How much did it cost to build your oven?

[crowtrapper]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

So, Tim F - you found bricks for nothing if you picked them up - what sort of place has free firebricks? Absolutely no demolition companies around here ever seem to have firebrick, and no building supply places stock them either - where do you look for those? What have I missed?

[Tim F]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

I'm just using red bricks!

[Knackers]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

I am about to start building and oven and must tell you of what I saw last weekend (relating to costs) - a lady friend of mine built an oven one day (yes one day) with the help of her 2 teenaged sons. All 3 fairly unskilled. They used no firebricks, only old common red bricks; and no fireproof mortar. For a base they used an old corrugated iron tank about 4 feet in diameter and about 30 inches high, filled with sand. They made a platform of bricks which was the hearth, then built a form of wet sand in a dome shape on top of that; then built the dome of bricks and cleaned out the sand form from inside. Then they sort of added an old stove door to the gap in the front. Rough as bags! No chimney - don't need it because the fire draws through the gaps in the dome's mortar joints!!! Needs a lot of wood; doesn't hold heat too well (fire must be kept going while cooking) - but it turned out marvellous pizzas for a large number of people. Just showed me what you can get away with. She thinks it will disintegrate after a couple of years but by then they will have got sick of pizza anyway - and the cost was zero.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA gotta love the bush build

[Jed]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

We have $1,340.00 US in our oven...

Bread, squash, baked potatoes, baked beans... all coming out of the oven today. Yea, it's good...

JED

[cvdukes]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

I'm on the low end, but then I'm a scrounger, use a lot of non-traditional materials, and got lucky by trading $5 of turkey compost for a huge pickup load of steel 2x4's that I put to good use. And got a great deal on vermiculite straight from the mine...
Total cost of the oven complex came in less than $500. The complex includes the pizza oven, a smoker over, oyster roaster, two fire boxes and two chimneys. Figure that the pizza oven would break out to only $150 of the cost.

[Ken524]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

My cost spreadsheet link is below in my signature.
My finished project cost way too much, but was worth every penny

[aks801]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

This is all very useful info! My CFO at home is a little worried about the costs, possibly even more so than my total inexperience at this type of work. All the more reason to roll up my sleeves and get crackin', I say.

[staestc]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

My CFO is difficult at times to deal with as well, what with Christmas and end of year property taxes, etc. I feel your pain

Travis

[cynon767]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

Thanks for all the info... I'm weighing options now as a complete and total newbie, and this kind of thing is very helpful!

[brakeforbread]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

Ditto on the appreciation of this thread. It's helpful to get planning and permissions underway. Of course I think it's a lot like having kids. If you waited until you could afford it, you would never have them. So I'm hoping the get started this spring one way or the other.

[crowtrapper]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

Well having earlier posted the bit about an oven which cost zero $ to build, my own great work is under way, dome almost complete and only a few days away from the first fire, maybe 2 weeks from cooking that first Pizza!
So far the cost for materials has been about $900 (Aussie $). There will be one further expense: for the sake of the final finish I am going to engage a professional renderer to coat the outside with a nice smooth final coat. That will conceal all the rough amateurish insides of the beast. And - the beast has a name. Thunderdome - done before - no, this is the "Blunderdome"!

[C5dad]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

Update:

I found a source of fire bricks and refractory mortar for free! I spent $20 on rebar and needed and additonal 3-80 lb bags of cement (son bought the expensive stuff at $7.bag)

I expect my cost to come in around $500 as of now.

CW



I am at $150 with the base completed and all the cement to finish the hearth. Need to get vermiculite and rebar for the hearth (around $40). then the Bricks ($1.16 ea x250) and around $130 for the refractory delivered to the casa from FB. Lastly, I need to spend about $300 on the flue and deco rocks. So I am estimating about $933. Please note this price will go down as I scrounge some more stuff (e.g. a flue duct, reclaimed brick from a local demo (for the exterior) and rebar -don't ask! Also have a bunch of stuff left over from building the casa! I estimate $800 tops!

For what it is worth.

C5dad -aka Chris

[Capt. Toddy]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

I'm still building mine and so far have built up the brick base. Using commons from around the house and by partly demolishing the existing bbq I haven't paid for the foundation bricks.So far I've spent about $150 and depending on what bricks I end up using for the oven it could be as much as $1200 completed or as little as $850.

Rod

[crowtrapper]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

Further to that earlier post, I have now had the first few smallish fires (no pizza yet) and all is working well - but I have still to put on the final insulation layers. What I want to do is use rockwool or some other fireproof layer on the outside of the dome brickwork, then a water proof sheath of, say, aluminium foil - then a thick coat, maybe 4", of vermiculite concrete. So far I have been unable to find suitable aluminium foil except by buying a whole roll (80 square metres and I only need 4!) and the only fireproof insulation blanket I can find is $20 for a single batt which is about 1200mm x 450mm, I will need several of these. Yikes! this will blow the budget to smithereens, taking me up from around the $1,000 mark to more like $1200. Plus the cost of the final render coat, which I suppose will be a couple of hundred dollars. The alternative: thicker vermiculite layer and no blanket or foil. I wonder how that would compare as far as insulation goes?

[dmun]

Re: How much did it cost to build your oven?

We keep hearing about aluminum foil. What's it for? You certainly don't need a vapor barrier, and any slight reflective effect it might have will disappear as it dulls up and rots in contact with the caustic portland cement.