Firing the oven after a long absence.

[brickie in oz]

Firing the oven after a long absence.
Unfortunately work and life has got in the way of me using the oven weekly, sometimes daily.
Its been 5 weeks since Ive lit the oven so I decided to fire it up for a lamb roast tonight, the weather has been kind until today where it hasnt stopped raining.

The oven took aaaaaaaaages to light, normally it fires up in 10 minutes.

[david s]

Re: Firing the oven after a long absence.

You think yours is wet. Try living in the tropics. I've found that no matter how well you have the oven waterproofed, moisture still gets in. If there is pretty much constant high humidity the porous refractory wil absorb water from the atmosphere alone and make the oven wet. We haven't used our WFO for a couple of months as apart from it being very wet, it's so hot outside that the air conditioned house is a more attractive option. With my oven it needs a couple of fires to get it back to a reasonable working condition. It does not need the complete curing process again. When it is in this went condition the outside of the igloo feels hot which indicates that the insulation layer is moist.

[cobblerdave]

Re: Firing the oven after a long absence.

Gudday
My ovens soaked .....Built a new oven door so the oven was doorless. 130 mm rain over 24 hrs wind blew the water in the entrance and washed the ash and charcoal out. Recon it will have to dry out quite a bit before I'll attempt a fire.

Ive posted this pic before a mate lighting his oven last xmas during the floods... it did work ( I wouldn't recommend it! ) but took about 4 hrs to get to temp

Regards Dave

Regards dave

[fxpose]

Re: Firing the oven after a long absence.

I use a weed burner. It helps accelerate the initial startup burn, especially after a long absence.

[stonylake]

Re: Firing the oven after a long absence.

i've lit a charcoal fire in my oven about every 7-10 days this winter just to keep it dry..haven't made pizza in about 6 weeks, the kids are starting to have withdrawals