Anyone else find this amusing?

[70chevelle]

I have the block laid for my fireplace, so I plan to start laying brick in the firebox and on the exterior this weekend. I figured I'd go to my 2 go to places for refractory mortar. One is a stone supplier, the other is a place that cleans chimneys, builds fireplaces, sells woodburners etc. Anyway the stone place only had fire clay to roll my own, so I called the chimney place. They had 3-50# bags of refractory with some other items in the box someone ordered and never picked up. I went and checked it out, and it was castable refractory cement with what looked like 12"square FB (type) board. They said I could have that also with the cost of refractory cement. I explained it wouldn't work and I needed mortar. They looked at me crosseyed! I asked if they could get HeatStop products. "Never heard of 'em" As they were looking thru the catalogue, the mgr looked at me perplexed and asked "what are trying to do!?" I explained I am building an outdoor fireplace. She exclaimed "Why don't you just use Type S, like we do!?" I told her I wasn't comfortable with that, especially for the oven. Then she asked what about the the stuff in the pail below. It stated right on it that it was not for exterior use, as it was a pre-mix and water soluable. Anyway, I'm out right now. I think I'm going to use S for the fire box, and I found a place that has the refractory mortar, dry, in 10 or 15# pails, but it's not cheap.

[PizzaJNKY]

Re: Anyone else find this amusing?

70, I'm not an expert yet, but I would imagine that type S mortar will not hold up under high heat. My guess is that it would eventually turn to sand. I would feel alot more comfortable using real refractory mortar like heat-stop or refmix.

I'm not really surprised to hear that they tried to sell you pre-mix water soluable mortar for your outdoor fireplace. When I was starting on my project, a fireplace dealer tried to sell me the same stuff. He said "Its what everyone uses"....Are you kidding me, did you hear me tell you this was going to be outside?

[DrakeRemoray]

Re: Anyone else find this amusing?

When I was trying to buy heatstop and fireclay (for under the floor), I called all around and could not find anyone with heatstop. I ended up ordering 2 bags from NC i think. Cost a fortune, but I wanted to do it right. Then I drove up north 40 mins or so to pick up the fireclay. They bring it out and it is heatstop!!! Of course, my mail order one had already shipped at that point. I ended up running around looking for fireclay...

[gjbingham]

Re: Anyone else find this amusing?

Apparently local practices in building drive the supply and demand of products used and available in each geographical region. While the supplies we really need are available somewhere, rarely do they all seem to be in one place - except for Texas maybe. I wonder if that has something to do with polygamy or cult religions???? Hmmmmm.....