Mortar Joints

[Robpriddy]

In looking through the instruction for building the Pompeii oven I see some pictures that show the inside of the oven with the bricks touching each other so no mortar joint..ie. pg 39 example 7.6, page 37 example 7.1, and page 34 example 6.2. I see other examples that show an obvious mortar joint on the inside of the oven...ie. page 44 example 9.6, page 41 example 8.3, and page 9.

Is there some advantage or disadvantage to these two methods of construction? Mortar joints give me some wiggle room to correct for errors but should I avoid them or try to minimize them??

[irelande5]

Re: Mortar Joints

Hi Rob, typically you want to have brick to brick contact, some go to great lengths to accomplish this, others it doesn't bother them. Collectively speaking, if you had a 1/4" mortar joint on all sides if fire brick, in the end you would end up with less thermal mass, more mortar cost, and cracks typically occur in mortar joints. If your going with heatstop mortar its around 80 a bag. I split the difference tried to get best brick to brick contact, but didn't go as far as cutting angles for complete contact, check out ussell build utahbeehiver or les for this approach. Good luck