Florida Igloo

[david s]

Re: Florida Igloo

A bit of input on the central flue idea. I built my first oven with a central flue and it has both advantages and disadvantages, On the plus side is simplicity, saves space on your hearth, draws extremely well. The down side is that your vent is coming straight out of the oven that you want to keep hot, a lot of heat is lost straight up the flue and combustion is incomplete resulting in a fair amount of soot falling back on top of your oven giving it a speckled black appearance. The door also needs to be in place or you lose heat up the flue unless you have a damper. A flat tile sitting on top of the flue is the easiest way to control the air flow and can be adjusted simply or shut off completely as desired. I still think the front flue, that is completely independent of the oven, as used for centuries by the ancient Romans, is the best design.

[leemc]

Re: Florida Igloo

Well I decided to fill the gaps between my bricks inside my oven and bought a mortar bag from the local Lowe's. Thought that would be the easiest way to do it - and it worked great until it clogged on me. Had to then crawl out of the oven to unclog it (it was a little tight in there - not a job for the claustrophobic I can tell you!). I crawled back in and it very promptly clogged again. So I gave up, but got most of the large gaps filled. Just need to finish the outer arch of the vent this weekend and then start my curing fires.

David - although the chimney is going to be centered, it will still vent in the front. I just plan to slope the flue back in the space between the inner an outer dome back to the center and then up. I went ahead and put some mortar reinforced with some chicken wire to give the center of the dome more strength to support the weight of the chimney.

Lee

[Les]

Re: Florida Igloo

Lee,

It's a little late now, but I found that I had to cut about 1/2 inch off the end to get it to flow right. Even then it would give me trouble at times so I started mixing the mortar a little wetter.

Les...

[Dutchoven]

Re: Florida Igloo

Sorry a bit late from me too...I would have suggested that you use the ones from HD as they are Marshalltown(great masonry tools) not Kobalt...and I could have told you to mix it quite wet and with less sand than you would usually...the sand tends to settle to the bottom of the bag and clog it...my nephew and I repointed our entire building using grout bags and when ours clogged it was sometimes cat cra(we were mixing a custom blend of mortar so we had a big pile of sand AKA neighborhood litter box)
Best
Dutch

[leemc]

Re: Florida Igloo

I have a quick question. I had planned on doing a clay liner all the way from the vent, across the dome and up the chimney. Since I am having to keep the transition flue in the insulated space between the inner and outer dome I would like to keep it as thin as possible without messing up my draft. I was thinking something like a 6"X10" but when I look at the clay liners that is not one of the standard sizes - I would probably have to buy a larger size and cut it to narrow it. As I searched I found this product which looks like it would work well for me since it can be ordered thin and wide, is thinner walled than ceramic, is flexible and I can get in a 6"x11.35" size.

Oval chimney liner, stainless steel oval chimney liners, oval flue liner

Has anyone used this product here? I was worried about stainless steel - will that last pretty much forever in a humid environment like Florida's? Also will the fact that it is corrugated be a problem with the draft or keeping clean?

Thanks

Lee

[leemc]

Re: Florida Igloo

Well it's been a while since I posted and I am a little embarrassed by my slow progress but I am still chugging along.

I got my vent built with a plywood form (make sure to build it smaller and shim it to where you want it because that makes it so much easier to remove).

I went through my curing fires without any drama.

I installed the offset flue which I fabbed out of clay flue liner. I bought an 8"x8" and a 13"x13". I cut the 13" in half lengthwise and just layed it across the inner dome as you can see in the picture. I filled the gaps below with vermiculite concrete and skimmed that with a cement, fire clay sand mix to smooth out what would be the the bottom of the flue. I had to fool around with the transitions from the vent to the flue and from the 13" flue to the 8" but it wasn't too bad. And it draws like a champ!

More to come....

