Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

[Acoma]

This is for a new member, Pizzabistro.
I don't believe he had the chance to get this thread going, but he came to me to ask advice on an oven that could move with him, when he sells his home. I will present his quote below. Lets give some opportunity to help him out.

"Hi ,
I am about ready to start building an oven in my patio and I would like to take it with me when I sell the house. My sideyard is only 5' wide, does anybody know or can suggest how I should build the base on wheels so that I could roll it to the front of the house or should I just forget about it? I do not want all this work to go to waste.
My second question is if I should start the first course of bricks on top of the base or around it. Below the bricks should I use ref. cement or sand. Thanks very much. "

[Acoma]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

PB, your side yard is 5ft. what is the depth?
How long before you plan to sell?
Portable? Is it to be a one time move?
How much do you plan to use it and for what purposes?
As for first course (solder bricks) above or around floor bricks, this also depends on what you want. Some of us want it around, like myself, some build on top. I would think that if you plan to move it, build it on top.
Below the floor bricks it is becoming more regular to use insulating boards, whereas you can use vermiculite type material as an option as well.

I just wonder how long you will live at your current place, and how much you plan to use it because you can erect an inexpensive, temporary type oven to get you through for practice. Once you get to your new destination, plan out the area, and size of what makes you happy for an oven. You can see a variety of ovens here that fit the surroundings, and they compliment the usages of the builders.

Now that I have assisted with some of the questions you had, I hope that you will elaborate further on some of this.
Robert (Richard, Frank, Sam, or whatever I am called now )

[Xabia Jim]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

We'll just call you Master Acoma....

I'd put the first course of bricks on top of the hearth. And that hearth is essentially the foundation of a modular oven so it needs to be sound.

This question comes up a lot and maybe we should work on a viable design. I have been thinking about how to do this myself. There are a number of commerical ventures that have a portable oven, why not one at home?

You'd need a trailer and/or separate stand....that allows it to be moved. Think about earthquake engineering....the oven unit "floats"

It's the weight of the oven and potential cracking that is the challenge in my mind.

What about finding a firebrick company that would make a series of cast blocks? pre-cracked?

[david s]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

Check out my mobile oven in finished oven photos. It is small but it has to be so it can be moved. I made it as light as I could and it weighs 160 Kg I roll it off onto a stand using ceiling battens as rails. Works a treat. I feed around 20 people, 1 pizza at a time, in an hour, before it starts to get slow. ie about 12 pizzas. Then it needs a quick refire. It's a bit too small to have much flaming fire at the same time as cooking.

[TDVT]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

I have been contemplating/mocking up a small oven project for this spring/summer (if it ever gets here, still 2'+ snow!) that will use a base that may work for PB.

It seems to me that a huge amount of the weight of the ovens is in the hearth slab. While not specifically for portability, I plan to use a 3" steel channel frame with a rail every 6" on center. Channel is like half an "I" beam -
Sort of like this ]
Depending on the flange thickness, the 3" is around 5 lbs per foot.

I then plan to cover the frame with 1/2" tile backer, then 2 layers of FB board. My oven plan is for something smaller than usual, if it were full-size I would skin the frame with steel first & may anyway.

For a frame to hold a 42" Pompeii (5' X 6'?) the steel frame would weigh around 385 lbs. That is quite a bit lighter than the concrete slab/vermiculite slab that must weigh 1500+ ( I get 1300 lbs for a 5' x 6' slab 3.5' thick) & the steel would also make it easier to remove from a base & to transport.

Cracking is a whole other thing......

[TDVT]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

Something along these lines would be even better for a round oven, as the steel would be right under the oven wall plus it uses less material (less weight too). The area under the hearth & landing could have a frame of lighter weight material.

[gjbingham]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

Is the backer board going to support any of the weight of the oven? Maybe I'm misunderstaning, but I think you're going to need something quite a bit stronger. I'm still thinking an iron plate across that frame illustrated above would be better somehow. Interesting!

[TDVT]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

That was a bit unclear. I didn't mean to suggest placing weight on any unsupported backer board. It wouldn't hold.

My little oven design I'm working on is a kind of tapered barrel vault & the structural steel frame will be directly under all the walls. If I didn't skin the frame with steel (which I probably will), only the odd brick in the hearth would be supported by the backer/FB board.

For a Pompeii oven the frame would definitely have to be skinned with steel. The sketch puts the structural channel directly under the walls. I didn't draw in any of the hearth frame or landing frame, only the heavier structural members.

[pizzabistro]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

Acoma,
thanks for your reply. The side yard is 5'wide by 40' long + another 25' in front of the house to the sidewalk. I should start selling my house this summer but I don't know how long it will take to the close. This will be a one time move from NY to AZ. I would like to use this oven to try some recipes because I would like to open a pizzeria in AZ. If the move does not work out for AZ because my daughter has one more year of HS, I will open in NY. I just need to make 3 pizzas at a time total. I like your idea of a small temporary oven until I move, could you elaborate on this?
Do you have any links or pix? Thank you for your reply

[gjbingham]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

That steel sounds like a better idea. The weight of the oven is not supported by the walls of the dome alone. As soon as you put insulation under the dome, I believe it will spread the weight of the dome, to some extent, on to the insulation layer inside and outside the actual circumfrence of the dome. In my small mind, I can imagine backer board holding up ceramic insulation board and maybe a layer of brick on the floor. Not much more than that. I've been wrong many times before.

[pizzabistro]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

Hi David, thanks for your reply. Are these ovens made totally of ref. cement?
What is metal batten? I only need to fit 2 pizzas, one is ok too. My purpose is to test some doughs or recipes. I was thinking of making one with clay. What is the base or floor made of? Thanks

[pizzabistro]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

Hi TDVT,
oh my god, 2' of snow! This year in NY we got 3" total but for me it is too much after I lived in AZ for 2 years, I am thinking of going back. Somebody told me to make a frame of 16ga metal studs and tracks and then put a sheet of wonderboard on top. What do you think about doing the floor with clay and vermiculite and the rest with the firebricks? I need a small oven for now just for tests.

[TDVT]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

Somebody told me to make a frame of 16ga metal studs and tracks and then put a sheet of wonderboard on top.

I think the metal studs are a bit lightweight for that application. If you just want a test rig I'd look for a piece of steel plate like 1/4"-3/8" thick (heavy!) & make a temporary base out of cinder blocks.

Check out all the Masonry Heater Association Workshops site. Links to all the previous years are at the bottom & they all have lots of photos. These guys have an annual meeting down in NC & seem to always put together a pizza oven for the weekend, which they then tear down. You'll get lots of ideas studying the photos, particularly for temporary/test stuff.

[david s]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

I used 50 x50 mm (sorry about metric for you yanks) galv angle which is about 4mm thick with two flatbar rails on the bottom to support a Hebel floor. Hebel is a special lightweight airated concrete. It also has reinfoced steel bar running through it. It is ideal because it's strong and with all the air in it, it is areally good insulator. Weighs less than a third of normal concrete and can be easily cut with hand or power woodworking tools. Yes my oven is entirely refractory concrete. Insulated with 70mm vermiculite and a hard ferrocement outer shell 10mm thick.

[david s]

Re: Mobile Oven for Pizzabistro

The weight of my frame and supporting slab is: 40 Kg