Hi this is a repost from the general forum, but i didint recieve any feedback so i thought id repost here.
I recently finished my oven and after I noticed a small hairline crack in the mortor at the front of the oven near the keystone. I looked inside the oven and it appears that there is also a hairline in the mortor for some of the bricks leading up to the chimney, the area is isolated to the first 4-8 inches and on only 2 mortor areas. I followed the test fires and this was my first pizza fire. Is this a problem and if so what can i do to remedy it?
Just to get a conversation going… that doesn’t look like a problem. An arch shape gets its incredible strength from the two sides exerting force against each other. The mortar is reinforcing a shape that in a perfect world could hold itself up. If the outer crack is exposed to the weather, you could dab a little repair mix into it to avoid any freeze/thaw damage. I wouldn’t worry about the inner crack. You’d probably do more damage trying to fix it than you would by just leaving it alone.
