Building a store-bought oven in Holland

[Carani]

Hi oven-enthusiasts!
We're building, or rater placing, a ready-made oven in our garden soon. I'm quite impressed with all the projects I see on the site. Ours will be quite humble in comparison.
I hope to find some tips and ideas on the site.

Last weekend we completed the base of the oven, which is planned to arrive from Italy this weekend. I can upload a picture of the oven in its place if anyone is interested.

[Gulf]

Re: Building a store-bought oven in Holland

Please do,
Everyone is interested .

[Carani]

Re: Building a store-bought oven in Holland

That's good to know! I almost overslept this morning because last night I spent a little too much time reading the forum and the rest of the site. Some good ideas that I didn't think of myself, like moving the fire to the side of the oven instead of the back. Great to have this kind of resource!

[Carani]

Re: Building a store-bought oven in Holland

Okay so here goes the first bit of our construction.

Last week: building the oven base (and a flower bed along the wall), they'll both receive a layer of stucco later.


The oven arrives


Placing an oven takes some thought!


The result


First small fire

Keeping a fire this small alive is actually quite hard!

We've fired for about 6 hours @ about 100 deg. C today, tomorrow I'll build the fire a bit bigger.
Next weekend there will not be much construction time due to obligations elsewhere, but soon we hope to put a layer of stucco on the oven base and the flower bed. Then we have to build the workbench to the left and add an extra layer of insulation around the oven. I was planning to use rockwool for that, as it is readily available here.

[thickstrings]

Re: Building a store-bought oven in Holland

I noticed that you hav'nt put any insulation under the oven base....Having a similiar oven, I would sugest that, if is not to late...

[Carani]

Re: Building a store-bought oven in Holland

I'll keep the insulation in mind, however the bottom already seems quite thick. Currently it has not risen above 25 C during firing.
The first hairline cracks have appeared in the dome. And although I knew it would happen it's still a nasty thing to see.

[boerwarrior]

Re: Building a store-bought oven in Holland

Carani

is your oven "pre-insulated" underneath? If not then I strongly agree with thickstrings - insulation underneath is important.

Nice looking oven!!

Neil

[david s]

Re: Building a store-bought oven in Holland

Carani

is your oven "pre-insulated" underneath? If not then I strongly agree with thickstrings - insulation underneath is important.

Nice looking oven!!

Neil

Door on the outside of the flue, not so nice.

[Carani]

Re: Building a store-bought oven in Holland

Sorry I don't understand the door remark. I infer from your remark that a door outside the flue is bad somehow?

I get that a readymade oven may have some downsides compared to a well-executed selfbuild. For our budget and ability however, a readymade oven is a good choice.
I appreciate the pointers and ideas I get from remarks in this thread and things I read in other threads, helping me to make the best of the oven, especially the insulating that we're going to do.

[david s]

Re: Building a store-bought oven in Holland

I' m sure you will find your oven works well for you. From my experience the second two ovens I built had their flues inside the oven chamber just like yours. I have found that the flue outside the oven chamber to be a superior design. For cooking pizza there is not much difference because you cook with the door off or open, but for roasting or baking you lose too much heat out the flue. Open the door, cold air in and hot air out the flue. This problem can be alleviated to a certain extent by having a damper on the flue that can be closed. It is not evident from the photos whether you have one or not.

[Carani]

Re: Building a store-bought oven in Holland

Is this a better view? Not the best of pictures due to the waning light.


There is indeed a damper in the flue.
We had a choice of a flueless oven, one with the flue on top of the dome or the one we have bought, with the flue on the front portal.

Firing the oven a bit hotter today makes it all the more apparent that we need to insulate the thing further, the outside got to about 80C at its hottest point, around 60 on the sides. Measuring the bottom slab I get to about 45C (while inside the floor tiles get to about 200C outside of the fire, I have not moved it to measure directly below. I feel insulating the outside and bottom will give us the biggest improvement at the moment. And anyway, as you say, pizza's are the main goal at the moment

[Carani]

Re: Building a store-bought oven in Holland

Today we had our first pizza-session. The first one went horribly wrong, I couldn't get the thing from worksurface to peel and it kind of ended in a mess. A tasty mess however
The second pizza I made on the peel but it wouldn'd budge when I tried to shove it in the oven. We turned that one into a calzone. From the third one on I had the correct swing and we had a great night.



I read that the oven should be fired hot for about 10 times before putting on the insulating layer. The coming week we'll try to do a few firings so hopefully we can take advantage of the good weather and get the oven nicely insulated before it catches any rain.