Total expense on building Pompeii oven

[Muhammad Ali]

I want to know that how much it approximately costs to build a Pompeii oven?

[Toomulla]

How long is a piece of string. There are so many variables depending of material size location etc that any estimate from Australia or the USA will be useless Best that you work out what you need and cost the materials locally

[SableSprings]

Welcome Muhammad! As Toomulla noted above it is difficult to give you an estimate for an oven in your country. That said, most of us try to find used materials that reduce our costs. So, here's a couple of estimates of the amount of materials you would need for a firebrick Pompeii oven. This is only for the dome...you would need to build a stand that the oven would sit upon. Concrete building blocks are commonly used to provide the base sides and then a 10 cm thick reinforced slab is poured on top to complete the stand.

The approximate number of bricks in different sized ovens below assumes that each of the dome bricks will be cut into two pieces (making an 11-12 cm thick dome)...that means you will either have to use a brick chisel () or find a brick saw (wet brick saw - 25 cm diameter blade recommended) to use during your build.

1 meter internal diameter (ID) oven

160 firebricks for the dome
30 firebricks for the cooking floor

75 cm (ID)

100 firebricks for dome
17 firebricks for cooking floor

60 cm (ID)

68 firebricks for dome
11 firebricks for cooking floor

In addition, you would need to have refractory (high temperature) mortar and insulation. We recommend that people make their own mortar (homebrew) by mixing 3:1:1:1 (sand:builders lime:fireclay:cement) as they build the oven. The ceramic batting and board insulation materials are best, but by mixing 5:1 Vermiculite:cement (vermicrete) -- add a handful of clay to every couple of liters of mix to make it more workable -- you can make an adequate 10-12 cm thick bottom insulation base (that goes between the oven stand and the cooking floor/dome base. After the oven is completed, you can make a 10:1 mix (again 10-12 cm thick) of the vermicrete and cover the entire dome for the top insulation. If you don't have vermiculite available you can use either perlite or coarse pumice.

For probably less money in your area, you could make an oven dome by casting instead of using firebricks. There are many dome ovens on this forum made of homebrew mortar that's cast about 5-7 cm thick. It's a bit different work because you have to build a mold, but in many ways it is much simpler, quicker, and less expensive.

Also consider you will need access to a good wood supply. I know this isn't the kind of help you asked for, but hopefully it will give you some idea of the amount of materials you will need to source in your area...again, a lot of use salvage materials to reduce costs. Do pay attention to the quality of your cooking floor bricks as they are what your food actually contacts while in the oven.

Good luck! Remember these are only some of the more basic items used in building a Pompeii style oven to give you some basic cost estimates...there are lots of tools, materials and other items that can make the job much easier...it's just that they always add to the cost!

[bentedesco]

I've been tracking everything on a google spreadsheet, so far, I'm at about $1800 for my 36" oven (including supplies, incidentals, tools/equipment, & rentals). The only thing I haven't factored in yet was how I plan to finish the exterior (tile or stucco).

NOTE: I have estimated 300 bricks for this build... I plan on buying my bricks in batches of 75 so we'll see how many I actually use.

[Allie]

Sablesprings, thanks you for details/ cost estimates of building a pizza oven. And bendesco for impressive spreadsheet. I guess I better start estimating too.

[SableSprings]

I used to teach classes in Excel at our local community college and I just couldn't imagine not using a spreadsheet for tracking my build & baking costs. I also wanted to keep a tally on how many loaves (kind of bread and to whom it went) I gave away. I've attached three screenshots of portions of my record keeping work sheets. These are current as of today (13 November 2018).

Bentedesco: Nice layout and use of the Google spreadsheet tools! I haven't tried working to any extent with that software. Looks like it's come a long way from when Google first introduced it...I'll need to take another look.

[JRPizza]

It's funny - I'm an engineer and have always pretty much tracked everything, but quickly gave up tracking costs when I built my oven. I ended up making so many trips to the stores to pick up this and that and was so busy cutting and laying bricks that I just gave up. I even threw away the receipts I had kept. I understand if money is tight you need to estimate what you are getting into, but for me I ended up just not caring how much money I was spending and started to just enjoy the journey.

