Foundation question

[Tara]

Complete Newbie here. My husband and I had to tear down our pool so now we need to redo our backyard. We have a huge blank slate to work with except for an odd piece of cement sidewalk that extends away from the house about 12 feet. We LOVE the idea of a wood fired brick oven and was hoping to cover up most of the sidewalk with this idea. Is it possible to build a brick oven (small-med size) on an existing cement sidewalk? My husband said it is 4" think cement with wire mesh reinforcement. Thanks in advance for your help.

[deejayoh]

It may be possible to use that as the foundation for your oven. I assume that you are somewhere w/o a lot of freeze thaw cycles? If so, a 4" foundation would work if
1) it's large enough to support your base and
2) it is not settling and is laid on a decently compacted base of gravel.

The base for the oven is going to spread the weight across the foundation, it doesn't have to be super strong.

[UtahBeehiver]

DJ,

Hit the key points but you are in Michigan so it will freeze. There is some uncertainty of what the sub-base material is and how compacted it is. Another issue, if you are required by you local city to get a permit then they will have a say on this. I'm from Utah so our winters are pretty severe, I put down about 8-9" of compacted structure rock with a 6" monolithic slab for a 42" oven. This is just a reference point. In the scheme of things/cost, a proper oven pad is minor relative to the overall cost of the project.

[agrasyuk]

I decided to not push my luck and did pull building permit with the village for my project. foundation requirement was to be below the freeze line. made sense since soil around here is clay. your situation may be different.

good luck on your project!

[Tara]

Thank you all for your comments. I think we will design a plan where we put the oven in a different location. We were just hoping to hide our sidewalk so we wouldn't have to tear it out.