Bought a house in Transylvania with a brick oven

[LPR]

Hello, We just bought a lovely home in the heart of Transylvania. In the barn, is a large brick oven, something I have always wanted. It is rectangular shaped, about 7' by 5', built with bricks and covered with some type of stucco. It has a large chamber on the ground that I thought was for wood storage but shows some signs of fire and then a mid height, rectangular opening that has a landing and a chimney off the landing and then a huge igloo shaped dome cooking area. Next to the two openings is a round, pipe sized opening, and above and on the side are two slits or possibly vents. I am hoping to learn how to maintain and cook with this oven.

[SableSprings]

Welcome to the forum community. Sounds like you might have a white oven...fire chamber separate from cooking chamber. These ovens are generally bigger and often intended for longer/larger baking runs. Posting some pictures would be very helpful...size your pictures down to about 800x600 pixels (forum has size limits of about 1 MB per pic and 5-6 pics per post). Looking forward to your learning to use this oven. Any chance you can contact the previous owners?

[LPR]

Thank you! We are not totally sure what we have, but will post some pictures in the hope that someone can tell us, so we use it in the right way. A little background on our village & home. We are located in a traditional Saxon village that was established in the 1300s, prior to that it was a Roman village. It is a large property with several buildings and significant agricultural land. We believe it may have been used for some commercial activity, and the main building had a 2nd and 3rd story addition in the 1960s, which is unusual due to that being the communist era. The oven is located in the barn, and seems far too large for a single family. We have also found meat hooks in various places in the three cellars and know that the town was known for its sausage and wine. These are the pictures taken when we purchased the property, so the oven has not yet been cleaned. We are friendly with the seller, and will ask her what she knows, as she was born in the town.

[LPR]

[LPR]

[rsandler]

From the picture, I'd guess the lower chamber was not used for fire--I think the lime or white wash on the bricks would have burned off, or at least been covered by soot. Could be that it was used for wood storage, and sometimes scorched the wood with heat from the cooking floor above. Depending on when it was built, probably the oven is not insulated at all, meaning the roof of the lower chamber eventually gets quite hot. This also means it will take some time to heat up (3+hours), which would have made sense for a commercial operation but may be a little challenging for home use. Nothing you can do about that now of course--just something to keep in mind.

[david s]

Can you post more pics?
The lower chamber looks more like it was probably always just a wood storage area and part of the stand for the oven. The third pic appears to be taken from the top and looks like the top of the oven has either collapsed or been dismantled. If it were mine I’d be trying to rebuild the top and retain what structure already remains in an effort to preserve the original structure, but not spend much on it. If rebuilding efforts don’t end up in getting a workable oven at least you’d be restoring the oven to a somewhat original condition for the sake of historical preservation. You might even find some of the missing bricks in other parts of the property. Insulating over the top should be simple enough. Instead of using modern materials you might prefer to use a free and historically authentic solution like a 10:1 finely chopped straw and mud mix.
What is the condition of the upper chamber floor like?

[JRPizza]

Hmmm, basement meat hooks in Transylvania, nothing scary about that . Seriously, a very interesting thread! Looking forward to more oven pictures. The picture in post #4 shows the interior of the dome - if you pull back a little does it transition into a chimney and what does that look like?

[rasorface]

I think this post just convinced me to move to my dream house I found in the Scottish Highlands. It also has a traditional stone oven I intend to use for home-made bread.