Great question George! It is probably to do with their internal process - he was taking readings and writing them down for each of the probes for two straight days, and those figures are then recorded as formal test results in the UL system. That would be much harder to do with the IR Gun, or camera, which are not well known for high levels of accuracy. All of his probes were calibrated, and I looked them up (I wanted to buy some) and they are EXPENSIVE, about ten times the price of a Type K thermocouple that you could buy on eBay

Thank you!!

Absolutely, that is likely the case. The water is most likely actually in your insulation layers, making them much less effective as insulators. Once you get the whole oven dry (including the insulation) you should see a significant improvement in performance.

@@TheFireBrickCo thank you for your answer! that keeps me thrilled and dont make me loose my hope that i made something significantly wrong.

I COULD NOT AGREE WITH YOU MORE. Fourth year Computational Fluid Dynamics... I have a recurring nightmare that Monash University contacts me to let me know there has been an administrative error and that I have not actually graduated. I then have to return for a full semester to do a single subject...

@@TheFireBrickCo I was on the five year plan, myself. It was Machine Dynamics in my final semester and the professor was a hard-ass. Failed over half the class

I was shocked to hear Ben call me when I inquired about the ovens on there website. After watching the videos multiple times over, it was like being starstruck

Ahhh you are super welcome Jason!! I love what I do and I love talking to my customers, I get to enjoy your project through you!

I hear you - hopefully we can start exporting them to the UK in the next couple of years. I have the UK company set up and ready to go, just need to find a good warehouse and local delivery options

Thanks heaps Sam! It's just the best place to start eh? Like with welding, I didn't try to go straight to multi-pass fillets to begin with, it was just doing tbe basics and getting that nailed down, then building on that from there

It doesn't, it's symmetrical. But the flue sleeve that we install has a small joint that we normally recommend putting to the back

Hi Patrick!! Great question - you don't have to remove the coals but you might want to, if you're baking a lot of bread at once, you if you're worried about ash floating around and landing on the loaves. Temp wise it'll be the same as you would target for any other oven! You should jump into our Facebook Community Group and put this question to them - facebook.com/groups/firebrickco

Always new thing s to add to your repertoire, try some hot honey on a baked brie!

Very much still here, follow us on instagram for regular updates, the new design of the charcaol grill will be released soon with some exciting improvements!

@@TheFireBrickCowow. Thats great news. We need a home version for the typical bbq dude…. Worldwide!!!🎉

Which one did you think has been discontinued? The grill? Well GOOD NEWS! We are bringing them back, in about two months time they will launch!

@@TheFireBrickCoG900 was not on your site for a while. Anyways you shouls build smaller ones too. g500 g700? 😊

That's arguable but in this case the samples are being heated from above - the top surface gets hit with the vast majority of the heat whereas the lower portion is left relatively cool. It's almost identical to how refractory materials are tested for thermal shock resistance by manufacturers (their version is a little more full-on, but the principles are the same)

@@TheFireBrickCo The top surface is the edge of the thin piece. The majority of heat enters the piece from both sides. It is also cooled from the sides. Symmetric and in effect uniformily. Both factors reduce stresses by thermal transients A LOT! This setup is designed to let test pieces pass and not to finding early weaknesses. It is a valid test. But I prefer to test material in a more brutal way. To quicker find good and bad samples.

Oh great question! First thing you could experiment with is using less wood for your main fuel load, you might be able to get up to temp with less fuel than you're using (which would reduce your coal bed). Second - go for it with the metal bucket or better yet a firepit - it's just a safety concern having a red-hot bucket kicking around at ground level for little ones to touch. Something else you could do is to ramp the coals back against the wall using a piece of 4"x4" angle iron, tucked under the coals and pushed into the bed to ramp it back up against the wall. Hard to describle in words but you might get the picture

Good questions Stuart! We haven't started doing that just yet because I'm a little concerned about coating over the ceramic fibre rope with the membrane coating that we use. But I'm open to ideas! I've heard of foil being used but my concern is longevity - the combination of reasonably high temperatures, steam and some alkalinity from the mortar in the dome will likely attack this layer and make it decompose fairly quickly, which would then 'render' it pointless. I'm experimenting with grade 309 Stainless steel foil right now for a layer to protect the Calcium Silicate board and it's going really well

Yeah, that last bit took me 4.5 hours. FYI: My measuring unit was a quart sized container. So, 5 quarts perlite, etc. I got everything reasonably spherical, but had to throw a tarp on it while the rain starts. Hopefully, that didn't shift any of the render while I dragged the tarp on

Sorry for the delayed reply! Hope it has come up really nicely for you!