[rwiegand]

I was at about $7000 when I stopped counting. Sometimes you just don't want to know. A lot of that was for decorative elements like stone veneer, slate roof, and copper flashing. Ceramic fiber insulation was the most expensive single component of the oven itself.

[mongota]

I came in at about $2250 for a 42" oven. Could have saved by mixing my own concrete instead of using bagged, but I chose bagged for a few reasons. Here's my tally:

Pizza Oven Materials Cost, 42" WFO:

Last update: As of 10Aug18

-Some materials carried over as leftovers from one part of the built to another.
-I could have saved $$ with a batch delivery of sand and stone to mix my own concrete, but this was a convenience build, for this project the bags were easier.
-My build had footings below grade to frost level.

Foundation, from below grade to slab-on-grade:

Footings, 26 80lb bags Quikrete Concrete mix @ $2.97 $77.22
Stem walls, 36 CMU, 12"x8"x16" @ $2.25 $81.00
Mortar for CMU, 4 60lb bags Quikrete @ $4.25 $17.00
Filling CMU cores, 6 80lb bags Quikrete @ 2.97 $17.82
Slab-on-grade reinforcement, 10 rebar, #4 x 10' @ 5.30 $53.00
Slab-on-grade, 22 80lb bags Quikrete mix @ $2.97 $65.34
Foundation Total: $311.38

Hearth, from above slab-on-grade to hearth slab:

Hearth walls, 36 CMU, 8"x8"x16" @ $1.35 $48.60
Mortar for CMU, 4 60lb bags Quikrete@ $4.25 $17.00
Corner Pillars (4), total 12 80lb bags Quikrete @ $2.97 $35.64
Corner Pillar colorant, total 4 Quikrete Charcoal @ $5.80 $23.20
Door arches (2), total 3 80lb bag Quikrete @ $2.97 $8.91
Door arch colorant, total 1 Quikrete Charcoal @ $5.80 $5.80
Hearth Slab reinforcement, 16 rebar, #4 x 10' @ 5.30 $84.80
Hearth Slab, 40 80lb bags Quikrete mix @ $2.97 $118.80
Hearth Slab colorant, total 8 Quikrete Charcoal @ $5.80 $46.40
Hearth stone veneer, free from property free
Mortar for stone, 14 60lb bags Quikrete mortar @ $4.25 $59.50
Hearth Total: $448.65

Dome Construction, on top of hearth slab:

Floor Insulation, total 4" thick Ceramic Fiber Board $304.00
RedGard waterproofing $46.12
Fire Brick, 310 @ $0.88 $272.80
Dome Insulation, 4" 8# CF blanket, 4 @ $60.50 $242.00
Firebrick Mortar, homebrew $30.00
Dome stucco lathe & wire ties $47.00
Stucco 2-layer previous
Thoroseal, waterproofing $27.00
Igloo stone, from property free
Mortar for igloo stone $50.00
Chimney pipe (2@8"x48"), cap, anchor plate & bolts $362.00
Dome Total: $1380.92

Roof and Accessories:

Insulated door: salvaged metal, insulation remnants free
Hearth doors (2) for wood storage, milled from own trees free
Peels & oven tools, salvaged metal free
Timber roof framing structure, milled from own trees free
Roofing, salvaged metal free

Utilities:

Lights (2)
Electrical outlets/conduit/conductors: ~$100

Tools:

No tool expenses incurred


Total Cost for WFO: $2240.95

[Brad S]

Floor Insulation, total 4" thick Ceramic Fiber Board $304.00

Where did you find the Ceramic fiber board for that price? That seems a lot cheaper than I have found anywhere.

[mongota]

Where did you find the Ceramic fiber board for that price? That seems a lot cheaper than I have found anywhere.

My apologies. I've been off the forum for quite some time and just returned after an email notification. I bought my insulation in East Brunswick NJ from a place called "CeramSource". They also go by CeramicFiberOnline dot com.

Too late to help you, and again, my sincerest apologies for not having seen this earlier.