Once again, I have tuned in a bit late. Somehow, this thread slipped past my view.
When i got to the green egg portion of the discussion, I got to laughing. The part about using concrete in the bottom brought back an on the job experience from nearly 50 years ago. (49 to be a bit more precise) One more chance for me to bore the ---- (insert your own words) out of y-all.
I had a contract to do the masonry on a development of some quite large houses. The project was being constructed over some reclaimed marsh (wetlands) and we had some problems to solve concerning possible future settlement. Instead of digging footings, we went in with a couple of dozers and pushed out a few feet of soft ground (peat) until we hit solid base. we then brought in about 3 to 4 feet of bank run gravel, compacting with a large roller as we went. Instead of wide footings, we put forms around the perimeter of the structure to be, layed out mesh and rods. The rods were on about 12" centers in both directions and wired together with the mesh tied over that. We poured the complete floor about 12" thick with extra reinforcement wherever a foundation wall was going above.
A couple of the houses were being constructed during a very cold winter and we had to keep the gravel base protected until the concrete had been poured. Once the concrete was poured, we still had to protect the surface. We covered with hay and tarps over nite, uncovering only the area we would be working on by day. The foundations were concrete blocks (that, and all other unit type masonry were my part) and we needed to heat water and sand for the mortar. We had been off the project for about a week while the slabs were being poured and supposedly covered by the concrete contractor. I had sand, cement and lime delivered before the slab had been poured. My materials were well protected, but we had to bring in water in some 50 gallon drums. I gave my crew directions to set up some blocks next to the sand pile so we could build a fire under a drum. With warm water, we did not need to heat the sand other than reflective heat from heating the water. I left it up to my guys to take care of the setup while i went to a meeting with one of my other builders.
When i arrived at the job, the first sight was of a water drum elevated over a roaring fire out on the very middle of the concrete slab. The slab had not been covered with anything but some tarps. No hay or insulating material any kind. The crew was busy with shovels and wheelbarrows moving the sand out onto the slab as close to the fire as possible. I jumped out of the truck yelling to get that fire out of there. Now, normally, i am just a quiet guy :
, but sometimes one has to get a little excited. It wakes people up when you yell a little [scared] [wink].
"What are you yelling about?" somebody asked.
Just about the moment i was about to explain what could happen to cold concrete with a very hot fire burning away on it's surface, there was a loud blast as the entire 50 gal drum flew about ten feet in the air turning upside down and dumping its entire contents onto the fire. "That's why I was yelling!"
Luckilly, no body was standing close to the fire, as there were some rather large chunks of concrete lying in a circle about 4 to 5 feet out from where the fire had been. Luckilly, the heat had not penetrated down far enough to affect the rod and wire reinforcement. The architect looked it over and with a little jack hammer and sawing work, we were able to put a neat patch in place.
About the responder a page or so back who recommended concrete and wire for a base under the fire, I, for one, don't think so. A picture a little later on showed a pulverized stone pad that shows very graphically what can happen. Of course, that was probably not as exciting as my water drum flying sky high with enough water to extinguish a huge bonfire once it reached its full altitude and turned upside down. There was a lot of sizzling for a few minutes. Nobody was hurt and the expense turned out to be minimal. And, we all got a good laugh >>> sometime after I cooled off.
Tinker
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