East London pizza oven and grill

[Neil.B]

Hi all,
Like many on here I have been watching this forum for a couple of years and love the way the domes look from inside. I'm not sure if this is the correct area to post as there are so many sub-forums this post could be in.

I don't have any drawings of what I have planned as it's all in my head, but it's basically a 32" pizza oven, chimenea and 8' grill and smoker.
I'm trying to build as cheap as possible, but without scrimping on quality. All my bricks/blocks have been for free. So far up to hearth level it has cost me about £120 for cement and sand.
I finally ordered my fire bricks, ceramic blanket and clay powder they were delivered Tuesday, I collected the lime and kiln dried sand today.
The fire bricks were new but on offer as end of range, so i bought all 177 of them as I can also use them in the grill/smoker area.. The fire bricks are huge they measure 300mm x 150mm and have a slight taper of 75/72mm.


Neil

Image: current progress 20/09/20

[Neil.B]

The begining

[Neil.B]

Decking using second hand Cedar deck

[Neil.B]

Start of the brick work. Limited DIY bricklaying experience, so was very worried.

[Neil.B]

These old yellow bricks were a pain in the arse to lay. They are all slightly different sizes and some have slight bends. 330 for free so worth the aggravation.

[Neil.B]

Had to make the right hand arch slightly lower to allow bricks to line up as the arch was wider.

[Neil.B]

Time for the hearth.
i raided my neighbours skip for some timber/laminate flooring to use as supports.

[Neil.B]

[Neil.B]

Waited 48 hours then took off all the supports.

[Neil.B]

I also added a time capsule in the main support. Last minute thought so only a newspaper, collectable 50p coins and a letter telling about us as a family and the pandemic.

[Neil.B]

Fire bricks delivery.... This sh**t got real

[Neil.B]

Couldn't resist roughly laying out the firebricks and thermolite blocks.
The plan is for a 36" oven. The chimenea/smoker and grill will have one large (8') brick chimney.

[Neil.B]

There will be thermolite blocks used under the firebricks to keep costs down... I got 53 for free

[Baza]

Hey Neil!! Wonderful pace of work you are doing and it looks great! Love the combo plan of your build to include a smoker and such. Wondering where you sourced your brick for the lower build? I'm not in East London - but rather in Southern Ontario (ha!) but ideas are always worth pursuing when they are good!

Keep it up, sir! Looking forward to seeing this multi-build come to life!

[Neil.B]

Thanks Bazza.
The bricks were originally on Gumtree (similar to Craigslist I think), they were originally £100 for 200 bricks, they are normally about £1 - £1.75 each, so it would of been a good price. A week later they were free . When I collected, there were about 330.
The breeze/thermolite blocks were also free from Gumtree and I still have about 40 left.
Love a bargain

The middle arch has a chimenea and a hole left in the hearth. The plan is to use above the chimenea as another source of cooking i.e wok or frying pan, by slotting in some steel panels I should be able to use it as a smoker too.... If the plan in my head works