How do you attach the inner arch to the vent?

[rwiegand]

I've been looking at lots of build threads and it appears that many folks (me now included, because I've been following the pictures I see) build the inner arch and then build the vent arch in front of it. I haven't seen mention of how the two pieces are connected. There's even a discussion of adding a gap between the dome and vent. If you've got a tall chimney and a thin vent hearth, as many do, what keeps it from blowing over in a stiff breeze (not to mention even a small earthquake), or at least cracking between the inner arch and vent? Gluing stacks of bricks together with mortar was, I was always told, bad practice and you needed to interlock the bricks with something like a running bond to gain strength. Have I missed something? Mine will end up less than 1-1/2 bricks deep but 4+ ft tall.

[brad mole]

i was also wondering this so would be keen to find out the answer too!

[Gulf]

You don't.

Ya'll are right on point about interlocking brick as a best practice. However, imo the inner arch gets hotter than the outer arch. So, it is going to expand more (or at least at a different rate) while heat cycling the oven. Tying them together would probably be ok. But, something is going to have to give somewhere. The inner arch and dome are structurally sound. Ya'll are right to be concerned about the integrity of the entry arch. It does not have to tie in to the inner arch to be structurally sound. It does have to be structurally sound on it's own. That is not quite as much of a problem with hemispherical arch. Segmental arches need to be buttressed since they produce more outward forces

The best that I can sum up is that the entry needs to be constructed as a free standing addition to the oven.

[rwiegand]

That makes sense, thanks!

[brad mole]

Great, thank you Gulf!