@@TheFireBrickCo YES! I made my first pizza last week and it wasn't quite up to my standards, but hey, it's a learning process. The dome went on well enough, although, there has been some minor cracks in the dome. I suppose that's to be expected though. Thank you so much to all the team at The Fire Brick Company!!

Unfortunately not, the cement would just flake off over time unless you made a very thick layer (at least 2") which would be quite expensive

@@TheFireBrickCo thank you for responding!

Good question! It's all in the written instructions for you; www.thefirebrickco.com

Good question! We don't have plans for one of those right now but that doesn't mean it won't happen some day!

Oh thanks heaps James! That means a lot, much appreciated

Thanks Terry!

And as a small thank you (when my wife’s not looking) I’m going to buy one of those andirons. 😊 can’t find them anywhere so might as well order from you guys.

Yeah I'm working on removing that part of the process!

They sure are! In two planes

This one measures 1900mm x 1900mm on the long sides but what you need will depend on the type of oven you want to build

Thank you!

Spot on - and they would have heated them up fairly slowly too, to avoid thermal shock at the beginning of the cycle. If you used them that way the vast bulk of that construction would last for a very long time, but eventually the brick in the firebox would need to be replaced.

Good question! You definitely want to have plenty of thermal mass in your oven floor (which we have here in the form of a 50mm dense fire brick tile) but you also need insulation, otherwise all the heat held in that thermal mass will just escape into the benchtop beneath it, and then into the atmosphere to be lost forever. You're on the right track in wanting a good amount of thermal mass, but it is **critical** to have insulation beneath that, or you will be building something that just won't achieve the floor temperatures that you're after.

@@TheFireBrickCo Thanks Ben, as usual you provide great info!

So many good questions! Yes, we move the fire to one side before making pizza, and sweep the floor clear of all dust and ash. The side is up to you, I use either interchangably. You can just add one or two small pieces of timber to the bank of coals to keep a small fire burning throughout the cook - you don't actually need flame but if you don't have a small fire burning then the temperature in the oven will slowly start to fall rather than holding at 400C or so

@@TheFireBrickCo Thank you very much for this information. Now we can really get cracking!

The coating on the inside would delaminate from the brickwork over time, shedding off in sections. Refractories are not made for thin coatings unfortunately, you would have to use a 'gunning mix' and apply it about 100mm thick, which would be more expensive than just using fire brick in the first place

Hahaha! Not quite, it would have been in a few more seconds I think

Great question Debby! Actually we sweep the floor of the oven carefully before we put the pizza in, to make sure that the ash is removed before the pizza hits the floor

It's not - but the weight of the oven is so great that even once the floor tiles are down it is almost impossible to shift it by pushing on it. Calsil is like chalk, so there is very little out there that will bond to it, but thankfully that isn't necessary

I think you are talking about our PreCast Flue Gallery? We pour fibre reinforced refractory castable into molds in our factory in Melbourne, let it set and then remove and finish the parts.

Thank you! Yep it works brilliantly if you're organised enough to build that next fire - future you will be ever so grateful if you do!

No problems! That was one of our PreCut Brick Oven Kits, it comes with all of the bricks cut to size, ready to lay.

Every single refractory material on the planet is porous unfortunately, so a Wood Fired Oven is essentially a big sponge waiting to absorb rain-water. If you've built it under a roof with sidings to prevent rain blowing in sideways then that would be a good start, plus you could put a tarpaulin over the oven in the case of a severe storm. Another method you could think about would be to build the oven into an enclosure, so that only the opening of the oven is visible. Then it is a pretty simple matter of making a cover for that opening that wouldn't allow any water through. I'm really glad you're thinking about this issue, because you're absolutely right, water freezing in the oven can cause damage that we want you to avoid. Feel free to give us a call to discuss your build further, we will be happy to help however we can!

Thank you so much! We get quite a few comments from folks thinking our kits are a bit highly priced, when we are doing our level best to make a really good quality product at a reasonable price. But until you've actually built one from scratch it's hard to understand how much it can cost

Older pressed bricks seem to have a better tolerance for high temperatures than more modern ones, but they still share the same basic properties as a solid pressed brick, they're just not created with really high temperatures in mind.

You're very welcome!

Cheers!

Oh thank you so much!!

Thank you!! Hopefully we can be of help in your next project!

Cheers!