Lee

[leemc]

Re: Florida Igloo

I at some point I wanted to test out how this could work as an offset smoker so i made up a temporary fire box and a conduit to the flue into the oven and smoked some ribs. They turned out pretty good so it seems to work well. Not sure how my final fire box will be configured yet but I am definitely going to do it.

I am now laying up the brick on the outside it is a lot of brick to lay but I am proceeding. I am up high enough now that today I installed the insulation. I have been holding off to try to keep it dry. It rains here a lot in the summer so I thought it would be a good idea to give any water that may get into my insulation layer a way to get out. So I drilled a few weep holes down at the base of the outer dome and if filled the first couple of inches with vermiculite. That way if water does get in there it will sit at the bottom in that layer and not in the ceramic batts. I installed the batts today and it covered the oven pretty much but I plan to fill what is left of the space with vermiculite.

Also the brick is getting a little hard to lay because of the angle of the outer dome so I plan to get mix some vermiculite concrete and shape it to the dome shape, let it set up an just lay the last courses of brick on that until I get to the chimney.

Lee

[Frances]

Re: Florida Igloo

This is going to look fantastic!

I like the chimney in the middle, looks like a good and simple solution you came up with to do that, and those bricks are lovely.

[leemc]

Re: Florida Igloo

Thanks Frances.

I am also taking a cue from your oven. You may have noticed the two course band of brick right above the soldier course. Those are cheaper brick that I inset about 1/2 inch and I plan to do a decorative tile band there. Probably with a blue glazed handcrafted Mexican tile and a thin border on the top and bottom.

Thinking these for the tiles

Mexican Tile - Crackle Ceramic Mexican Handcrafted Tile
or
Mexican Tile - Terra Nova Classic Superior Quality Handcrafted Ceramic Solid Color Tile

and for the border I am really struggling - I need something very thin I am thinking either a thin pencil slate molding which I am having a difficult time finding, or a bronze liner like the ones at the bottom of this page.

Metal Tiles - Bronzework Studio - Tile Patterns

Problem is the are both expensive options. May end up with no molding.

Lee

[Frances]

Re: Florida Igloo

I didn't notice the inset bricks until you pointed them out... very cool idea and those Mexican tiles are beautiful!

[leemc]

Re: Florida Igloo

It's been a while Since I have posted but I thought I would share my progress. Things have been going good if not a little slow. Here are some pictures of my outer dome finishing up. I ended up using a combination of ceramic batts, loose perlite and perlite concrete. I used the perlite concrete mainly on the top so as to have some solid support for the chimney that would be going up from there.

I ended up precasting the base for the chimney brick, the brick cap at the top and the solid flue cap. It worked out pretty well.

Lee

[leemc]

Re: Florida Igloo

More pictures - going up with the brick chimney and flues. Precast form for my upper rain cap and the dome completely topped out. Thought I would share a picture of my first pizza also. Need a little more practice and tweaking on my recipe but it did not turn out too bad.

I still have to brick up the sides of the base which I have already started. I just brought in my second and hopefully final cube of Old Chicago brick and am going to try to hit it hard this weekend. Hope to post some more pics after this weekend's progress.

I Also need to do the outside and landing area top. After giving it a lot of thought, and with the good experience I had with precasting the concrete pieces for the chimney, I have settled on trying a precast colored concrete top. I have some ideas on that that I will share when I get a little closer. I plan on doing some small mock up pieces so I can make sure I get the colors, mixes and methodology right and will report back. Any experiences or tips with concrete tops you guys can throw my way would be great.

Peace Out

Lee

[mfiore]

Re: Florida Igloo

Somehow I missed this thread, but glad I caught it today! Your oven looks great! I reall like the old brick and the central chimney. Your doing a great job making a very unique oven.

[leemc]

Re: Florida Igloo

Knocked out a good bit of the brick around the base this weekend. I finished up the brick under the hearth before that. I debated about whether it would be worth the effort. It wasn't too bad if you don't have claustrophobia.

[Mitchamus]

Re: Florida Igloo

Nice!!

well done on a great original design!