removing fire brick to arch board

[maplefarmer]

I purchased a new 2x6 2 years ago and was told about using arch board, only need bricks. After reading some posts on here how arch board lined evaps. don't even get so hot on the outside that you can put your hand on them. Mine gets very hot, you can't touch it, and my small shack [12x16] tends to get really hot inside on e few warmer days. Question is would it be practical to pull all my bricks out and install the arch board, trying to weigh plusses with minus. If I understand it correctly I will probably not burn as much wood, I'm apparently losing alot of heat thru the sides. If I do take bricks out will they be useable again or does it usually ruin them getting out. Any ideas or tips would be appreciated.

[red maples]

Really they said no arch board??? Hmmm Well your gonna need arch board. the bricks get hot and hold the heat they often glow red especially and the front of the ramp right in back of the firebox. The arch board will act as an insulation to help protect the metal. Although even with it the sides of the firebox will get hot but I can't imagine how hot yours must be!!!

[Brent]

On my 2 x 6 I put in 1" of green mineral arch board and then bricks and syrup would scorch and burn everywhere on the side. Even with that insulation !!! And the sugar shack still got really hot inside too.

One thing nobody has talked about yet is that if your arch has galvanized steel sides, they will get so hot the galvanizing will burn off
and the side will start to oxodize (rust) while they are dry and under the high heat. That's what I found under the false sides of my 2-1/2 x 8 when I took off the home made stainless outer shell that the previous owner had put on because he did not put any insulation in it. Just double rows of full bricks.

You should be able to save most of the bricks. You will find a lot of the seams have already cracked so they will lift out. The bitch of the job is to carefully chip or grind off the cement the stays stuck, so you can put them back together like you did when they were new. Depending on luck and skill you should be able to re-use 95% of them. If you did much bevelling etc to fit them the first time, you might use a felt marker to number them and make a sketch with the numbers as a guide to put them all back. It only helps a bit because adding the insulation will change some of the dimensions inside the archboard.

Good luck !!!!

[maplefarmer]

Thanks for the help, and yes my galv. sides are starting to rust.

[maplefarmer]

Brent, you say you used 1" green mineral arch board, is there dif. kinds and diff. thicknesses, and can you get this stuff from building supply stores?

[Brent]

The only stuff I could find back then was the board offered by the hosts of this site ... The Maple Guys, or maybe it was Bascom . It might be worth calling them in case a rework of the web site dropped it accidentally.

[rookie]

if you can't find any else where www.bascommaple.com has it. they also have insulating blanket

[NHMaple]

I get my arch board locally from Lynn Manufacturing in Lynn, MA (lynnmfg.com). I also get my split bricks, refractory cement, fiber blanket & strips and fiberglass rope from them as well. The fiber boards do work very well. I use 1.5" material based on a heat flow analysis they did and it works very well. They are very responsive!

I've used the Unifrax board in the past but it is expensive and takes too long to get. They do have a plant in Niagara Falls but it's not where they make the arch boards. They make the boards in the midwest and shipping is very expensive.

My last order for board from Lynn was around $300 per carton of 36" x 24" x 1.5" with 4 pieces in the carton. That's about $12.50 per square foot and shipping was only $85 per pallet of material. If you only need a single carton I would expect UPS would be even less. They have a lot of different materials that I don't use but may be something you can use.