I finally had my first major furnace brick failure after 8 months

The back wall of my old Glory Hole just crumbled into the firebox yesterday, which was a real mess (and a bit scary, honestly). I'm looking at about $500 in new firebrick and a full weekend to tear it out and rebuild it. Has anyone else had to do a full rebuild on a smaller glory hole, and did you change the brick layout at all?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_oscar1mo ago

Oh man, that's the worst feeling. My old one ate a back wall too, and the heat just finds every weak spot after that. I ended up switching to a herringbone pattern on the rebuild, which was a pain to cut but it's held up way better against the direct flame. Good luck with the weekend project.

hernandez.morgan1mo ago

Haha, @the_oscar, you're a braver soul than me tackling a herringbone pattern. I'd probably get three cuts in and just start gluing the broken pieces back together out of spite. That heat really does turn every little crack into a major escape route.

jordan3303d ago

The herringbone pattern @the_oscar mentioned is interesting, I remember reading a forum post somewhere that claimed the interlocking helps spread the heat stress across more bricks instead of one taking all the heat. My buddy had a similar blowout on his kiln and he tried that pattern on the rebuild too, said it was a pain to get the cuts right but the wall lasted him twice as long after that. I was always told straight stack was fine but that first failure taught me otherwise, heat really does find every little path out like a leaky boat. For $500 in bricks I'd probably go with whatever layout gives the most overlap between courses, even if it takes a whole extra day to cut and dry fit. That weekend is gonna be rough but a solid rebuild beats patching it every few months for sure.