Wet Oven Floor

[ShuttleAU]

Hi

The heavy rain two weeks ago managed to get past ( under ) my oven door and the floor is now very very wet. The rain was driven by strong wind from the North which is very rare here.

So , a fan and blower heater have dried out most of the base. The ash in the expansion gap between the base and the dome is still damp.

Still too wet to fire up.

Has anyone encountered this before and how did you solve it?


BC

[nissanneill]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

There is no quick easy solution to dry out your oven and mainly hearth.
I have experienced a similar dilemma as my pompeii is built into a retained plot, and the hearth got wet a few times.
I had several pizza bakes but the oven was very slow to get to temperatures and I had to dig deeper around the base, protect the hearth with plastic and drainage pipes and backfilled with rock.
To get the oven going again, we had to dry out the hearth with a few fires just to get the heat back into the bricks.
Have a few smaller burns and try to guard the oven from further wet weather problems.

Cheers,

Neill

[Laurentius]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

Hi

The heavy rain two weeks ago managed to get past ( under ) my oven door and the floor is now very very wet. The rain was driven by strong wind from the North which is very rare here.

So , a fan and blower heater have dried out most of the base. The ash in the expansion gap between the base and the dome is still damp.

Still too wet to fire up.

Has anyone encountered this before and how did you solve it?


BC

Hi BC,

What you should do, is fire it up. The wet hearth will not cause cracks in your structure, and its going to take a very long time to dry your hearth insulation. When it happened to me, I had no idea, that the hearth was wet, until I fired it up after clearing the dome, cleaned it out to prepare for baking, closed the door for saturation and upon opening it up, to be amazed at the steam pouring out. My landing is all fire brick and they soak up water like a sieve. So I end up sealing my landing and exposed arch entrance with sodium silicate. After a year, so far no problems.

[david s]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

At least one member has reported severe damage to his oven floor which did explode, so fire it slowly. You shouldn't have to go right back to the tiny original curing fires, just don't have a roaring inferno, but a few really long gentle fires and your oven should be back to normal.

[Laurentius]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

At least one member has reported severe damage to his oven floor which did explode, so fire it slowly. You shouldn't have to go right back to the tiny original curing fires, just don't have a roaring inferno, but a few really long gentle fires and your oven should be back to normal.

David,

I think the person with the damaged floor did not have fire bricks as his flooring,
fire bricks are too porous for explosive pressure to build up.

[david s]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

I'm not sure what his floor was made from. It could be useful to do a search. Not all firebricks are really porous. I tested mine, which are really dense and they came out exactly the same as the solid reds I have. Being porous helps water to escape more safely but also means they suck up more water. I certainly wouldn't chance a big fire on them if they were really wet.

[cobblerdave]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

Gudday
It's not only that they are porous that causes the all problem. You have to remember the gapes between each brick, it's a straight pathway to your hearth insulation.
Osmosis sucks!
Regards Dave

[RTflorida]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

My sympathies. I know the trouble, my 1st experience maybe 3 yrs ago was very similar but 3 days of wind driven rain from the south. Wicked all the way up the dome. The first 3 days I had to continually monitor even the smallest fire or it would simply go out. On day 3 I was able to get up to a mid sized fire, after 4-5 hrs I had water dripping from the underside of all 4 edges of my surround ledge of the support slap. Continued the fires daily for 2 wks before the oven fire "normally" again, with days 4,5,6 having an actual stream of water coming from all 4 side.
At that point I took drastic agction and convered my already well insulate and tiled igloo with a waterproofing membrain,mor insulation, surface bonding cement and vietnamese river stone. Dome is fatastically sealed but those damned southern wind driven rains have gotten me twice since, but only the underhearth getting wet, Takes about 3 days each time
to dry it out. I have started building a monster file the day before rain is to move in,then /hellacious fire after the rains ended

Good luck
RT

[brickie in oz]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

Why arent you guys building a weep hole in at insulation level to drain any water?

Ive got one built into mine.

[Dan W]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

Why arent you guys building a weep hole in at insulation level to drain any water?

Ive got one built into mine.

Hey Brickie,

Any links to plans on how to do this - or can you provide a quick summary? I'm just about to lay my insulating floor (vermic/concrete)

Dan

[brickie in oz]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

Its so simple and it will help keep the insulation dry.
Im surprised there is no mention in FB plans for one.

[ShuttleAU]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

Hi Brickie

My problem was not so much draining the water away it was drying the over floor , walls and insulation after the rain stopped. The floor was largely saturated and the water wicked up the walls and into the insulation.

Once I worked out what was happening a piece of ply at the arch entrance stopped the wind driven rain landing on the oven floor.

BC.

[brickie in oz]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

Hi Brickie

My problem was not so much draining the water away it was drying the over floor , walls and insulation after the rain stopped. The floor was largely saturated and the water wicked up the walls and into the insulation.

But if you had built in a drain it wouldnt had of been anywhere near so bad.

[cobblerdave]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

Gudday
I don't see how a drain hole will allow water held in air spaces in the firebrick and insulation to escape. But I have been wrong before so its only a hole and I pull out the hammer drill this weekend. Lets hope I can beat the odds and miss the steel!
BC I wish it was as simple as a piece of plywood. Problem is around here we get regular summer storms so any thing like that would have to be solidly fixed. The chimney cap is 750mm x 250 mm opprox and was taken by one storm over the fence into the neighbors... It made of tin ,truly scary if that hit anyone. It now has the 3 firebricks on it.
Now the problem really is how to fix something vertically to the mouth of the oven..... And non ugly ?
Regards dave

[david s]

Re: Wet Oven Floor

I have a drain hole under my insulation too, but the trouble is that the insulation acts like a sponge and holds the water to itself even though there is a drain. Gentle fires and baking and roasting rather than pizza for a while is the best remedy IMO.