How to Use Fire Cement?

¿Como usar la masilla refractaria?
16 March 2020 Edited Loading... 28676 view(s) 9 min read
How to Use Fire Cement?

When it comes to fixing leaks, cracks, and other issues around the house, fire cement takes the lead in being reliable, durable, and long-lasting. Fire Cement is a ready-for-use putty that is resistant to heat up to 1250oC. There is a range of distributors and retailers who offer a wide variety of ready-to-use products. It is supplied in various dimensions and colours, such as grey/buff and black fire cement, depending upon your preference and requirements.

Any variation of high temperature cement may be used to seal unpleasant joints in wood stoves. This material is especially useful and powerful around the region whereby the flue rises from the top of the furnace. It can be used for restoring firebricks too.

Fire cement is heat resistant, but it has its own limitations and drawbacks. It is not a superhero among sealants, but it gets the job done quickly and correctly. If you are using this material around your metal stoves or flue pipes, the metal stove’s expansion and contraction, resulting in the heating and cooling down, will inevitably cause cracks in any cement in the joints of the stove and flue pipes.

Let's take a look at how fire cement may be used to your advantage, its drawbacks, and how to use it for long-lasting relief from any cracks.

What Is Fire Cement Made Of?

Fire Cement is a ready and mixed combination of thermosetting resins and inorganic fillers. When applied and exposed to high temperatures, this combination is capable of healing, which results in a mortar. This mortar is temperature resistant up to 1250ºC.

Fire cement was discovered somewhere around the last few decades of the 1800s. It quickly became popular due to its quick healing attributes. This material has air setting properties. It may very quickly be used on fire bricks, flue bricks, fire grates, flue tubing, boilers and other extreme-heat installations for domestic and commercial applications. Not only can it take care of any and all cracks, but it also offers exceptional adhesion to firebricks, stone, clayware and blockwork.

High temperature cement is also asbestos-free, so it is quite safe to use in residential and commercial environments. In simple words, fire cement is a paste that gets rock hard when exposed to room or high temperatures. This paste is applied to any cracks, exposed to heat, and it quickly becomes hard to cover the cracks and the surrounding region to offer riddance from any problems.

Advantages of refractory cement

  • It is easy in its use in residential and commercial environments.
  • Any application of fire cement offers exceptionally tight joints to smoke and fumes.
  • Upon exposure to intense heat, the cement becomes hard and seals up cracks.
  • Powerful adhesive properties even at drastically high temperatures.
  • It may be used on various surfaces regardless of the texture.
  • It offers strong adhesive properties for metallic surfaces and for ceramic type materials. It can efficiently work on surfaces, such as fire bricks, concrete, and other masonry materials.

What Is Fire Cement Used For?

The primary purpose of fire resistant cement is to cool down and dry up around the cracks in order to seal them up and resume the standard functionality of the appliance. It is used to seal up cracks in a variety of appliances, ranging from stoves to central heating systems.

Fire cement is a versatile material with a wide range of useful applications in domestic and commercial appliances. Fire cement is used in fireplaces, stoves, gas cookers, boilers, central heating systems and ranges to repair small cracks and small patches of damage to fire bricks and firebacks. Moreover, it can also be used to seal ceramic flue liners in a commercial chimney where the heat reaches high temperatures.

A lot of the industries use high-temperature furnaces and chimneys to support their work, and this elevated temperature can easily have a negative impact on the health of its surroundings. Well, heat resistant cement can withstand high temperatures quickly, so it makes the perfect sealant in commercial settings like that. It can be used to seal any cracks and still withstand high temperatures. It can be used to repair firebacks by jointing its internal flue pipes and all structures where the temperatures can quickly rise to 1250ºC.

Fire putty is also widely used for sealing against the escape of smoke and flue gases in residential and commercial appliances, such as stoves, chimneys, and central heating systems.

How to Use Fire Cement on Flue Pipe?

As time passes, you will note that the cement seal at the base of your flue pipe, where it blends into the outlet collar of the stove flue, has broken or crumbled, probably because of the slight shift in the stove balance when you open and close the door over many months. Your stove would have also lost some of its colours and become an unsightly light grey. You can use fire cement to take care of such cracks and restore the full functionality to your appliance.

Let’s take a look at how to easily seal up the cracks in your flue pipe. When the stove gets cold enough to touch without any harm, start by removing any of the pieces of previous fire putty that are easily removable. To help you pick some of this out, you can use a small screwdriver.

