36" (900mm) Pompei build in central Sweden

[david s]

We live in the tropics and as I have a policy of never buying wood, I collect fallen timber which is plentiful. Tropical trees are pretty much all softwoods so their low density means low energy value as well as usually being full of water, so I always go for eucalypts which are hardwood. Their high density means high energy value with far less ability to soak up moisture. Breaking larger branches (up to 50 mm) is easy by finding the fork in a tree. Using this method means never having to cut or split wood.
When the oven is up to temperature I place smaller pieces either side of the entry to feed the fire on the side. Using this method means they burst into flame almost immediately.

[icrackracquets]

Finally done for the year (except for the door which I'm waiting on materials for). I've got the enclosure weather tight. I bought base painted panels so I wouldn't have to deal with painting this year.

I followed pretty closely Ken524 's build and he cast a fine cement shelf on top of his hearth slab (+tiling) to bring the level up even with the firebricks. My plan was to do that but now I'm not so sure. I need to do something to bring the surface up level to the firebricks but I need to think about what I want that to be.

I had also planned to put faux bricks or some type of accent around the oven opening in the facade. However when I planned that I was trying to set the front wall so that the oven opening would be proud of the facade. Due to impatient and innaccurate measuring/building on my part, the facade is now a little bit proud of the oven opening by about 5-10mm. Now I don't know if I want to any accent around the opening that would 'sink' the oven even farther into the facade wall. My ideas now are just leave it how it is or make an accent out of thin plate steel so that it would barely add to the wall width.