Chimney Placement Help

[islanddesigner]

Hi
Just completed the basic construction of our brick oven and started the curing process. We are now wondering if we made a mistake in the placement of the chimney. It's not set directly over the doorway, but centered over the doorway and dome (please see pic)

Does anyone know if this will work? Or will all of the heat escape and fail to heat the oven to high enough temperatures?

[Jed]

Re: Chimney Placement Help

Hi
Just completed the basic construction of our brick oven and started the curing process. We are now wondering if we made a mistake in the placement of the chimney. It's not set directly over the doorway, but centered over the doorway and dome (please see pic)

Does anyone know if this will work? Or will all of the heat escape and fail to heat the oven to high enough temperatures?

Hello Islanddesigner,

Your chimney placement looks like it will defeat the purpose of the 'retained heat' part of the brick oven cooking...

This technology is a retained heat technology. You use fire to heat the bricks, then the hot bricks cook your food. If I am reading the picture correctly, your chimney is open to the fire / cooking chamber of the oven. This will provide a constant fresh air (cold air) vent to the cooking chamber and cool the oven more quickly than if you could seal off the oven to 'retain' the heat.

If your only objective is to only cook pizza, your current configuration might work fine because there will always be a fire in the oven while you are cooking, adding heat faster than it can escape.

If you intend to bake anything, I would suggest you take the day and rebuild this section of your oven, and get the chimney out in the landing area. You can then install a door on the oven to seal off the oven chamber and 'retain heat'.

One of the great things about building your own, is that you develop the skill to manage these issues. Shouldn't be any big deal, just a bit more work...

Good luck with this one,

JED

[islanddesigner]

Re: Chimney Placement Help

Hi Jed
Thanks so much for your reply. Learning more every day : ) We moved the chimney this morning and it only took a couple of hours. We have a very shallow landing, but at least the chimney is over the opening now and we can close the door to seal in the heat.

Now we just have to wait a few more days before curing and then we'll see if we did OK. Thanks!
Erin

[gjbingham]

Re: Chimney Placement Help

I think Jed's spot-on. It will probably be fine for pizza. Breads or long/low heat applications might be a bit more dicey. You still have an opportunity to fix it. There's not a heck of a lot of work involved in knocking out your arch. You could just cap the existing chimney, or take it out altogether.

As said above, if you want to do retained heat cooking, your door needs to be inside (closer to the dome than) the chimney.