Enclosing the finished oven...Pressure treated wood ok?

[shanek]

Going to be enclosing my oven this summer. been trying to decide if i want to use aluminium studs or if i can get away with pressure treated wood. it will be wrapped in cement board and then stucco (much like a house but instead of plywood its cement board). Any draw backs to using pressure treated wood rather than aluminum? im just used to working with wood and have all the tools so it would be easier to use it. thanks for all your responses in advance

[rwiegand]

Probably, as long as you have enough insulation around your oven it probably won't get the surround hot enough to start a fire. I used steel framing for mine (are aluminum studs really a thing? Never seen such a thing). The only added tools you need for working with steel studs are a pair of snips, a metal cutting saw blade for your chop saw if you like, and a screw gun. It's a bit of a pain, but you can pick it up pretty quickly. I used fire-resistant plywood for my roof deck, I needed to nail my shingles on and couldn't figure out how to do it without wood. You can see my framing in my build thread.

You only need PT for the boards that are in contact with the concrete slab.

[shanek]

Thanks rwiegand for the reply and great build by the way!

its wrapped in insulation and has had a tarp over it all winter. the tarp hasn't melted and it cool to the touch when the oven is roaring so i would think the fire hazard is none.

What gauge steel did you use? did you just get it at lowes/home depot?

[rwiegand]

You want structural steel studs. Mine were ~20 or 22 ga as I recall (the lightest gauge rated as structural will be fine for these small buildings). They are available at any decent lumber yard--cost less than wood and they are all straight, so not a bad thing. Around here the Borgs only sell nonstructural studs (I think they are 28 ga). I put in a couple of extra rafters to support the slate roof, it probably wasn't necessary.

Agree that if you've been using the oven under a tarp you'll be fine.

My concern was mainly with our building inspector who was very fussy about having no flammable materials for a considerable distance above our fireplace in the house. I suspected he might apply the same logic to an oven. (Not that I invited him to look, but I wanted to be in full compliance if he took an interest. The way I read our local code I fall under the sqft requirement for having to have a permit for an "ancillary structure")

[RandyJ]

I would second the steel studs. I went with 18 gage studs on my build. They were a little more difficult to cut but they are rock solid i was walking around on the roof and had no flex to it not sure i would attempt that with 20 gauge or less. 25 gage you can crush in your hand and you can bend 20 gage over your knee. The 18 i used you would probably break your knee trying to bend it.