Castable Firebrick

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A friend of mine uses a fireplace. No insert or wood stove, just the old style masonry fireplace. The house was built in the 20's.
The fireplace is on an outside wall so the box and its floor are actually outside the house framing. The floor has an ash dump at the back.
The problem is the the entire floor and hearth extension was covered in 6" terra cotta tiles at some point. The tiles are all busted up and cracked.
Is is possible to remove all the tiles and pour a castable refractory mix to the proper depth as a new floor for this hearth.
It seems easier than cutting and laying firebrick by hand.

Any thoughts?

 

[elkimmeg]

How about this for an idea shop Vac out the fireplace bottom ins a putty knife screw driver and scrape out as nuch loose bricks and cement as possible
Get a bag of premixed motar and buy the one inch Stove refractory bricks lay down 3/" soopy bed of motar and tap in the new 1" refactory bricks
With left over motar and a joining tool apply motar to the joint and clean it to look professionally done

 

[wg_bent]

How about this for an idea shop Vac out the fireplace bottom ins a putty knife screw driver and scrape out as nuch loose bricks and cement as possible
Get a bag of premixed motar and buy the one inch Stove refractory bricks lay down 3/" soopy bed of motar and tap in the new 1" refactory bricks
With left over motar and a joining tool apply motar to the joint and clean it to look professionally done

I think the bricks would look a LOT better also, but seems like the castible refractory solution would work.

 

[PAJerry]

Have to be careful to slowly dry any castable refractory and be sure to get all the air bubbles out when after pouring it. Several years ago, we had a few pouring ladles in the foundry explode during a rapid heat-up.

If you have a foundry supply outfit near you, you might try to get a good ramming refractory ( best we use is Blue Ram HS) and form the floor out of that. It is pretty stiff but can be rammed into place with a mallet and should last forever. Also, no issues of trapped air or moisture. I used it many years ago to replace some broken bricks in the back of our fireplace and it never came loose.

 

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If they go with the Firebrick and mortar, I will recommend refractory mortar instead of regular mortar.
I don't think regular masons mortar can hold up to the temps.

 

[elkimmeg]

Code require fefractory motar for fire box use however I have seen it used twice in 11 years of inspections. I aslo have seen 300 year common bricks used in fire boxes using common motar and still in usable condition the correct application would ne refactory motar but no one uses it a code that is practically un e enforceable

 

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Thats good to hear, who knows where you could find that stuff.
I came across this link though
http://www.rumford.com/articleRefmortar.html