Newbie from Missouri

[sourdough]

Hi all, Newbie here. Primary interest is bread baking but also mess with pizzas and am interested in long, slow roasting. I'm an able DIYer so will build oven myself. Probably be a couple years down the road as I have an almost 16-year-old who sucks up all the extra cash that comes into the house. Once he's safely out of the house and in the Navy there should be finances for a lot of delayed projects. What kind of budget should I plan for? I hope this is not a dirty question around here, but can I save by using locally purchased materials? I respect the operator of this site, but financial reality is what it is.

Best,
Tom

[Gulf]

Re: Newbie from Missouri

Tom,
Welcome to the forum. My advice is to use that time that is left with your son to full advantage. He can be a great help to you especially in the first stages of the build. That would be the foundation, stand and hearth. Not necessarily the most expensive parts of the build. It could be a great father/son project. It could be a great memory for you both to share and a great subject for conversation for you both once he does deploy. I can see the conversations now: How's our oven coming along? Got any new pics?
Finances are a bummer, but there is Craig's List, the local news paper, simply spreading the word around of what materials you are looking for by "word of mouth", and also by just keeping your eyes open. There are stacks of brick and block all over this country that someone just wants moved out of their way.
I built my house and am building my oven with used, left over block and old face brick which only required a little sweat.
Good luck,
There are no dirty questions.
As for as the locally sourced materials, you can price them and compare to FB's prices. FB offers a lot of products for after the build which I intend to buy. There are plenty of people out there that are not competant DYI's which keep FB in business and plenty of us who's build's ultimately encourage them to buy ready mades .