Hello from Virginia

[Frances]

Re: Hello from Virginia

Cool!

I use beech - most firewood is beech around here.

Are those nice red bricks for the oven, too?

[egalecki]

Re: Hello from Virginia

Actually those are surrounding one of my raised garden beds. They're leftovers from building our house. My darling son, who will no doubt make a much better psychologist than mason, made the wall for me.

In 4 hours, my husband has now split ALL that wood. We're on the way to get some pallets to put it on and get a tarp to cover it.

I've figured out where to locate my foundation, and this afternoon I will have to pot up the plants that live there now. Forced garden renewal.

[egalecki]

Re: Hello from Virginia

So yesterday I found a supplier for a lot of stuff locally, although it still looks like I will get the blanket from Forno. They want two arms and two legs for it here. The man I spoke to, though, was the first person not to think I was crazy.

I made a trip to our barn of leftover construction materials, and lo and behold I have several precast lintels, a couple of 12" corner blocks, and a few 8" blocks. I can get "ugly" 12" blocks from the concrete guys for 1.20 per block. I don't know how much reg. 8's are, but they don't have any uglies of those. So, can I mix sizes? Have any of you done that? Is the reason for the 8" block so you don't have such a big web to fill, or is it some other reason?

I'm a little worried about the height of my cooking floor- how high did some of yours end up? I'm 5'4", and I can see that the drawing shows 41" to the top of the hearth. If I use board on top of that (4", if I don't do perlcrete) and then the bricks themselves, that's pushing 4 feet. I'd rather not feel like I did when my practice husband mounted the microwave at 5 feet to the bottom.

Can the board insulation be set into the hearth concrete itself? Or one layer of it? If I did that, should I be setting it into perlcrete or will it be ok with the regular?

[vincent]

Re: Hello from Virginia

i'm pretty sure that George is correct about the Heat Stop 50. The pre mixed pails are not for water exposure

[dmun]

Re: Hello from Virginia

12 inch blocks are sort of overkill, but if the price is right, go for it.

[egalecki]

Re: Hello from Virginia

I know they're a bit on the big side, and after picking one up yesterday, I'm not sure I want to pick up any more of them than I have to!

I was looking at the area my husband has designated as "suitable for the oven" (means he doesn't like the grass there... ) this morning, and realized that the reason I haven't been happy with the way it looks staked out is because I need to do this as a corner install. So I'm going to go look up some corner installs here, so I can make the changes to the pad layout.

I have looked at the terracotta pans, the pizza peels and the grill in the shop here. I think I know what's on my birthday lists and Christmas lists for a while!

[Xabia Jim]

Re: Hello from Virginia

There's a discussion of hearth height here....

http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f7/hearth-height-operator-ratio-science-3363.html

...try the broomstick too!