Post by ishootgigs on Jul 24, 2014 9:07:01 GMT
Hi everyone !
I'm finally coming to the end of my clay oven build (I hope)
.
It's taken me about 2.5 months on and off, although the brick base and slab was constructed last summer - I never thought I'd actually have the confidence to try to actually build the thing mind, and fully anticipated it turning into some form of outdoor toy play area for my young un !
It was my very first time doing a lot of things, with this build. I've only recently (last year) got into DIY, so all the brick cutting, cutting, roof angling etc etc etc etc was a learning curve. It's been a great experience, although right at the end, I'm now beginning to find it frustrating.
1) My final layer of clay/sand REALLY wants to crack in places. Since the photo below was taken, I've actually taken it off, soaked it, added more sand and re-applied it so it doesn't sit right to the front of the brick arch. It now drops down where that arch starts as I thought that might be contributing to cracks appearing. Sadly not, and one was starting to form this morning. I now think it's just a matter of shrinkage with the weather being so hot at the minute. I've got a blanket over it now that's soaked with water in an attempt to minimise the shrinkage. The problem I have with cracks is that everybody says "they are fine, just fill them". But when I've tried previously, I've cut V-shapes into the crack so I can get more mixture in, came back the next morning and it's cracked again AND cracked the new mixture too. Bad times. Any tips are welcome.
2) All you seasoned veterans will laugh at this one (and rightly so), but I simply didn't anticipate how hot the smoke coming out of the chimney would get, and one of my roof lats is directly above the chimney itself/ I had a decent fire going on Sunday evening (before I put the third layer of clay back on, just to make sure the inside chamber and the clay slip layers were fully dry). When I checked on monday morning, the lat above the chimney had singed black and a little hole had started appearing in the wood. I've attached a picture. Again, any suggestions for this are welcome, but I simply don't have a budget of any relevance to sort it out, so at the minute I feel the oven is unusable.
I've had a few ideas to try - first might be clagging some of the aluminium roof insulation foil to the bottom of the roof to see if it deflects some heat away, but wont that just catch fire as well ? I have no idea how hot the chimney smoke actually is (it definitely wasn't flames reaching that height). B&Q sell that foil for &7 a roll, so I could go try that I guess.
Second thing I thought of, which I really don't want to do as I'm struggling to think how I'd actually do it, would be to lower the roof and have the chimney go 'through' it. No idea how I would do that though with the ridges on the tiles, although I haven't cemented them down in place yet.
Also, I'm now paranoid about the roof supports in each corner. The oven won't get that hot that it burns them as well will it ? There's a good 20cm clay across the three layers, but I haven't had the thing up to a decent temperature yet to be able to tell for sure.
Anyway, I'm rattling on. It's been fun so far, and lots of adventures have been had. So many questions though.
Cheers in advance !
JB
I'm finally coming to the end of my clay oven build (I hope)
.It's taken me about 2.5 months on and off, although the brick base and slab was constructed last summer - I never thought I'd actually have the confidence to try to actually build the thing mind, and fully anticipated it turning into some form of outdoor toy play area for my young un !
It was my very first time doing a lot of things, with this build. I've only recently (last year) got into DIY, so all the brick cutting, cutting, roof angling etc etc etc etc was a learning curve. It's been a great experience, although right at the end, I'm now beginning to find it frustrating.
1) My final layer of clay/sand REALLY wants to crack in places. Since the photo below was taken, I've actually taken it off, soaked it, added more sand and re-applied it so it doesn't sit right to the front of the brick arch. It now drops down where that arch starts as I thought that might be contributing to cracks appearing. Sadly not, and one was starting to form this morning. I now think it's just a matter of shrinkage with the weather being so hot at the minute. I've got a blanket over it now that's soaked with water in an attempt to minimise the shrinkage. The problem I have with cracks is that everybody says "they are fine, just fill them". But when I've tried previously, I've cut V-shapes into the crack so I can get more mixture in, came back the next morning and it's cracked again AND cracked the new mixture too. Bad times. Any tips are welcome.
2) All you seasoned veterans will laugh at this one (and rightly so), but I simply didn't anticipate how hot the smoke coming out of the chimney would get, and one of my roof lats is directly above the chimney itself/ I had a decent fire going on Sunday evening (before I put the third layer of clay back on, just to make sure the inside chamber and the clay slip layers were fully dry). When I checked on monday morning, the lat above the chimney had singed black and a little hole had started appearing in the wood. I've attached a picture. Again, any suggestions for this are welcome, but I simply don't have a budget of any relevance to sort it out, so at the minute I feel the oven is unusable.
I've had a few ideas to try - first might be clagging some of the aluminium roof insulation foil to the bottom of the roof to see if it deflects some heat away, but wont that just catch fire as well ? I have no idea how hot the chimney smoke actually is (it definitely wasn't flames reaching that height). B&Q sell that foil for &7 a roll, so I could go try that I guess.
Second thing I thought of, which I really don't want to do as I'm struggling to think how I'd actually do it, would be to lower the roof and have the chimney go 'through' it. No idea how I would do that though with the ridges on the tiles, although I haven't cemented them down in place yet.
Also, I'm now paranoid about the roof supports in each corner. The oven won't get that hot that it burns them as well will it ? There's a good 20cm clay across the three layers, but I haven't had the thing up to a decent temperature yet to be able to tell for sure.
Anyway, I'm rattling on. It's been fun so far, and lots of adventures have been had. So many questions though.
Cheers in advance !
JB
