30" Pompeii in Minneapolis

[gastagg]

OK, I'll just plan on that.

[gastagg]

Well I basically finished brick and mortar work today. I'll need to mortar in the chimney, but I got the vent arch and chimney mount finished up today. Will try to get the insulation and wire mesh done on Saturday. Thanks Russell for the idea on the chimney mount.

[gastagg]

And here are the rest of the pics...

[UtahBeehiver]

looks very familiar, nice job on cutting out, kind of a B%&% to do huh......

[gastagg]

Let's just say I was glad to get that last brick cut, which was the last brick (hopefully) of the build!

[gastagg]

Insulation and steel mesh today. Hot work today...in the 90s and high humidity. I think I'm ready for stucco. Any suggestions at this point before I stucco?

Also, is there any reason I should stucco over the brickwork? I was planning to, but it actually came out looking OK. I was going to put a black cement face on the front and take the stucco all the way to the face. The brick is looking good enough to keep exposed. Any opinions?

[Novaslo]

It really depends on how you are going to use it. I insulated all the way. The intent is that the masterpiece is on the inside. However the bummer is that the inside entry will get black and dirty. Insulation cant be stressed enough. After you use it for a while you will want it to retain heat so that you can bake bread on day 2 and have the ability to cook for 3-5 days. Sometimes I will do Jerky or dry herbs on day 5. The next question is your enclosure, how are you going to keep it dry. You probably have that planned. Either way, you have a phenomenal build.

[gastagg]

Darin, thanks for the kind words! Couldn't have done it without the forum, that's for sure.

Are you saying that even with the thermal break, I'm going to get a lot of benefit (heat retainage in the dome) from insulating the outer arch?

[UtahBeehiver]

Nice work on the wire lath layout. Look like you are golden on being ready to stucco. IMHO, I don't think you need to insulate past the inner arch but that is up to you. My vent chamber is not insulated and I can easily get 4 maybe 5 days work of cooking heat out of the oven (with a good door).

[mrchipster]

Nice work on the wire George. Looking great.

[gastagg]

Got the scratch coat of stucco on...first time using stucco. I bought the good BASF premix stucco stuff with the fiberglass from the professional construction concrete supply place. The label was printed with the wrong mixing instructions. I downloaded the specs from BASF wall systems and it wasn't right either for mix amounts. The salesman was off in the amount each bag covered by 1/2...good thing I bought 2 bags. I was planning to do both base layers today but couldn't, so keeping the scratch coat damp through the night and am going to apply the brown coat tomorrow AM after picking up two more bags. Going to use Quikrete finish coat with some dark red coloring for the final coat, probably on Wed. We'll see.

You'll see on one of the pics where I am using a piece of pex tubing to act as a hard spacer to put the stucco against so the stucco does not butt against the flu arch. Will remove the pex and fill with high-temp caulk to provide the thermal break.

[gastagg]

Also, the pics are from before I "scratched" it. My "scratches" were not as good looking as the YouTube video I saw, but I think they will do the job.

[gastagg]

Brown coat. One more to go. Curing fires start by Thursday.

[UtahBeehiver]

Since you are doing an igloo with no enclosure you may want to consider delaying the curing fires until the stucco can dry out more (only two days of drying). Lot's of thermal cycles going on during a cure and would hate to see cracking in the stucco with all that hard work you have been doing IMHO.

[david s]

If doing an igloo I find it better to drive out the water before doing the stucco, then after finishing the stucco layers wrap the thing in cling wrap to retain moisture in the stucco layers for strength. After a week remove the cling wrap. The problem is that you are so close to completion that excitement tends to win over patience.