Buy or build cost comparisons?

[eyspy]

G'day
.....
You might live on sandy soil that drys out fast but an oven isn't sand and you have to protect it from ground moisture.
Regards dave

Good point, will take that on board, thanks.

[eyspy]

Gulf & Utahbeehiver, both valid points. First I will try and cut to see how hard they are, that will determine whether they need to be cut, laid curved, or get NEW straight ones.

If I sweep ash and sand in any gaps will that suffice?

[Gulf]

I vote for ash. I hate grit in my food lol.

[eyspy]

I vote for ash. I hate grit in my food lol.

Texture man, Texture!

[Gulf]

I got enough "texture" in my early days to last a lifetime . Cooking catfish and hushpuppies on river sandbars.................while under the influence of cheap beer .

[UtahBeehiver]

Something like this??

[Gulf]

Sometimes it was .... It coud be Pearl, Jax, Schlitz, or Falststaff .....The brand usually depended on what the "beer of the week" was at Schwegmann's in New Orleans. They were kind of like the Walmart of their day. They had as many two wheel dollies as they had grocery buggies .

[eyspy]

hahaha... like me, I'll drink anything that is wet!

[oasiscdm]

looking at cost my bricks on my first oven $3 a piece. just kept my eye out and picked enough arch bricks up for next oven on a good deal at $1.40 each I think they were.

Now just looking for some 75mm tiles for the floor proving to be elusive at the minute.

In a previous post in this thread Hebel was suggested for oven stand. I used it and will be doing the same again on next oven. Highly recommended worked out cheaper than blocks and SO MUCH EASIER able to cut them with a hand saw in less than 60 seconds. Used Hebel panel for the oven base table acts as an insulator also double bonus. However next oven will use 2 layers of calsil board.

Will be looking at the hearth level an table top all same height much neater.


Keep looing things come up all the time here in Aus assume it the same where you are. Google is your friend.

[eyspy]

Thanks Colin. I call myself the king of scroungers and deal making. Time is of no importance (can still buy pizza from the local), my goal is to achieve this build for as little as possible.
Google, Gumtree, farm clearing sales, I look on a daily basis and have scored some great finds.

[UtahBeehiver]

Espy,

I am going to give you the "king" title for the Southern Hemi but you have competition in the Northern Hemi with Gulf and I.........LOL.

[eyspy]

Hehehe... nothing like a good healthy competition. Can you beat this?

Bought for $60 at an auction a quarter of a pallet load of these little lead things called "Wonder Water Savers" (You put them over the arm of the Cistern and it used less water when flushing the toilet).
My plan was to melt them down for diving weights for my weight belt.
The years went by and I kept shuffling them from one spot to another whilst renovating and got sick of them. I threw them in the trailer and was on my way to the local rubbish tip when a "light bulb" moment went off in my brain. I got on my mobile phone and started dealing hardware stores to c if they wanted to buy them.
The long and short of it was a hardware chains said yes, they will take the lot for $1,000.

I hit the skids, did a u turn and grabbed the loot quick as flash. Not bad for a $60 investment and something thatI was about to throw away. Have lots of little (and big) things like that happen over the years.

[Gulf]

Eyspy,

My hat is off to you. My scrounging involves mostly materials for repurposing projects for myself. I am not much of a "wheeler dealer". But, my dad was. He had many, but here is the best deal that I know of that he made.

Years ago, many of the counties in Mississippi closed local community high schools and consolidated them to one larger high school per county. One such fairly large high school came up for absolute auction on sealed bids. It was a large structure and most contractors balked at the task. The county board of education (BOE) was very disappointed when my dad's bid of $700 dollars won. They tried to renege on the deal. Their own attorney for the BOE reminded them that it was an absolute auction, and that they were bound by the process. They reached a settlement with my dad whereby they retained the gymnasium and required him to put up a $500 site clean up deposit. My dad, did not even won't the gymnasium. It would have required much scaffolding and a crane to safely disassemble.

Dad was a recently retired contractor. I was afraid that my dad had bitten off more than he could chew. He no longer had a crew, was on a gov't retirement, and could show no substantial income. During the process, I asked him how in the he (double hockey sticks), was he going to pull this off. He just said, "I'll figure something out". Well he did. He partitioned the school off in sections along an axis across the school which included two school rooms and the hallway which separated them. He put an ad in the local papers for building materials for free on halves. That meant that someone could take a section of the school, disassemble, clean and divide the lumber in to two stacks. One was for them, and one for dad.

Many of the contractors who had passed on the absolute auction readily jumped on this deal. All dad had to do was show up a few days a week with a couple of helpers to load his share of the lumber. He made arrangements for much of his share to be sold on site. No handling involved. This lumber was all planed virgin pine lumber. Close grained with very few knots. They don't let them grow for that long any more. 2"X8" rafters and ceiling joists, 12' 2X4 studs, and 2"X12” floor joists. Not to mention the thousands of lineal feet of beaded ceiling and the lap siding exterior. I will never know what dad made off of this venture. But he sold lumber out of his sheds for several years. All were cash sales, and dad never seemed to be in a bind for money.

I don’t know how may solid clay brick this school was sitting on. It had a double wall foundation around the perimeter and numerous piers in the middle. Dad sold them to a brick company who reclaimed old brick for an undisclosed sum. I think that he did pretty good.

When the job was over, dad faced a sizable cleanup fee. It would have cost thousands to clean up the site. Remember that $500 dollar clean up deposit? Dad forfeited that .

[eyspy]

Love to hear stories like that Joe, there is always a buck to be made, especially when others think it is too hard.
My absolute best effort was for a Trailer mounted High pressure Water blasting unit that I bought sight unseen from Sydney on E-bay for $5000.

I had to fly and drive home 1600kms. The idea was to start up a small business pressure cleaning roof's driveways ETC....
When I arrived to pick it up it was more impressive than I seen on the photos. I returned home and said to my lovely wife that I was putting it up for sale straight after I had cleaned it up.
I cleaned it up, added a few things, and advertised in new area and ended up selling for $14,000. Long and short is after all my costs of buying, flying, travel and expenses I made a total profit of exactly $8000

I love days like that

[eyspy]

SCORE!!

Just managed to get 150 Besser building blocks for FREE. They cost $5.30 where I live, and that equates to a $750 saving. Yeah baby!! Bit of mortar to knock of, but good and solid of the old heavy variety. This will be enough for my base and some side wood storage areas.