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Welcome to the build 
We are making a 900 mm ID (35.4") brick oven in Wellington, New Zealand. Initially was looking to keep costs down, but things... well you know how things go.
When we looked at the price of a pre-built, high quality oven locally ($6K), it was felt that we could get a better result for half the price. Looks like we might not come in on budget (ha!), but we do get exactly what we want, we know how it is built & we get the pleasure of making it.
So, it's a corner build on top of a retained terrace in the back yard. There was limited space so the hearth is cantilevered 100 mm (4") over the edge of the blocks. Pics!
Template was super helpful.
Here I have 107 mm (4.2") floor. I wanted the large tiles and they only had 32 mm (1.25) thickness. It was a similar price to do double layer tiles (64 mm, 2.5") Vs. to do bricks and then tile over. So went with the extra thickness. My first course will be half headers, sitting on the brick, and with the tiles cut to fit within. Half headers will match the height of the archway bricks - as they are all laid on their largest face (75 mm / 3" high).
Internal diameter as noted is 900 mm (35.4"). A perfect hemisphere for strength, so internal height target 450 mm (17.7"). Opening height target 283.5 mm (11.16"), also a perfect arch, so the width is 567 mm (22.3"). This seemed the simplest approach, the height of the opening being controlled by how far apart you set the base bricks.
You can see my cardboard angle thing, so I knew where the internal surface of the dome would meet the bottom edge of the top dead-centre (TDC) arch brick, thus showing how far in the arch should start. You can use a right angled triangle calculator online to figure it out as well.
The pile on the left is circa 4 ft deep - the soil was soft all the way down! The one on the right, 1.5-2 ft topsoil then clay. This terrace structure has been backfilled some decades ago and so is not all hard clay, but has had years of natural compaction.
More soon..
We are making a 900 mm ID (35.4") brick oven in Wellington, New Zealand. Initially was looking to keep costs down, but things... well you know how things go.
When we looked at the price of a pre-built, high quality oven locally ($6K), it was felt that we could get a better result for half the price. Looks like we might not come in on budget (ha!), but we do get exactly what we want, we know how it is built & we get the pleasure of making it.
So, it's a corner build on top of a retained terrace in the back yard. There was limited space so the hearth is cantilevered 100 mm (4") over the edge of the blocks. Pics!
Template was super helpful.
Here I have 107 mm (4.2") floor. I wanted the large tiles and they only had 32 mm (1.25) thickness. It was a similar price to do double layer tiles (64 mm, 2.5") Vs. to do bricks and then tile over. So went with the extra thickness. My first course will be half headers, sitting on the brick, and with the tiles cut to fit within. Half headers will match the height of the archway bricks - as they are all laid on their largest face (75 mm / 3" high).
Internal diameter as noted is 900 mm (35.4"). A perfect hemisphere for strength, so internal height target 450 mm (17.7"). Opening height target 283.5 mm (11.16"), also a perfect arch, so the width is 567 mm (22.3"). This seemed the simplest approach, the height of the opening being controlled by how far apart you set the base bricks.
You can see my cardboard angle thing, so I knew where the internal surface of the dome would meet the bottom edge of the top dead-centre (TDC) arch brick, thus showing how far in the arch should start. You can use a right angled triangle calculator online to figure it out as well.
The pile on the left is circa 4 ft deep - the soil was soft all the way down! The one on the right, 1.5-2 ft topsoil then clay. This terrace structure has been backfilled some decades ago and so is not all hard clay, but has had years of natural compaction.
More soon..
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