Hello from the Scottish Highlands

[jjnevis]

Hi All

Having started with a throwaway comment like "let's buy a wee pizza oven for the garden", I now find myself building a pretty substantial brick oven, and hoping that it get's used more than twice a year! I've just laid the slab and put my back out in the process. I am basically a bricky beginner, but fairly capable generally at DIY, so hoping that with a little help from this forum and some patience and trial and error, I should be able to build something that heats up without crashing to the ground. I suspect it's going to take quite a while, but I am looking forward to it with a little bit of trepidation - especially the dome and chimney/entrance part of the build.

Would it be useful for the "community" and me if I started a thread of my build? If so, where is the best place to start that? I have the basic design and build strategy, but I'm sure there will be many issues along the way and your help and advice would be much appreciated.

Block work will commence in a couple of days...

Cheers
Jay

[UtahBeehiver]

Yes it would be good to start your own thread. It depends of the type of oven your are building where the best place to start the thread, IE dome (pompeii) - Pompeii Oven Construction, barrel, cast, cob, - Other oven types. Be sure to post your design on the blog before you start. We see many builder post after the fact asking about this or that does not work and at that point it is in many cases the problem cannot be corrected easily. Be sure to review the free eplans from Forno Bravo, a good baseline but a little dated. Current innovations you will find by searching this blog

[jjnevis]

Thanks. It's going to be a Pompeii brick built oven so I guess I should start my thread on the "Pompeii Oven Construction" sub-forum. I'll pop my very rough plans on there and see if anyone has any feedback.

[JRPizza]

Welcome to the forum! I understand having some oven building anxiety, but the steps to building a brick oven, at least to me, were kind of a natural progression of learning masonry. The block stand was pretty basic and filling the cores with rebar and cement got me familiar with mixing and basic tools. Pouring the slab (with experienced help) was an introduction to finishing a concrete surface. Cutting bricks first for the floor then subsequent courses starts with basic cuts and progresses to more complicated ones. By the time you get to your vent landing and chimney you will be a seasoned veteran
You also mentioned usage - we fire up our oven pretty much once a week and at that cook 2 to 3 dinners and or meats that last us most of the remaining week. I can't think of anything we have cooked in the oven that didn't come out better than what we could do in the kitchen oven.

[jjnevis]

Thank you so much for the encouragement and wise words.

[MarkJerling]

Welcome to the forum!

[Wickolad]

Hi jjnevis,
you've certainly joined a great forum. There are a number of absolute saints on here who will willingly give up their time to offer advice, guidance and support.
I can second utahbeever in his recommendation to check out the Forno Bravo building plans, these give you a good foundation in understanding the principles of the build. However, there have been many modifications and improvements on those original plans and can be found on this forum.

There is also an excellent brick cutting calculator spreadsheet which can be downloaded from this site which I found to be most useful.

The very best of luck to you in your build journey, enjoy!