New homeowner, unsure how to proceed!

[Robin94]

Hello! I recently purchased a house and it has a brick oven in the yard! I am wondering if there is a way to assess how damaged it is and worth repairing, and if it is useable. Please let me know what advice you have on how to proceed! Resources are appreciated.

[Giovanni Rossi]

Would you show us some photos of the inside? Unless I'm missing something, it looks more like a barbecue with a fire box and ash clean out.

[Robin94]

I keep trying to upload another picture but it is more than 2MB. I took the metal part out and shoveled ash out. Some bricks came falling down. It is not a large oven (at least where the food would be).

[UtahBeehiver]

Pictures are limited to 1.25 mb, which is small by today's standard, so you need to reduce pic size. Each post can handle about 5 pics at this size.

[JRPizza]

Just to throw this out - if it is not salvageable, it looks like a great location to build a new oven. If you decide to go that way you'll get all the help you need from the forum!

[Robin94]

This is the oven with the metal grate taken out along with a bit of cleaning. I am not sure if I should actually open it up to see what is inside. JRPizza, I agree! This being my first house, I would rather not make such a drastic change so soon though.

[Robin94]

@Giovanni Rossiany further thoughts on this with the more detailed pic?

[Giovanni Rossi]

Robin94 Sorry, the pic is too low resolution to blowup and see much detail. I still think it's a grill not an oven.

Paste this into your browser https://tvwbb.com/threads/1959-popul...e-photo.57274/

Which section do you believe would have been the baking chamber when you did the demo? If there wasn't an enclosed chamber, was there another grate positioned between the 2 doors?
There are a lot of ways to make an oven setup for simple baking. I'm certainly no expert, and there's obviously more going on than we can see.

[Robin94]

Giovanni Rossi I would guess the top section. Heat rises. Tbh the whole thing is so poorly maintained that I cannot tell. The enclosed part itself is very rusted and did not take much to break apart.

I also do not know the difference between when we sway baking chamber and grill. Grill would be like a bbq grill with burgers on top and baking chamber would be like an enclosed thing for bread and pizza?

[Giovanni Rossi]

Yes, a grill to cook burgers or whatever on the grate that's shown in your first pic. The fire below the grate would be fed with wood through via the upper door. The ashes would fall through another grate into the lower section and that door would be opened to remove the ash. Also, notice the vents in that lower door. Those would be opened or closed to adjust the air flow through the lower grate to manage the intensity of the fire. The thing I'm not sure about is the chimney. That was sort of cleared up by the lower right drawing in the the link I gave you. The design must facilitate some of the smoke flowing back and up the chimney vs. just escaping up through the top grate.

And yes, you need some sort of roofed chamber to bake bread and pizza well.

[Robin94]

Giovanni Rossi ok, thank you for the clarification.

I did a bit more demoing and found cinderblocks under the bricks. I think between not knowing the status of the grill and having other options for grills, I want to do a full demo. Does anyone have any advice on demoing this in a constructive way, so I can easily transition to a pizza over if I want to?

[david s]

Demolishing is by definition deconstruction, so how can it be constructive?