Electric Fired Pompeii Oven

[Oven_Man]

Good Day Guys

A few years back, I build a Wood Fired Oven with the help of David s and many others on this forum.It was a dream come true to have my very own WFO, something that only restaurants would have in my part of the world. None the less, what i didn't realize was the hard work it would take to fire it up every time. Over time, I used it less and less until now - it's been about 6 months since last using it. The daunting task of firing her up with wood and then maintaining the fire is enough to keep me away and for 2 or 3 pies - it's just not worth the effort.

I was pondering the other day of what to do with this White Elephant that just look pretty but not serving any purpose - I just can't see myself giving it away or dumping it - it was lots of sweat and cold nights to put this oven together. I came across an oven that had Elements in it and thought to myself - WOW! - that's a neat idea. So I plan on doing the same - adding Elements to my oven so it's easier to fire up and use for the little amount of pies that I cook at once.

What are your suggestions to adding Elements to my 24" Pompeii Oven?
Do I need Elements under the floor as well as in the dome?
How many Watt Elements do you suggest?

Really looking forward to hearing back from your guys

Take Care
OM

[Toomulla]

Reference to BLack Panther Pizza oven site. States a single deck oven in their range requires 415V 3~N; 4.2kW; 5.9A so you could start from there that is somewhere around a 20 amp circuit to my uninformed knowledge, I would expect that a converted wood oven would not be as efficient as a purpose built oven and would take still take several hours to heat

[Mexman]

OM
Check the gas post below https://community.fornobravo.com/for...d-pompeii-oven
I https://community.fornobravo.com/for...pompeii-ovenas in the same place as you and converted my WFO to gas and love it. It gets to over 800 degrees in 45 min and if I want to bake just one pizza I can.
I now use my oven twice as much.

[david s]

Part of the beauty of a WFO is playing and controlling the fire (fire turns man into a philosopher), this does not happen with gas.
In addition, wood is freely available in most places, I've never paid for wood and on principle don't intend to in the future. Wood is a renewable resource that uses carbon that is already in the system, saving the additional use of fossil fuel.

https://community.fornobravo.com/forum/general/travel/19322-forno-a-legne-no-legne#post19322

[Gulf]

Part of the beauty of a WFO is playing and controlling the fire (fire turns man into a philosopher), this does not happen with gas.
In addition, wood is freely available in most places, I've never paid for wood and on principle don't intend to in the future. Wood is a renewable resource that uses carbon that is already in the system, saving the additional use of fossil fuel.

Well said David. That speaks to the "latent pyromaniac" in me .

[Toomulla]

A bit like using the motor in a sail boat

[deejayoh]

I wonder if you could get the heat even enough in brick oven with a static electric element? If you can get it even, it is still going to take a lot of amperage on a 240v circuit. It will take at least a dedicated 50+ amp circuit - which is what an oven requires. More likely, it will be like an instant electric hot water heater which takes a 100 amp 240v circuit. Rare that a home has that much spare capacity on the main panel, so if you need to upgrade that, you are looking at thousands of $ to get a higher amperage strike from the power company, upgrade the panel, etc

Gas is probably an easier and more cost effective option.

[Mexman]

I doubt that I can get my Grandmother to replace her gas range with her old wood kitchen oven. The way she talks, it wasn't much romance in getting up every morning starting a fire and watching it burn.