40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

[markmark1]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

Is your awesome oven contributing to heating your house?

[markmark1]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

I'm building a new house soon and will put a wood fired oven in the house. I'm wondering if your oven has contributed anything to your house heating?

[Laurentius]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

I'm building a new house soon and will put a wood fired oven in the house. I'm wondering if your oven has contributed anything to your house heating?

Not if its well insulated!

[david s]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

Is your awesome oven contributing to heating your house?

It should be very effective. With the door open i can feel the heat radiating out the door opening from two metres away and standing closer working the oven gets quite hot from this radiant heat.

[markmark1]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

Did you reach a conclusion about your extra thick floor? Is it taking much longer than your dome to heat?

[Tonyp]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

Hi guys. Sorry about the delay in responding. I look forward to following your project Mark! I was not anticipating much heat from the oven, as Laurentius points out, if it's well insulated the majority of the heat in the dome should stay in the dome. Right now I only have a couple layers of 1" ceramic blanket on and it does get to about 120 on the outer surface. I would expect this to decrease with more layers. David's comment about the radiating heat out the front is spot on. Wow can you feel the heat! I think this may add a bit of heat to the room but it would be short lived when only the fire is active. So right now with the oven unenclosed and light on insulation, yes it adds to the room temperature a noticeable amount but I am expecting it will be minimal once it's fully insulated and enclosed. I would not be approaching the project as a potential room heater as well as oven if you want the best performance out of your oven.

[markmark1]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

Thanks Tony.

[david s]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

Hi guys. Sorry about the delay in responding. I look forward to following your project Mark! I was not anticipating much heat from the oven, as Laurentius points out, if it's well insulated the majority of the heat in the dome should stay in the dome. Right now I only have a couple layers of 1" ceramic blanket on and it does get to about 120 on the outer surface. I would expect this to decrease with more layers. David's comment about the radiating heat out the front is spot on. Wow can you feel the heat! I think this may add a bit of heat to the room but it would be short lived when only the fire is active. So right now with the oven unenclosed and light on insulation, yes it adds to the room temperature a noticeable amount but I am expecting it will be minimal once it's fully insulated and enclosed. I would not be approaching the project as a potential room heater as well as oven if you want the best performance out of your oven.

If you want to use the heat to warm your house you could simply leave the door off and continue to feed it with wood like a fireplace, we often use our oven like this on our outdoor deck during winter. (where we live the winter temps rarely drop below 10 C/14 F)

[markmark1]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

If you want to use the heat to warm your house you could simply leave the door off and continue to feed it with wood like a fireplace, we often use our oven like this on our outdoor deck during winter. (where we live the winter temps rarely drop below 10 C/14 F)

Thanks David, that makes sense.

[markmark1]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

Tony, do you regret your extra thick hearth?

[fornax hominus]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

I put a 3'' brick floor in my oven , as I had a source of used 3''x5''x9'' bricks from a ship's boiler . They were laid over a mix of vermicrete and broken K27 insulation bricks and I find my floor a little hot . I have had to throw a couple of BBQ grates on the floor before I put in food /bread in pans or they will burn on the bottom .. For pizzas I have to let the floor cool slightly before the first one goes in . I too would like to hear how Tony's 5" floor performs

[Tonyp]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

Hi Guys! I find that about 2 hours into heating the oven the dome is 750ish and clearing nicely and the floor is reading 650 or so. I think the main concern was the extra thick floor would continue to suck heat from the surface while a thinner floor would reach saturation faster. I can't say this has been an issue. Based on the temperature gauges in the floor vs the dome, the dome heats faster, but even after a couple hours the temperature of both the dome and the floor are about 500 1/2" into the surface of the brick. So anyone thinking they have saturated a 2.5" thick floor after a couple hours is mistaken and going to have the same potential issue of heat moving from the floor surface into the interior whether it's 2.5" or 5" thick.
I do check the floor before cooking the pizza and if it's 700 range I am happy. I am still experimenting between dough moisture, brick temperature, and fire size. Trying to get the right balance of crisp yet chewy inside.
I do move the fire around and occasionally will spread the coals out for a few minutes here and there to make sure the floor is nice and toasty if I am making a bunch flatbreads or something. I find that by next morning both the outside of the dome and the full thickness of the floor are at the same temperature. The oven stays hot for days even with just partial insulation and I think the extra floor thickness contributes to this in a significant way.

Have some photos to post showing my pizza attempts!

Fornax perhaps the used bricks are a higher duty brick that's absorbing more heat?

[fornax hominus]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

They are CHIEF bricks . they came out of a WWII ship . I never heard of them I am more familiar with kiln bricks all heavy or super duty bricks like Crecent or Empire..and you could be right I have some med . duty bricks in the dome [ they are all reclaimed bricks from the '70's] .. funny enough I have one row of super duty #1 arch bricks , laid narrow side in [ring 6 ] and they are the last ring to lose their carbon .. I always thought it was because there was more brick on the exterior side .. but maybe it could be the density ..mmmmmm.

[Tonyp]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

Warming the oven tonight for pizza. 2hrs 20min with a small/mid size fire the dome is clear and around 850-900 while the hearth is 750-800. I can see the carbon just starting to burn off around the inside of the oven dome, closest to the oven side.

Just checking the temperature sensors that are in the floor and the dome 1/2" from the inside brick face, both are reading about 525 F.

[Tonyp]

Re: 40" Indoor Pompeii in NNY

Tonight's pizza!
Used my new flour.. reinforced 00 caputo with 13% protein, 63% hydration. Was in a rush so used some of my starter with a bit of ady and let it sit on the counter for a few hours before splitting it into 300g balls and putting in the proofing containers to sit for a couple hours in the fridge. Would have been better to let it sit overnight though! Have a couple extra so maybe will make some pizza tomorrow..

I was the last to cook and the dome was at 850 while the hearth was at 750 with a small fire burning.

Pizza was quite tasty, could hear a little crack when bending a slice slightly in the middle when holding the crust. Would like the bottom towards the middle to be more crisp though so not sure what I need to do there. There was certainly plenty of chewiness.