A heated bench is usually a rectangle. This one is a wave: a seat built in firebrick that traces a double curve, extended by an undulating backrest of the same material, and wrapping around the foot of the heater body.
The heater body, on the right, stacks two cast-iron doors: the firebox at the bottom, the baking chamber above. The rest of the unit, in other words most of its surface, is this bench — and that is where the heat travels.
A curve in refractory masonry leaves no room for compromise: every brick on the radius must be cut to a trapezium, at an angle that changes with its position, and laid with thin joints. It is the longest task on a masonry heater site — and the only one that cannot be prefabricated.
In this site view, the bricks are numbered in pencil and dry-laid: the curve and the joints are checked before anything is bedded in mortar. Beneath them runs the flue path, whose cast-iron cleaning doors can be seen on the side of the bench.
Built in 2018.
