Do you need a hood for a wood fired oven

[BurghBread]

I'm considering starting a bakery cafe and using a forno bravo wood fired oven or building a brick oven. I know that it will come down to what the local building code says, but I'm wondering if anyone has experience with this elsewhere.

Most of the local wood fired pizza joints have their ovens vented with a chimney of some sort, but no additional hood (ansul or otherwise).

Any thoughts?

[devilmaster]

Re: Do you need a hood for a wood fired oven

Naturally will come down to your specific building/fire code, but as the manager of a wood fired pizzeria thats been around 19-20 years, the one thing to expect is that no inspector will probably be completely familiar with the code and how it relates to your wood fired oven.

We routinely have inspectors come in to compare our setup whenever a new business is installing something similar.

What this all means is, you need to know the rules better than anyone. Some cities may require a complete commercial vent hood with fire suppression system, possibly making a new oven a complete waste of money. The other part of that is that each inspector sees his/her own thing. Our place had one fire inspector completely focus on exit signs and emerg lights, and when the next one came in, all he saw was that we stored wood under a set of stairs near the front door and that was no longer kosher because combustibles by an exit.

You will save yourself alot of headaches and bashin your head against the wall if you know the rules better than them. Plus the benefit is that if they see you know the rules well, they may hassle you less.

good luck with your setup...

[james]

Re: Do you need a hood for a wood fired oven

Thanks for the input Devilmaster. That's very helpful -- particularly the part about how each inspector is different.

You definitely do not need a hood for a Forno Bravo oven. Both our Modena and Ristorante commercial ovens are UL Listed using an HT103 double walls chimney system connected directly to the oven vent.

Good luck with your venture.
James

[Modthyrth]

Re: Do you need a hood for a wood fired oven

There have been some really great recent discussions on the Bread Bakers' Guild mailing list about these kinds of issues. A guy is building an oven in a bakery, and the inspector told him he needed a $12k fancy filtering hood system, but the the bakers in the BBG were quickly able to figure out the inspector was looking at the a misprint in the code that had been corrected three years earlier.

They have a tremendous wealth of knowledge, not only about baking, but also creating and running commercial baking operations, dealing with inspectors and codes, etc. Many of them use wood-fired ovens. If you're seriously considering starting a business with a WFO, I'd definitely pay the small annual fee for a BBG membership and access to that wealth of information.

[BurghBread]

Re: Do you need a hood for a wood fired oven

Thanks for all the advice. It is very much appreciated.

[cjensen]

A Type I hood is required for installation of a wood fired pizza according to the new Mechanical Code.. here is a breakdown:

2015 International Mechanical Code
Definitions:
EXTRA-HEAVY-DUTY COOKING APPLIANCE
Extra-heavy-duty cooking appliances are those utilizing open flame combustion of solid fuel at any time.
MEDIUM-DUTY COOKING APPLIANCE.
Medium-duty cooking appliances include electric discrete element ranges (with or without oven), electric and gas hot-top ranges, electric and gas griddles, electric and gas double-sided griddles, electric and gas fryers (including open deep fat fryer, donut fryers, kettle fryers and pressure fryers), electric and gas conveyor pizza ovens, electric and gas tilting skillets (braising pans) and electric and gas rotisseries.
SOLID FUEL (COOKING APPLICATIONS).
Applicable to commercial food service operations only, solid fuel is any bulk material such as hardwood, mesquite, charcoal or briquettes that is combusted to produce heat for cooking operations.

507.2 Type I hoods
Type I hoods shall be installed where cooking appliances produce grease or smoke as a results of the cooking process. Type I hoods shall be installed over medium-duty, heavy-duty and extra-heavy-duty cooking appliances.
507.2.2 Type I extra-heavy-duty.
Type I hoods for use over extra-heavy-duty cooking appliances shall not cover heavy-, medium- or light-duty appliances. Such hoods shall discharge to an exhaust system that is independent of other exhaust systems.

2015 International Mechanical Code
507.1.3 Fuel-burning appliances.
Where vented fuel-burning appliances are located in the same room or space as the hood, provisions shall be made to prevent the hood system from interfering with normal operation of the appliance vents.

507.1.2 Domestic cooking appliances used for commercial purposes.
Domestic cooking appliances utilized for commercial purposes shall be provided with Type I or Type II hoods as required for the type of appliances and processes in accordance with Sections 507.2 and 507.3.