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Hey team
My wife's dad just came to visit us in Northern Uganda, and we've decided to utilise his masonry skills to help us try and build an oven here, kind of a mixed masonry/clay oven due to the lack of materials available here. We live in a hut here with solar power, so haven't been able to bake for over two years, so the idea is pretty exciting. He's a kiln builder so was keen to build a catenary arch like he's used to, so we went for that. internal dimensions are 85cm across, 90cm deep, 48cm from ground to top of arch, We (well really he
) put the arch up today with Local low-fired bricks and a clay/coarse sand mix. I know its not the best, and could fall apart first firing but that's OK - to be honest I'm most worried about the low quality bricks. Its finished now and form is out, and we're hoping to do insulation in the next couple of days.
The question is simple. What should we use as insulation? Would a clay/sand/woodchip adobe layer be best, or just straight clay. I'm confused about whether straight clay is better for insulation, or adobe. Clay oven builds online seem to have a clay middle layer than adobe outer layer, but I wonder whether we could get away with one maybe 3-4 inch thick layer of adobe.
I'm under no illusion this will be a fantastic oven, I realise it will be slow to heat and won't stay hot for too long, we just want to be able to cook pizzas in a few minutes and then a couple of loaves of bread. I hope it can work. Cheers!
Oh, and only took photos before form cam out. Trust me its still standing!
My wife's dad just came to visit us in Northern Uganda, and we've decided to utilise his masonry skills to help us try and build an oven here, kind of a mixed masonry/clay oven due to the lack of materials available here. We live in a hut here with solar power, so haven't been able to bake for over two years, so the idea is pretty exciting. He's a kiln builder so was keen to build a catenary arch like he's used to, so we went for that. internal dimensions are 85cm across, 90cm deep, 48cm from ground to top of arch, We (well really he
) put the arch up today with Local low-fired bricks and a clay/coarse sand mix. I know its not the best, and could fall apart first firing but that's OK - to be honest I'm most worried about the low quality bricks. Its finished now and form is out, and we're hoping to do insulation in the next couple of days.The question is simple. What should we use as insulation? Would a clay/sand/woodchip adobe layer be best, or just straight clay. I'm confused about whether straight clay is better for insulation, or adobe. Clay oven builds online seem to have a clay middle layer than adobe outer layer, but I wonder whether we could get away with one maybe 3-4 inch thick layer of adobe.
I'm under no illusion this will be a fantastic oven, I realise it will be slow to heat and won't stay hot for too long, we just want to be able to cook pizzas in a few minutes and then a couple of loaves of bread. I hope it can work. Cheers!
Oh, and only took photos before form cam out. Trust me its still standing!