Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

[uk_exile]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

Update = I'm pretty sure we'll start something in next 2-3 months. Haven't feel a decent aftershock for a few months so time to get started. Current thinking is going for one of these kits. Very low cost & I suspect very user friendly for typical domestic use as fast heat up due to combo of insulating & heat retaining materials

http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f6/a...and-18801.html

[azpizzanut]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

Hello uke,

The disaster in NZ will make building materials a premium commodity. Don't wait for ins. money if you can locate the basic materials to start your foundation and base. It will make things much easier if you have some kind of start during the interim. Try to make contacts in the demo industry for the needed bricks. If the quake recovery is anything like the hurricane recovery here then small contractors from all corners of the earth will travel there to look for work. Surely someone will be willing to sell used brick. Materials, when available, may become expensive. Kiwi's are resourceful and resilient. You'll find a way to start your oven.

Cheers,

[uk_exile]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

There's certainly a lot of damaged buildings but I'm seeing very little being recovered for reuse as the scale of the diaster is such that it's mostly going to landfill. There isn't time or resource to do careful demolition. Such a shame and a massive waste but infrastructure re-estabilishment, housing, commerical etc needs are higher priority than recycling.

[dmun]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

I have no experience with 1/3 brick but I believe David (who's oven is 2.5 inches thick), does not have that much improved heat time.

I have to agree with this. An oven is an object in motion, and you need enough mass to keep things intact. I know firebricks are foolishly expensive in NZ, but I would say that if you have to economize, you should reduce the diameter of the oven, not it's thickness. People talk about how many pizzas they can cook at a time, but realistically, how many can you make at a time?

I'm thinking that a lot of rigid masonry came apart in the recent earthquake. Maybe if you kept your eyes and ears open you'd find some ex-fireplace or boiler bricks that have come available.

[Les]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

Thanks, no never got an answer re 1/3 bricks. Thought was it would make the oven more time efficent

UK,
I have no experience with 1/3 brick but I believe David (who's oven is 2.5 inches thick), does not have that much improved heat time. Stick with the plans.

[uk_exile]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

Thanks, no never got an answer re 1/3 bricks. Thought was it would make the oven more time efficent hence would get used more weekdays. As suggetsed I think I'll just build exactly to plan. However due to quake will be minimum a year away before can even start to think about building it.
Suspect it will be 2012 before I see any insurance money. Still not complaining as some people have 2-5yr waits for housing, some needing to use portaloo or chemical toilets for next 2yrs, etc, etc

[azpizzanut]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

Hello uke,

Has anyone answered your question(s) posed in post #15?

You can't go wrong if you follow the proven instructions recommended for the Pompeii oven. That is, half fire bricks for the hearth and full size fire bricks laid on their broad side for the hearth. After the build is complete is too late to learn that the 1/3 bricks or thin hearth are not enough. The exception might be for a hearth that is cooling after a few pizzas where you can rake the hot coals back over the hearth then cook a few more pies. Otherwise, I think you may suffer from lack of adequate thermal mass and not be able to correct the situation later. No one seems to complain about the adequacy of an oven built to spec. Best of luck to you whichever design you choose.

Cheers,

[uk_exile]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

Some scary figure just released (To give these some scale population of city approx 400,000)

* 996 buildings in the Central Business District (comprising 70% of the CBD) are red-stickered and will likely need to be bulldozed.
* More than 12,000 residential homes have been earmarked for demolition.
* 61,000 people are on wage support or earthquake assistance.
* 30% of all businesses are affected in some form.
* Hotels are struggling with a 13% occupancy rate.
* Tourism (the region's single biggest economic contributor) has ground to a halt.

[uk_exile]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

I chose the user name for various forums while I was based based in UK.
Born in NZ & moved to Chch when 17 for work. Following redundancy when 28 moved wife, son & daughter (then 4 & 13months) to Newcastle upon Tyne, north east England. Live there 6yrs before heading back to NZ as the roughness of the area, the isolation & lack of freedom had become too much. Been in Chch since & staying in Chch.

I really like this from sports legend Steve Gurney "I find it useful to flip the coin over. These next few years will surely be exciting times. Those who are left in town are the resilient ones, the ones with energy, vision, perspective and those who are able to put the bad stuff in the past, looking instead to the future. These are the kind of people I like to hang with"
More of his thoughts at Sportzhub - Devastating Earthquake hits my home!

[brickie in oz]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

Well said, there are more urgent factors to deal with.

Are you a Lancs lad by any chance?

[uk_exile]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

Due to recent earthquake my project will be delayed. For at least a year I suspect.
Canterbury Quake Live
As we only sustained light damage we're expecting it to be a year before insurers get to my minor building and minor contents claim. They hadn't even visited us yet from the Sept 2010 earthquake. I'm certainly not complaining the delay, it's just inconvenient. At least we have a house to live in & no one close to us died. Thousands of others are far less fortunatle that us. In mean time the money that would have gone towards the WFO will be used to replace damaged items. However once we get the insurance payout I'll have a lump of $$$ to get the WFO & area done fairly quickly :-)

[uk_exile]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

Seems to me as a complete newbie that
Size = How many items you can cook at once and how even the heat will be. Larger diameter gives larger ?sweet spot? & more space if need to keep some fire going
Dome thickness = How long it takes to heat up. Thin gives fast heat up but not large energy storage for high volume cooking at near constant temperature
Insulation = How long it retains heat.

These 3 seem to be the overriding factors. Given that what I?m tempted to go for is larger size like a 42? but with thinner floor and dome, with a sensible amount of insulation. My selection is based on ideals that pizza will be frequent, often for just family, not always a party, and other cooking will be single baking overnight, not over many days, or big volumes for dozens of people. So 1/3 bricks rather than halves. Good plan ?

There are obviously other relationships between each
Thickness & Insulation = how much energy is stored & how well it?s retained = controls volume of food & duration of cooking i.e. lots of insulation isn?t going to allow long duration cooking if a large volume of food sucks all the stored energy out & large mass isn?t going to be complete answer if it all leaks out to air
Size & Thickness = bigger size allows bigger fire but it doesn?t mean a bigger fire gives shorter heat up time as mass of dome is not proportional to diameter
Other relationships too.

[Neil2]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

I, too am in an earthquake zone. The trouble with using precast sections is the issue of tying the structure together to prevent sheer failure at the joints resulting from the horizontal acelleration in earth quakes.

An important detail is to tie your at grade slab (or foundation) rebar to your wall rebar and to tie your wall rebar to your suspended slab rebar.

For example, when pouring an at grade slab, have at least one, preferably two, rebar at each corner bent 90 degrees with about 18 inches sticking up vertically.

To these verticals, tie your wall rebar with that in turn having at least 18 inches bent horizontally to tie to your suspended slab rebar.

Use rebar (3/8 or 1/2 inch) not WWF (welded wire fabric or "mesh").

[dmun]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

Decent block layer will do it in a day ??? Better to pay someone skilled and save myself many many days labour.

Yes, for something that's so commonly done, laying concrete block is surprisingly difficult. If you can get help with this, it will save your time (and your back)

[uk_exile]

Re: Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

Got a quote for a contractor to build the 11m of 2m high fence via precast concrete slabs. Aprrox $7500 !!!!! So it'll be concrete block.
I'll build the foundations for the fence & oven but will get a block layer to lay the blocks for the fence as would take me many days to lay 300 or so blocks with my lack of skills. Decent block layer will do it in a day ??? Better to pay someone skilled and save myself many many days labour.
I'll fill the fence blocks myself after block layer is finished and will then I'll lay the oven base since those blocks can be dry stacked.