Okay, this is what I want. What is it?

[Lester]

Here is what I have in mind for an oven. What is it?

[TheFireWithin]

A Casa oven

Hi Lester,
It's a traditional igloo exterior treatment.

It is built as follows:
Cynider block base.
Poured cement hearth.
Assembled Casa.
Insulation layers.
Stucco exterior.
Handlaid brick arch and landing.

A straight forward practical design.
-I'd finish the painting the back of the storage.
Good Luck!
Joseph

[El Puaco]

What is it?

I think if you rumage around in the website you'll find that the picture is of a preliminary or early trial run of a Casa oven that James built while in Italy. It pretty much follows the method of what most of us are doing now (concrete block base, hearth, oven and your choice of finish). The method these days is more refined with greater insulation and a more developed hearth. When in doubt just build something.

[james]

I miss that oven

Yep, that's the Casa90 oven I built at our Florence rental house. I'm glad you like it! It was a great experience -- both installation and cooking. We literally did not have any tools at the house, and I built it with a hammer, cardboard and straping tape. The installation was an experiment to see what would happen with thinner insulation. It has about 2" vermiculite in the hearth, and rock wool, plus 2"-3" vermiculite concrete around the dome. The Igloo is stucco lathe and a rough coat, then white finish coat of stucco.

The oven is still there, and we saw it this spring break. This was a two week-end oven. One for the oven installation and one for the enclosure. Still, it cooks just fine. I would do it differently if I was building a permanent oven, but that's the point.

I even bought the Casa oven itself at Leroy Merlin (a Home Depot style building supply warehouse chain) rather than from the producer, to get a feeling for how a local family would buy and install an oven. All-in-all, it was a great experience.

You can find more details here:

http://fornobravo.com/firenze_concep...izza_oven.html

James

[dmun]

terra cotta lintels

I wish those inexpensive terra cotta lintels were a US available product: Our cast concrete lintels are expensive and HEAVY. It would be a nice way to speed up the production process.