As is usual for any of my construction type projects...I go one step forward, two steps back to fix things...uffda...here I have laid in the cinder blocks but have pulled up the firebricks to add more sand for leveling it out.
In these shots you can now see how I used the playsand to level out the firebrick chamber floor and to act as loose grout to fill spaces between the frire bricks...mostly to keep garbage from flowing into the spaces. Again notice the two inch space between the firebricks and the cnder blocks for the insulating Perlite mix.
Now that I have built a base I start building the interior courses of firebrick to build a 18 x 18 inch combustion chamber, in the front of the fireplace base you can see how I was planning on using the firebricks to close off the front and thus keep the little Perlite beads from falling out and blowing about and generally reducing effectiveness, by using the bricks like this the Perlite is a bit more contained.
( quit chuckling you guys...I know NOW it is huge and that the thermal mass will take a long...long time to heat up...arrrgghhhh)
