Treehouse Pizza

[Toiletman]

Clearly on schedule for the birthday pizza party! Nice work on the concrete countertop as well, and indeed great luck on the coloring of all the sand/grit.

[RandyJ]

I am now on day 3 of curing the oven. I got home at 3:30 and immediately started the fire. I had left the tray of charcoal in the oven last night with the door in place and it must have continued to smolder as the oven was still at over 200F on the dome and like 160F on the floor this afternoon. So the oven has been warned for over 48 hrs at this point most of wich was at 200f or a bit better. I am doing my best to keep the fire on the smaller side but as we all know that is a bit challenging. I am seeing dome temperatures in the low to mid 400F range. It is almost kind of hard to keep the temp down. I am hoping that means the oven is curing nicely.

Randy

[NewEnglandNewb]

I have used a couple of different products to seal concrete countertops. Since you are looking for a rustic look, I’d recommend using the Chen water based food safe sealer. Here is a picture of one I made and sealed with that product. I’m currently grinding concrete countertop solutions G40 off of my outdoor kitchen top because I wasn’t happy with the finish and will be using Cheng on that one too.

[RandyJ]

2nd day of curing fires is in the book. I went ahead and burned charcoal again today. I managed yesterday to get to and stay at 200F for close to 12 hours and this morning it was close to 125F and so at about 830 this morning I started the fire again. I went a bit bigger today and I have managed to get to and stay at about 300F. I am just past 12 hrs today and this batch of charcoal is still going strong. I will put the door on tight before I go to bed. Then tomorrow I will have to start again after work.

Randy

[RandyJ]

I finished polishing the counter tops to 800 grit this morning. I am glad to be done with that. Step. It is such a sloppy messy job and makes a huge mess of everything in the area.

On the other hand I can't believe how well they turned out considering that i simply used sack mix concrete and dye. The variety of colors is crazy and i can not wait to see it once all cleaned up and sealed.

Does anyone have a great suggestion for a sealer?

Randy

[UtahBeehiver]

Be sure to use a "food" safe sealer on you polished counters. Your winters are like ours here in Utah, tough on concrete. I have quite a bit of failure spots on my glass embedded concrete counter even though I sealed the counters. Probably going to taventine over some day.

[RandyJ]

Well I kept the oven at close to 200F for most of the day. Roughly 12 hrs. So it will be fun to try to get it a bit warmer tomorrow morning and hold it there. While I was doing that I decided to try to get my grinding of the counter tops done. I managed to do all the grinder work with the cup wheel finished. I also started using the wet polisher I bought. I got all the way through the 50, 100, and 200 grit disks. I am trying to decide how far I want to go with the grits. The kit came with up to 3000 grit. But I think I am going to cut it off at either 400 or 800. I worry that if I go to much farther than that othe flaws will become more apparent. I am shooting for a more rustic look so I don't want it polished shiny.

Randy

[Giovanni Rossi]

The smoke milestone! I'll bet your son is getting excited now...

[RandyJ]

Toiletman the countdown is over. I started the curing fires this morning. I spoke with Ben from the fire brick company yesterday and he said thai using charcoal was a good and acceptable method for the first day or 2 of fires. So i ran out last night and bought 32# of charcoal. This morning i lit it up. We have like a 5 or 6 hr break in the rain so i am going for it and getting the curing fires started.

Randy

[Toiletman]

Well I lucked out and it didn't rain again today. So I am now completely done with the pearllite render. I am very glad to have finished this step. I also feel like it went on easier yesterday than today. Not sure what the difference is? Oh well I am just glad to be done with this step. The kit came with a Styrofoam float that was curved to fit the dome. I could not get that to work for the life of me. So I just used my pool trowel and it came out fairly decent I think. I guess I almost don't want it to be a perfect sphere as the rest is a bit rustic and that is how I envisioned the thing in the first place. Not sure what I was doing wrong today but the render just was not staying in place as well as yesterday. It was rougher texture yesterday so that probably helped. Oh well it is done now and covered as we are supposed to get like 4" of rain in the next few days again. Now that I have this step done I may still have a chance to make pizza on July 2 for my sons birthday. I guess time will tell and we will see just how many days it rains.

