Rumford Fireplace Part IV

Here's a view of the wood cook stove alcove as viewed from the kitchen. Instead of using cinder blocks (parged with stucco) to build the alcove, I decided to use bricks with colors and textures that match our native sandstone. Visible in this picture is the 8.5"x8.5" flue liner for the flue that will be used to vent a possible furnace or hot water heater in our basement. The flue liner barely fit between the back of the Rumford and the back of the cook stove alcove. Behind the flue liner, you might be able to see that I parged the back of the Rumford firebricks with a mixture of (mostly) Perlite and (a little) mortar. I think normal protocol is to leave an airspace between the firebrick and the rest of your fireplace structure, but I figured this mixture could serve the same purposes. (bond break, insulation, and to some degree room-for-heat-expansion.) What the heck - can't hurt can it?

After laying the bricks and stones up to an elevation of 3 feet 6 inches, it was time to fill the entire assembly with concrete and rebar. Mud season is upon us, so instead of ordering a small batch of concrete from the plant, I hauled 44 bags of quickcrete and two bags of straight Portland cement to the house site with my pickup truck. I was going to try it in one trip, but when they put the pallet on my truck and it popped a wheely, I decided to haul it in two trips! Here's the green Ford in my backyard with 28 bags of quickcrete, 6 bags of Type-S, and 2 bags of Portland. Trust me, it didn't want any more!

We mixed the concrete one wheel barrow at a time in the mason's Honda-powered mixer. To every 4 bags of quickrete, we added 2 shovels of Portland cement... just because quickrete never seems as substantial as concrete from the batch plant. Over the course of a few hours, we packed all of the concrete into the house with used drywall buckets... half full thank you please! The picture to the right shows the concrete after it set up in our "stone and brick" form work. I was a little concerned that the brick or stone could blow-out from the pressure of the concrete, but it never happened. We were careful to mix the concrete fairly stiff, and the reality is that by the time we poured the last bucket into the assembly, I'm pretty sure the first bucket was fairly solid under all of it. I laid rebar into the wet concrete as we went, and occasionally, I'd chuck some stone chips or broken cinder blocks into the mix.

Yesterday, we placed the throat on the Rumford fireplace and it fit like a glove. We're using parts and instructions from www.rumford.com to build this fireplace. Our 48" kit turned out to be exactly 49" wide and 46" tall as built. (No complaints with the kit so far, but I would recommend buying fireclay and firebrick from a different supplier - these are truly generic components that can be purchased elsewhere.)

The missing brick in the side of the Rumford is where the ash pan for our bread oven will sit. (hidden by a loose brick of course.) This opening will also allow fresh-air to enter the bread oven, giving us more control over the fire in the bread oven. That's the theory anyway. I can't wait to get the whole structure up to 4 feet, because I can then start building the much anticipated bread oven (also a kit from rumford.com... hmmm... I sure am placing a lot of faith in these folks.) This final photograph is the wall into which the bread oven will be built.

Upon observing the large collection of rocks strewn about her kitchen, my wife commented, "This isn't exactly what I had in mind when I asked for a stone floor." So far, I estimate that this entire structure weighs about 12,000 pounds, not counting the rocks sitting on the kitchen floor! (4000lbs concrete and mortar, 3000lbs brick, 5,000lbs stone.)