Fireplace/Oven Combo?

[veridici]

Hi all, I'm new to the wood fired world, and I've got a couple questions... I want to (eventually) have a wood fired oven inside my house, and I had an idea as to how to pull this off with a fireplace as well. Is it possible to build a fireplace and oven into one unit, i.e. having the fireplace on the bottom, and building the oven above it (having a gap all the way around the cooking surface for heat transfer to the top). This way, you could have one fire for both the hearth and the oven, and it would open up space in the oven (since the fire wouldn't be on the same level as the food).

I assume there may be drawbacks to this design in terms of heat loss, ventilation, even how to design it so that the top level has a gap all the way around it, keeping it strong enough not to topple.

Thoughts?

Jeremy

[dmun]

dual use oven fireplace

There was a recent picture of a japanese oven/fireplace combo where the fireplace vented into the back of the oven, and the oven vented in the front, as usual. The builder wasn't a group member, so we never heard how it worked.

The consensus seems to be that if you build both in the same unit, you should have them completly separate, with two flues. An oven heated by the flue gases of a fireplace would never get hot enough for pizza, and would be too sooty for any sort of serious baking.

There was a commercially built unit, called a "white oven" where the fireplace vented around the oven, not through it, like the old wood fired kitchen ranges. Again, unlikely to produce enough heat for serious pizza baking.

Good luck

[veridici]

So perhaps setting it up like a white oven, venting the fireplace on three sides (left, right and back), around the oven, leaving the oven to vent normally through the front, all meeting up in the chimney. This would allow for baking at lower temps while the fireplace is in use (maybe for bread), and it could still double as a normal wood fired oven for pizza.

[james]

A white oven really isn't a fireplace below. It has an enclosed firing chamber below that gets really hot, and shoots hot air into the baking chamber.

Check this out:

http://fornobravo.com/forno_bravo_uk/intro.html

If you want the charm of a fireplace along with an oven, I think you can pull the fire forward into the mouth of the oven after you have cooked and enjoy the fire. I was reminded by an installer today that you can use the fireplace underneath when you are cooking (or you would burn your legs). Ahhhhh, the smell of burning hair.

James

[stuart]

Just a fire in the oven?

If you want the charm of a fireplace along with an oven, I think you can pull the fire forward into the mouth of the oven after you have cooked and enjoy the fire.

IMHO, err on the side of making it wider. I?ve often wished mine were just a little bit wider from the standpoint of:

1. friends gathering around the oven on a winter night, being able to see and feel the heat and food, and

Robert's quote above almost compelled me to post a new question about the old quest to have both fireplace and oven. After searching previous posts and finding the thread this post is attached to I ask for your opinion.

I'm about to undertake a significant remodel of my house, which until I got the bid, was to include a fireplace on the poolside screen porch off my kitchen. Now that fireplace is in doubt.

What I'd like is opinions on the idea of using the oven as a fireplace in the sense of both a comforting visual and as a source of warmth. Of course when you fire the oven up to cook in you get the benefit of byproducts, aesthetics and heat. But what about simply burning some logs in it without cooking? Anyone doing that?

I see the possible need to lower the oven floor slightly to accommodate a better view afforded those lounging at chairs around the oven? If so how low would you go without hampering a view into the oven to observe food, or causing back pain the next morning?

[Robert Musa]

i wouldn't lower the oven, just raise your guests instead with barstools. actually, even with a lower chair you still get heat and light from the oven so, in my opinion, height is not as much of an issue as angle of viewing is. the next oven i build will have (1) a wider door (with a custom removable brick insert to narrow the door if required on cold windy nights) and (2) a cantelevered (sic) vent (instead of the "hallway" of bricks which leads to the mouth of the oven on my current oven).

[dmun]

?

...and (2) a cantilevered vent (instead of the "hallway" of bricks which leads to the mouth of the oven on my current oven).

Could you expand on this idea? Do you mean like a hood over the oven opening, with a minimal entry tunnel into the hemispheric oven?

[Robert Musa]

Could you expand on this idea? Do you mean like a hood over the oven opening, with a minimal entry tunnel into the hemispheric oven?

precisely. the "tunnel" to my oven is a 17 inch long rectangular tunnel. if the vent hood were "floating" above the landing, without the tunnel, there would be a better visual and working angle into the oven. i've thought that there might be several ways to acomplish this:

(1) corbel the vent support bricks (like the letter "V") up from the landing to support the vent hood or

(2) tie the vent hood into the structure of the dome somehow (but i'm at a loss for how this could be done) or

(3) pour two concrete pillars to the left and right of the oven opening and then somehow tie the support of the vent to those two objects (perhaps with steel rods running through the tops of the pillars and intersecting in front of and over the opening to the oven) or

(4) pour two concrete, steel reinforced, flying buttresses arches, to support the vent hood.