Sunday, September 6, 2015

Down Comes the Stack

Play this 210 times, and that was my day yesterday.Notice I am wearing my bike helmet! I don't care for heights.

Spent a couple of hours pulling down the stack. I had hoped I'd only have to take down the softbrick shell, but that didn't work out; the upper courses of hardbrick were laid partially on the outer softbrick sleeve, so they had to go before I could work on the softbrick.

That was the bad news. The good news is that, looking down into the opening, I don't think the inner hardbrick sleeve has been affected. I had to remove 30 courses of hardbrick above but I think hte res can stay in place while I remove and then rebuild the outer sleeve.

It was much shorter work than I expected, once again proving the truism that begun is half done. Gravity was a great assistant in this venture: after warning Doug, and then the neighbor kids, to stay out of the kiln yard, I just tossed the bricks down from the roof. I could only throw down about 20 before I had to climb down and stack them out of the way, because while the soft ground did them no damage, striking another brick definitely would. I think I broke three bricks that way.
Hmmm...Seemed higher when I was up there!
Which is fine, because I decided that when I rebuild it, it will be a little bit shorter. It draws like a mad bastard (or it did, when it was standing!) and so I think a shorter stack will serve me better. I just can't decide how much shorter. One course? two?

But none of that is for today. Today is webwork, and then canoeing!

2 comments:

gz said...

Brave!

I've got to think of a stack/flue for a 8 (I think) cu ft propane fired kiln.

How do I workout the flue diameter/height, apart from trial and error?

Lori Watts said...

You want a book by Frederick Olsen, call The Kiln Book. It's got all the math in it. IIRC, the flue cross section should equal the combined area of the burner ports. But check with Olsen, he's the expert.