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Spent some time today with another oven owner here in Minnesota discussing their oven and how to increase it's performance over just making pizza.
They purchased a 36 inch cast oven made in Minnesota, Artesian ovens.
The reason we initially met was because of a contact we made because they were trying to sell some foamglas on Craigslist. The oven came with enough 4 inch thick foamglas board to be placed under the entire oven, but some of the local "Experts" on oven building supposedly engineers talked them out of installing the provided insulation and to put down 1 inch of ceramic board under their oven because
-- get this...
"How would the heat of the oven be able to get into the supporting slab with all that insulation in between. You would not have enough thermal mass to cook"
Well their 36 inch oven takes over 3 hours to come up to pizza temps and I have my doubts about that statement because some of the photos I saw of them cooking pizza the oven is still not clear. So up to pizza temps is well... questionable.
They are also complaining about excessive smoking but I believe the oven may be wet due to no roof yet. And there is a high probability that they are burning damp wood.
I encouraged them to get the roof on, which is their own immediate goal; and to add insulation over the oven. They have even been told by the local "Expert" to cover the insulation with plastic... I have no idea where that idea came from. I told them not to add plastic under any circumstances.
I have added an image of the casting, there is no reveal at the entrance to where the inner arch would be, and I was told the manufacturer indicated that they should use a damper in the flue to control the heat loss via the flue.
The oven door provided is of course on the outside of the flue hole.
I suggested that they build a thick insulated door so that it would plug the arch opening and at the same time cover the flue hole as there is zero distance between the flue hole and the start of the inside of the dome at the transition.
At this time they do not have a roof or a way to block the flue so they are down to ambient in the morning after a several hour pizza party.
The Casting is already in place and has a partial house built out of 4 inch CMU and this is all mortared to and over the casting at the opening so no way short of major demolition to raise the oven and put more insulation under it.
One other thing that is very interesting about this oven, They have a gas bar at the back of the oven so they can heat it with gas but from what I gather they prefer to and primarily use wood.
I did not see the oven in operation and did not get any photos because it was raining out and I could not spend much time outside viewing it. But I did get a couple of older photos they have. and they are attached. The far away shot is the only one that barely shows the insulation. At least it is under everything.
The second photo is how it looked today.
Any and all comments welcome. I would like to help them get this oven at least partially usable for baking.
Chip
They purchased a 36 inch cast oven made in Minnesota, Artesian ovens.
The reason we initially met was because of a contact we made because they were trying to sell some foamglas on Craigslist. The oven came with enough 4 inch thick foamglas board to be placed under the entire oven, but some of the local "Experts" on oven building supposedly engineers talked them out of installing the provided insulation and to put down 1 inch of ceramic board under their oven because
-- get this...
"How would the heat of the oven be able to get into the supporting slab with all that insulation in between. You would not have enough thermal mass to cook"
Well their 36 inch oven takes over 3 hours to come up to pizza temps and I have my doubts about that statement because some of the photos I saw of them cooking pizza the oven is still not clear. So up to pizza temps is well... questionable.
They are also complaining about excessive smoking but I believe the oven may be wet due to no roof yet. And there is a high probability that they are burning damp wood.
I encouraged them to get the roof on, which is their own immediate goal; and to add insulation over the oven. They have even been told by the local "Expert" to cover the insulation with plastic... I have no idea where that idea came from. I told them not to add plastic under any circumstances.
I have added an image of the casting, there is no reveal at the entrance to where the inner arch would be, and I was told the manufacturer indicated that they should use a damper in the flue to control the heat loss via the flue.
The oven door provided is of course on the outside of the flue hole.
I suggested that they build a thick insulated door so that it would plug the arch opening and at the same time cover the flue hole as there is zero distance between the flue hole and the start of the inside of the dome at the transition.
At this time they do not have a roof or a way to block the flue so they are down to ambient in the morning after a several hour pizza party.
The Casting is already in place and has a partial house built out of 4 inch CMU and this is all mortared to and over the casting at the opening so no way short of major demolition to raise the oven and put more insulation under it.
One other thing that is very interesting about this oven, They have a gas bar at the back of the oven so they can heat it with gas but from what I gather they prefer to and primarily use wood.
I did not see the oven in operation and did not get any photos because it was raining out and I could not spend much time outside viewing it. But I did get a couple of older photos they have. and they are attached. The far away shot is the only one that barely shows the insulation. At least it is under everything.
The second photo is how it looked today.
Any and all comments welcome. I would like to help them get this oven at least partially usable for baking.
Chip
I think the entrance "magic number" is what James dug out of the Pompeii ovens that he seen (it's been so many years and beer's that I don't recall). I'm sure it could be varied a lot and you would still have a functioning oven.
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