Randy

Congrats on finishing it, now it's time for a countdown to curin' and cookin' ! And I see you have a large todo list for thereafter already too... the work is never finished.

[RandyJ]

SableSprings I am hoping that the rain doesn't happen how they are predicting. I won't push the curring as I don't want anything to happen to the oven. For his birthday if I am not fully cured then we could just cook slower pizzas. That is not supposed to be a big party anyway. Just the family and maybe a friend or 2. So no matter what that is a soft launch for the first run. Then a week later my wife has a friend flying in from out of state that wants to make pizza. So that is when I need to have the curing done for sure.

I also need to get going on the pavilion and get my stone ordered. I also need to get back on grinding the counter tops and start polishing them. Getting the oven operational is just part of the project I will also need to do some kind of paving in front of it too, and trench some electrical over there. Lots to do yet. Hopefully I can keep cranking the steps out.

Randy

[SableSprings]

Looks great Randy! Hopefully your predicted rainfall won't hit your place and you can feel more comfortable going slow with the curing. That pizza party will be memorable for everyone... Fabulous job! (FYI: the extra countertop surfaces will be well appreciated when you start using this beauty)

[RandyJ]

Well I lucked out and it didn't rain again today. So I am now completely done with the pearllite render. I am very glad to have finished this step. I also feel like it went on easier yesterday than today. Not sure what the difference is? Oh well I am just glad to be done with this step. The kit came with a Styrofoam float that was curved to fit the dome. I could not get that to work for the life of me. So I just used my pool trowel and it came out fairly decent I think. I guess I almost don't want it to be a perfect sphere as the rest is a bit rustic and that is how I envisioned the thing in the first place. Not sure what I was doing wrong today but the render just was not staying in place as well as yesterday. It was rougher texture yesterday so that probably helped. Oh well it is done now and covered as we are supposed to get like 4" of rain in the next few days again. Now that I have this step done I may still have a chance to make pizza on July 2 for my sons birthday. I guess time will tell and we will see just how many days it rains.

Randy

[RandyJ]

Ok I went out yesterday and got a new mixing tub and some more Portland and sand. It has been raining here a lot. I believe we have gotten like 4 or 5" of rain in the last few days. It is also supposed to rain for most of the next week. This is making it very hard for me to try to finish this up. We were supposed to get more severe storms this evening. It was not to bad when I got home so I decided I was going to go for it and do another coat of pearllite render. I managed to get this all done. And I think I have finally wore off all the rough skin I had built up on my hands from work. I was doing the render with bare hands as I did last time and finally I was a bit sore when done. Not bad just noticed that I probably better wear gloves next time. I really hope I can get the last coat on here soon so I can maybe make my sons birthday for first pizza. I didn't think I would have any problems with that but weeks of heavy rain are saying otherwise.

Randy

[david s]

The silicone coated stuff is not available to me. I would try it if it was. The water requirement for the non coated stuf is, depending on the grade, around 4L for every 10 L of perlite or vermiculite used in the mix. So the coated stuff should presumably dry faster with less free water to purge. Drying is very dependant on weather conditions. A combination of temperature, airflow and moisture in the form of sun, wind and humidity are the controlling factors, so it's hard to say how long it will take. In one way the non coated stuff has an advantage in that, containing so much free water, it doesn’t require damp curing to enhance its strength. However that will not increase the strength of the layer much when a weak aggregate is part of the mix. (See table).Try to avoid mechanical mixing. Doan already weaking it by hand has the advantages of being able to inspect it closely while mixing as well as feeling the consistency and texture of the mix. in any case as previously stated you should follow the manufacturers instructions or you may void your warranty .To explain my reasoning see table and attachment (for 5:1 underfloor vermicrete, but strength and insulation value also apply for dome insulation).
Another useful trick is to use an inexpensive garden moisture meter to test the moisture deep in the vermicrete layer. It may look dry on the surface but deep in it will probably still be quite moist.







Vermicrete insulating slab copy.doc.zip