Fire brick

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karl

Minister of Fire
Apr 9, 2007
1,058
Huntington, West Virginia
Please take a look at the attached picture and tell me if the gaps in the fire brick are ok or if I should get some different brick.


Thanks
 

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Well I know they didnt shrink in your humid climate. Any detail in your install manual. Almost looks uniform and intentional. You figure it cause hot spots?
Those are high quality stoves. I think your best bet if the book doesnt show it E-Mail this same pic to there home site and I bet there will be an answer before ten pacific standard time. The photo showes good detail. Good Luck
 
karl said:
Please take a look at the attached picture and tell me if the gaps in the fire brick are ok or if I should get some different brick.


Thanks

Those gaps are fine. They'll quickly get filled with ash. NO worries there at all.
 
Yep that's just fine.

If it would make you feel better, you could evenly distribute the gaps equally along the three seams in the rear firebricks. Of course it doesn't really matter too much.
 
Page 15 of the PDF manual I downloaded doesn't show the tapered brick. Page 17 doesn't either. In the paper manual that came with the stove, page 15 does show the tapered brick, but page still shows the old brick. I called the guy who sold me the stove and he assured me that I got the right brick and said PE changed the brick sometime ago. I'm sure they are installed according to the manual. It just seems to me PE is using the same brick package for several different stoves. I live very close to a museum that has a pottery workshop they put on and they have a whole pallet of fire brick sitting out behind the building, so I could scarf a couple of brick to fill the gaps. If anybody were there when I walk my dog I would ask them for a couple. I'm sure they would give me two or three bricks.
 
They're only a couple of bucks apiece at any good lumberyard.
 
As well thought out and engineered as the PE stoves appear to be and the fact that the angle cut bricks are shown in the owners manual and even have a part number all their own makes me think a person should leave them like they are. Especially since they aren't in the old manuals/diagrams. Somebody solved some kind of problem by going to the trouble to use different bricks in those corners.

Anyway, two hours into the first burn those spaces will be filled with ash. As to the spaces between the ones in the back, Roospike's pics of his firebox shows them too. And we all know that his is the perfect woodstove and will heat a football stadium for a week with just three splits.
 
Karl,

Try this: remove all the side and rear bricks. Remove the two notched floor bricks from the back row and swap them for the two corresponding bricks in the front row. Install the notched bricks in the front row with the notches at the extreme left and right front corners of the stove.

Using full-width bricks, install two on each side of the air feed tube on the backwall. Push them up tight against the air feed tube on both sides.

Now install the side bricks, starting in the rear, in this order: full brick, full brick, narrow brick, full brick. I think you'll find your gaps will magically disappear.
 
Karl,

I don't know about majic, but I think that thechimneysweep is on to something there. Please let me know if that will work and eliminate the gaps. :)

George
 
Personally I wouldn't touch a single thing without asking the manufacturer why they are the way they are first.
There's a reason things are done the way they are. Most times anyway!
 
All the stoves I have worked with the bricks with the notches in the corners have notches so they fit somewhere they otherwise would not fit. I have seen them vertical towards the front, and also vertical along the back on the left and right. I have to admin I have never worked with a PE though.
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Looked at the manual and it looks like you should have 4 full bricks in the back, and the cut ones should be second from the front on the left and right sides. This might make the gaps in the rear smaller and the sides a little looser, not sure. As for the notched corners.... who knows.
 
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