Oven Floor

[Nick in Laval]

Hi everyone

I'm building a 42" FB Pompei oven and I built my foundation and an 8" vermiculite insulating slab just before winter or last year. I covered it all up for the winter and now I'm set to lay out the fire bricks for the oven floor but I can't seem to find fire clay in Montreal Canada. Can anyone recommend a reputable vendor on line that I can order some? Actually is it really necessary to use the fireclay paste between the vermiculite slab and the fire bricks?

I also purchased the FB Board thinking that I might use the FB Board over the vermiculite slab. But because I went 8" thick on the vermiculite slab I'm wondering if perhaps I don't need to use the FB Board at all now. Is this ok? And if I do decide to use the FB Board over the vermiculite, how would I get the fire bricks to stick to the FB Board? It's very fibrous.

I also have another question concerning the FB Mortar. I made a small batch of it to see what it's like to work with and was curious to know if it's easy to work with? How is it best to apply the mortar to the bricks when starting on the dome? Is it better to use a troul for cement or is it better to wear gloves and just cram the mortar into the spaces?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Nick

[deejayoh]

Re: Oven Floor

If you already have your bricks, cut them to shape and use the grog from your tray as fire clay. Screen out the big bits, and mix it with sand.

No one who is cutting bricks should ever bother buying fire clay. You'll be throwing it out by the bucket load.

You probably don't need the FB board given you have 8" of vermiculite, but if you have it and can't return, I say use it.

As for "sticking" - the fire clay/sand layer is for leveling the bricks out - doesn't provide any adhesion. The weight of the bricks and then the oven on top of/around them is sufficient to keep everything in place

On the mortar, I recommend you go to youtube and watch a few videos on how to lay bricks. Yes you use a trowel, but there's some technique that is useful to know.

[leetheldc]

Re: Oven Floor

Hi nick I used dry grog (ground fire brick ) and a notched trowel for my floor worked great if that is easier to source. I've read a lot of threads on here and would defiantly go for the board under the floor look up cal sil (calcium silicate board ) that might be cheaper summat stuff just no where near as hazardous I've used 4 inch of the stuff on my floor as for the mortar I used grog again and fondue cement but it works the same just lay the mortar out on the last laid brick course in a wedge format and butter up the face edge of the brick to be laid just as a brick layer would do hope this helps