The foundation for the oven in the bath is a very important stage that you will have to inevitably go through. If you decide to build a bath with your own hands. Without the foundation, the floor design will not withstand the weight of the stove, which is undoubtedly the most heavy (and almost the most important!) part of the bath. Without the foundation, you will soon have to face the problem of floor deformation and the need to repair it, which is a rather time -consuming process. This is especially important when the furnace is installed in a bathhouse on a wooden floor, which does not differ in very high strength. That is why we advise you to especially carefully approach the issue of installing the foundation under the stove and think over it at the design stage of your future bathhouse.
It should be noted that the furnace foundation should be at the same level of depth with the main foundation. The depth of the foundation should be calculated taking into account the climatic conditions of your region. And more precisely – ideally, the foundation should be just below the level of freezing of the earth. In addition, at the stage of designing the bathhouse, it is worth considering the fact that the main and stove foundations should not be closely close to each other. This is due to the fact that the foundation is exposed to moisture and frost and may be deformed under their action. And so that the deformation of one foundation does not lead to deformation due to mechanical exposure and the second – it is worth leaving between the foundations a gap of at least five centimeters.
It should also be borne in mind that the foundation device under the furnace will fundamentally distinguish depending on whether a brick or metal stove will have a brick or metal stove in your bathhouse. This is due to a large difference in weight: if the metal furnace rarely weighs more than 150 kilograms, the weight of the brick stove can be more than 450 kilograms. As you know, this means a completely different level of load on the foundation.
Metal stove foundation
The foundation for a metal furnace should be at least 0.5 meters in depth. The size of the pit for the foundation coincides with the dimensions of the stove. The lower layer of the foundation is formed from crushed stone (this is about 30 centimeters). A construction solution of cement and sand is poured on crushed stone (the ratio of these elements is approximately 1 to 4). After its drying, a waterproofing layer is laid (as a rule, roofing material is used for this). The last layer must be poured onto the foundation of a solution of concrete: it makes from the ratio of cement, sand and gravel 1: 2.5: 4. This layer must be carefully checked using the level, it must be completely horizontal. In order for the stove to be on the same level with the floor, 3 or 4 rows of bricks are laid out over the foundation throughout the foundation throughout the area.
Brick stove foundation
For a brick furnace, the task of making the foundation is more complicated. If you make the foundation under the oven in the bath with your own hands, do not forget that in this case the load on it will increase more than 4 times compared to the metal furnace.
First of all, you will need a pit of greater depth, it should be at least 0.7 meters. In addition, here it is necessary to lay the supply and make the pit not in terms of the size of the future stove, but 20 centimeters wider.
A layer of wet sand is laid out to the bottom of the pit, which is very carefully compacted. Layer thickness – approximately 15 centimeters.
A twenty -centimeter layer of missile materials is laid on the sand (as a rule, it is broken brick or small stones). This layer is also closed with wet sand and ram. Sand, thanks to its small structure, penetrates all the voids between the stones and fills them, creating a rather monolithic and dense layer.
The next layer is 10 centimeters of crushed stone, which also needs to be carefully tamped.
In fact, these are all preparatory stages. But now you can proceed to the installation of the foundation. For this, a wooden formwork is made, which is installed on the last layer. In this case, the formwork is less than the size of the pit and corresponds to the size of the future stove. In addition, it should be about 15 cm higher than the ground level. Inside, the formwork is mounted a frame of steel rods. It is poured with a solution of concrete, filling the entire formwork frame. After that, the structure must be left until the concrete dries completely. After drying the wooden frame, you can remove.
The distance remaining between the concrete foundation and the walls of the pit is advised to fill with sand or gravel, having previously treated the walls of the concrete structure with a budonon. That, in fact, is all, your foundation is ready!