Make sure to be extremely careful not to chip the vitreous enamel on the flue pipe. Now, carefully vacuum around the seal to remove any pieces of residual dust and cement, etc. Make sure the fireplace cover and collar, as well as the flue pipe, are secured before applying the new fire cement for sealing up the cracks.

Experts recommend using masking tape around the top and bottom of the seal so that a clean straight edge of the heat resistant cement can be applied and exposed to the heat.

Do not let any unnecessary putty to dry out on the surfaces of the stove or flue pipe. This excessive fire cement can become incredibly difficult to remove later on.

Wherever you have a mixture of new black and old grey fire cement in the joint, it is recommended to leave the masking tape in place and use heat-resistant spray paint to dry it. However, you should be careful to protect the stove cover and any other surfaces while spraying the heat resistant spray on the fire cement.

Apart from this, professionals also recommend cleaning all surfaces from dust, grease, oils, and other contaminant substances. You should take a step further and wet all the surfaces before applying the fire putty.

How Long for Fire Cement to Dry?

Now that you have applied the heat resistant cement to your cracks, it is time to let it dry up into a hard sealant. However, the question is how to let it dry and for how long to let fire cement to dry in order to make a perfect sealant.

Once you have applied the paste onto the cracks, wait for an hour before starting the heating procedure. Since this cement is used around the furnace, flue pipes, stoves, and other appliances that use heat, it makes sense to use their internal heat to dry the putty. So, turn on the appliance after an hour of initial application.

Keep it on the low setting for two hours. The low temperature will gently cook the water out from the applied cement. Once all the water has been cooked out of the cement, turn on the heat to medium to high setting for four to six hours. You should be able to gradually bring the heat up after that, and it's going to be fine. Especially since it does not come in contact with the stove, but only gets heat from the pipe, any amount of heat from medium to high setting should do the job in around four to six hours.

The general curing time for the fire cement is around 12 hours. It depends on a brand to brand, but the generally accepted curing time is 12 hours from the initial application around the cracks. Once you have applied the cement, let the water cookout, then turn on the heat for 4 to six hours. Once you have crossed the six-hour limit, it will take another six hours for the cement to dry up and do its job. After that, you can resume your appliance's standard functionalities without worrying about the crack.

Moreover, since fire cement is heat resistant, it should only dry up from the heat, and not crack under it, so you don’t have to worry much about the temperature once the water is cooked out.

However, one important thing to note is that even though fire cement from different brands works the same way, it is of utmost importance to read the instructions beforehand. Some brands like to add their own ingredients to heat resistant cement in order to make it quicker, better, or long-lasting, and there are different requirements for those additional ingredients or catalysts.

Where to Buy Fire Cement?

In today’s world, you can purchase quality heat or fire resistant material from any place. You can just log onto the digital shopping world and get in touch with the local or global construction companies for fire cement. However, VITCAS offers the best fire cement when it comes to reliable sealants. VITCAS is a leading online shopping hub for heat resistant and best fireproof material in the market. You can purchase black fire cement or premium fire cement from the online shop at VITCAS, and enjoy the ultimate heat resistant sealant for any and all cracks in your fire bricks, boilers, stoves, and other heat-related appliances for commercial and residential use.

Why Does Fire Cement Crack?

Oftentimes, high-temperature sealants crack due to the ever-expanding and contracting underlying material. Combine that with continuous high temperatures, and even fire cement can crack after a while. If you do not have an appliance that has to be continually shut down and turned on, the fire resistant cement will last longer. However, with the constant turning on and off of the heat inside the pipes, the metal underneath the cement will start to crack due to the expansion of the metal and the contraction of it.

What Do We Have to Say?

Cracks and crumbling can appear at any time during the lifespan of your heat-controlled appliances. Heat expands and contracts the material; therefore, the sealants used around the joints can easily crack and degrade over the course of years. Fire cement can quickly seal up those cracks for a long time. The process of applying it is also quite easy, and all you need to do it apply it, heat it and let it dry, and your appliance will be new once again. It can take care of smoke problems, cracks, and other crumbles up to a temperature of 1250ºC. You should clean the area with a wet cloth, clean up all the dust, grime, grease, and other substances, apply the high temperature cement, gradually heat it, and say goodbye to the frustrating cracks in the joints, flue pipes or fire bricks. Contact Us today to buy the best fire cement to seal up any and all cracks.

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