Hello from Berks County, PA

[UnConundrum]

Hi everyone, new member here. I've been an avid bread baker for over 25 years (non-commercial) and after a visit to some great restaurants up in Maine using wood fired ovens, my wife suggested that we should have one We have relatively new (30 years) unused stone smokehouse with quite the substantial foundation that we'd like to convert. The walls are about 1' thick, and there is a 70" x 70" open space inside. I figure we'll remove the roof and go from there... ( pictures here

I've been working on laying out my oven in sketchup. If anyone here is intrested, I've shared a copy of BrickOven.skp at http://files.me.com/unconundrum/jvwhw0 You can hide and unhide various groups in the drawing to see what's inside. I used 12x8x16 block inside, but I'm planning on using 8x8x16. The extra 4 inches on each side will not be used to expand the oven, but, instead, will leave some room on either side to apply the cladding and give me some working space as well as room for plenty of insulation.

I'd really appreciate any comments or suggestions

[dmun]

Re: Hello from Berks County, PA

I figure we'll remove the roof and go from there.

Why remove the roof? It looks like it's ready to go! You could stick the dome out the back and have a little bakehouse, like the benjamia bakehouse or you could build your dome within the smokehouse with the oven entry at the front. The roof will be useful in any event.

At the cheerful start of a project it may seem like building a new roof will be completely trivial, but at the drag-ass end of the project you'll probably be glad to have the structure already in place.