Arch Brick

[Ty Pilarczyk]

In transporting our new arch, some of the fire brick joints have just begun to separate. As they are not totally broken apart, just loosened up with hairline joint fractures, would I need to completely re-mortar, or is it okay to use a patching material to fill the hairlines? Thanks in advance for the feedback!

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[buckeye gold]

If it is loose, pick the loose out and refill with refractory. if it is only cracked just skim coat over or leave alone. It won't hold to just try and cover the cracks, I tried that. It will just flake off under heat. If it were mine I wold pick all the loose out and completely coat the brick with refractory. when I moved my arch the first time I repaired and bricks started getting loose and a couple fell out mid season and i had to cobble my repair. After I modified the arch three years ago I had to take brick out and add back more after moving it around. After I installed the new brick and jointed it I still had some old brick loose and with cracked joints. I had plenty of refractory so I just coated all the brick with a layer of refractory (not a heavy layer) That was three seasons ago and everything is tight to this day. Oh yeah, clean your brick faces or the refractory won't stick, but you know that.

[Russell Lampron]

You want to use refractory cement, not mortar to make your repairs. Remove any loose bricks and scrape of any old cement. Clean your bricks well and cement them back in. Be careful not to break the bricks when cleaning them and cover all of the seams with refractory cement to seal it up when you've got them cemented back in. Make sure you get this job done when it's still warm out so that the cement can cure before it freezes.