Can you use cement cap blocks around the fire brick floor or do you need the the regular bricks to out line the fire brick floor
Hi Steve and welcome to the BrickWood forum!
I’d stay with the regular bricks for this. It’s a load bearing structure, carrying almost all the weight of the arch. You likely don’t know the properties of the concrete mix used to make the caps; I would not trust them to carry and transmit the load properly to the concrete slab below.
You do know the grade of concrete you used for the slab, and you reinforced the concrete blocks with both concrete and rebar. We know that the brick surrounding the hearth can carry that heavy load down to the next level.
Regular bricks should not be very expensive compared with the special purpose firebrick, and I’d recommend using them.
Hope this helps!
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