might be another reason why to use a heringbone basicaly is my question.....)

"Stones" are firebricks indeed. Sorry for the confusion. They are fairly big ones. (11,7 inch long)


Greetings

[brickie in oz]

Re: Ashes between the floor stones

but is there any way to prevent this from happening ?

The only way would be to not light a fire, it happens to all black ovens.