Using terra cotta flue liner underground

[HeelSpur]

I built an outdoor curing station for hams and such and now the homeowner wants to turn it into a smokehouse too. The ground drops about 5' downhill where he wants his smoke pit and he has terra cotta liners to go underground up to underneath the curing station.
So my question is, what is best for securing the liners together. It has to be water proof and be able to withstand some heat (not a lot but some)?

 

[Kaizen]

Not understanding. The flue will make an air channel to the curing chamber?
Terra cotta is like a wick with moisture. Sure to fail if outside is wet and inside has heat.


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[KenC]

Not understanding. The flue will make an air channel to the curing chamber?
Terra cotta is like a wick with moisture. Sure to fail if outside is wet and inside has heat.
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I had the same thought. If I had to do it, it would get a dab of normal mortar between tiles and the outside would get waterproofed somehow. 'Somehow', depends on the expected temp.

Heat would melt some waterproofing, but a watersoaked terra cotta tile that freezes will begin to shatter pieces from the outside. difficult issue

 

[HeelSpur]

Yea, this guy comes up with the craziest ideas. I think I will just mortar the joints and put plastic over it before it gets backfilled. I hate doing **** i'm not sure of then when it fails guess where the fingers get pointed. Thanks.

 

[dogdog]

I had the same thought. If I had to do it, it would get a dab of normal mortar between tiles and the outside would get waterproofed somehow. 'Somehow', depends on the expected temp.

Heat would melt some waterproofing, but a watersoaked terra cotta tile that freezes will begin to shatter pieces from the outside. difficult issue

Not sure about the heat... I have a piece of 10" chimney rounds left out door for past 4+ years (left overs from chimney rebuild)... rain snow sun... no sign of cracks... maybe OP build it like a chimney? Surround it with stone and mortar to make it look nicer ?

 

[Kaizen]

Not sure about the heat... I have a piece of 10" chimney rounds left out door for past 4+ years (left overs from chimney rebuild)... rain snow sun... no sign of cracks... maybe OP build it like a chimney? Surround it with stone and mortar to make it look nicer ?

By themselves they will be ok for some years. But getting them wet and hot on inside will crack them.

Op is it so he can feed wood fuel like a rocket stove? If he just wants a fresh air intake I’d try to do a cast iron pipe.


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[HeelSpur]

It's going to be buried. Just smoke from a pit going to smoke house.

 

[rlitman]

It's going to be buried. Just smoke from a pit going to smoke house.

That's the part I don't get. Flue tiles are meant to be mortared together in a complete masonry system. I don't see how they'd seal without a chimney.

If only he bought terracotta DRAIN tiles, those often have hubs that mate up.

What I'd suggest is that you line the "flue" with a continuous chimney liner. It would have to be stainless, as an aluminum one would rot quickly. But I don't see a reason it needs to be double wall or anything super expensive.

 

[bigdav160]

I think he's talking about something like this but using it underground

 

[Jackfre]

Well, there is hot smoke and cool smoke. Sounds like he wants to use cool, moldy smoke. The thing about any masonry product is that it never sees a btu that it does not want to absorb. We used to smoke a lot of fish with a cool smoker using 20 ft of metal pipe. We had it set up so the pipe could be broken down. It was a good system. Putting it underground makes it out of sight out of mind, but what will be in there? Ah, smoked rat salmon! Tasty!

 

[HeelSpur]

I think he's talking about something like this but using it underground

Thats the general idea, the flue liner will go 10' underground and turn up directly under the curing station. He has a steel plate to put over the fire pit to force the smoke up the pipe.

 

[HeelSpur]

DSCF2546 by wvwheaties, on Flickr

I'm no artist but this is close.

 

[dogdog]

from the link of what bigdav160 linked... I got this.

The smoke house this guy build uses clay pipes as well see the descriptions at the time stamp, it's almost the same build as what you have......... if you are worrying too much moisture on the clay tiles... maybe surround it with gravel before covering it with dirt ?

not sure if the clay drainage pipe material is different from the chimney clay pipes other than difference in a glazed coating.

 

[Kevin54]

Go to the scrapyard and see if you can find a piece of pipe or two and forget about the terracotta liners.