Reclaimed Chimney Pots

• Stainless Steel Pot Hanger for 7″ flexi flue pipe 175mm
  

  £34.95 End Date: Monday May-21-2012 10:28:00 BST Buy It Now for only: £34.95 Buy it now | Add to watch list

• Anti Down Draught Chimney Cowl Flue / Fire Top Quality!
  

  £35.99 End Date: Monday May-21-2012 11:56:50 BST Buy It Now for only: £35.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

• Anti Down Draught Chimney Cowl Flue / Fire Terracotta
  

  £35.99 End Date: Monday May-21-2012 11:58:23 BST Buy It Now for only: £35.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

Here you can see my “Rustic Effect”

My son just needs to finish the job he started of painting the oven!

Location of oven – To the left is last years project to build the Gazebo and BBQ, or bus shelter as it has been called.

Bit messy but here is the BBQ I also built.

These pictues show the wire frame I covered the oven with. These will help the soft crete to bond with the oven and provide some strength.

All the way around the oven

This is what you need to buy in the UK, its called Micafill, costs around £7 per 100ltr bag from building centres. I needed 6 bags total for this project.

Insulation Material

• nothing here

The pictures below show the pouring of the soft crete around the wire frame.

The top is starting to take shape

Notice I have put a lot of insulation on the top, as heat rises this area needs the most insulation, I have around 8 inches.

Here is the rear view showing the finished insulation, now waiting to be rendered.

And the view from the side.

From the research I have done, you have a problem if smoke comes from any of your cracks, or if the cracks weaken the structure of the oven in any way.

In general the comments seem to indicate that all wood fired ovens have cracks and this is perfectly normal.

I checked my measurements and all seemed OK, my door was 62% of the height of the cooking chamber, and the fire seemed to burn well.

I decided to make the cooking chamber a bit smaller than the 3foot x 3foot initial design, I lined the inside with a layer of bricks, I also put another layer on the floor.

I also though that the fire I built may not have been hot enough, and that my door opening could be too wide.

I addressed all of these issues in one go, to see if the oven would get hot enough, so I raised the floor, which made the door height smaller than the recommended 62%, I also made the opening narrower.

I also got hold of some decent size logs to burn in the oven.

The fire was a little more difficult to get going as the smoke filled more of the chamber which chocked the flames, however once it was going all was fine.

The walls are now around 1 foot wide, and the floor 1 foot deep, the oven takes 3 hours to get up to temperature.

Once the flames died down and I pushed a nice big pile of embers to either side to expose a nice big cooking area I placed the 1^st pizza in and it cooked in around 3 minutes! Success !

I cooked just 4 pizza’s this time and they all cooked OK, I put my thick wooded door on to cook the last 2.

When I went to the oven in the morning to clean it out, around 12 hours later, the oven was still warm on the inside. Not warm enough to cook, but defiantly warmer than the outside. I was quite pleased with this as I have not insulated the oven yet.

So far this is what I know about the ovens performance.

Heat up time 3 hours – After 3 hours of good size fire I could not keep my hands on top of exposed concrete for longer than 10 seconds or so.

Time to cook pizza – 2-3 minutes.

Heat storing properties – As the walls, floor and roof are very thick, the oven is still warm after 12 hours, this is without insulation.

Chimney starting to take shape with front arch.

Chimney from rear

Starting to look like a pizza oven now

Cleaning Brick work

1st small drying fire

Reclaimed Chimney Pots

• Stainless Steel Pot Hanger for 7″ flexi flue pipe 175mm
  

  £34.95 End Date: Monday May-21-2012 10:28:00 BST Buy It Now for only: £34.95 Buy it now | Add to watch list

• Anti Down Draught Chimney Cowl Flue / Fire Top Quality!
  

  £35.99 End Date: Monday May-21-2012 11:56:50 BST Buy It Now for only: £35.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

• Anti Down Draught Chimney Cowl Flue / Fire Terracotta
  

  £35.99 End Date: Monday May-21-2012 11:58:23 BST Buy It Now for only: £35.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

Concrete Side walls

Brick oven roof complete, and starting to dry out.

The wooden former to hold the concrete.

Foil and Steel rods in place to give th eroof extra strength.

Concrete poured, and made into shape with float

After 1 day I removed the wood to reveal the finshed concrete roof.

all four sides of the oven are now in place.

1st Arch of oven roof

Oven floor ready to start, notice the cut out at the front, this is important as it provides an airflow over the front and up the chimney.

I used some spare cut bricks to build up over inside of the arch, I used bricks with holes in them so that air can get to the front of the oven.

Clay bricks

Look it must be strong if I can stand on it!

Its even level!

Now fill up with fireclay/sand/concrete mix

Done

I then layed my tiles on to this mix.

The whol oven floor is around 7 inch’s deep, which provides a large heat retaining mass for cooking in the oven for a long time after the fire is out.

Tech Details

Cheap Clay bricks 10p each!

Cheap Tiles

Fireclay/Sand/High Alumina content cement.

Effort

This part took around two hours.

Clay

• Dante Multifuel Carron red enamel wood-burner stove DEFRA approved – towns 5kw
  

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• Multifuel DEFRA smokeless approved woodburner stove CARRON 7.3kw green enamel
  

  £845.55 End Date: Monday May-21-2012 8:19:34 BST Buy It Now for only: £845.55 Buy it now | Add to watch list

• Multifuel DEFRA smokeless blue enamel woodburner stove
  

  £846.19 End Date: Monday May-21-2012 8:19:34 BST Buy It Now for only: £846.19 Buy it now | Add to watch list

Reinforcing steel mesh for the walls (Rebar)

Front ready to pour

Poured

This mix of concrete took lots of experimentation to get right, the down side of this heat resistant concrete mix is that it starts to harden straight away. It is solid within an hour, so you need to work very quick with it, I recommend you have some help. so that one person can mix, while the other tampers doen the mix into the former.

 Trying out for size!

Tech Details

Wooded formers, made from 2×2

Refractory concrete, with high alumina content to resist heat. Exact details available on my DVD.

Finished Softcrete, ready to start next phase

Vermiculite

• Vermiculite Micafil 100 Litre Pack
  

  £17.50 End Date: Friday May-25-2012 20:13:20 BST Buy It Now for only: £17.50 Buy it now | Add to watch list

• Vermiculite Horticultural 3mm to 5mm Medium Grade 100 Litre Pack
  

  £17.50 End Date: Saturday May-26-2012 20:27:50 BST Buy It Now for only: £17.50 Buy it now | Add to watch list

• NEW 100ltr bag of Vermiculite for flue lining and insulation
  

  £17.99 End Date: Tuesday May-29-2012 19:32:52 BST Buy It Now for only: £17.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

Start to pour

I am using the bricks as part of the mold for the concrete, I decided to not leave any expansion room for the floor. You could add a bit of wood all the way around then remove when done, this will allow for the wood fired oven floor to expand a little.

Half filled I now place steel mesh to reinforce the concrete

Almost done

Once done the supporting structure of the floor is 5 inch’s deep, which provides lots of strength and a large capacity to store heat.

All poured now just wait a couple of days for concrete to set.

Once set remove the supports and wood from underneath.

Rech Details

This is normal concrete mix 5:1:1 (Ballast, Portland Cement and Lime)

Effort – It took one person 2 hours to mix and pour this concrete.