Pizza Bob's 42" Build

[dbhansen]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Beautiful work, Bob! I bet that vent will draw really well. Congrats on the progress.

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

A few more pictures...

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Thanks Dino! The pizza temps are just about there. I need to get insulation on and then pizza! I probably could have done some pizza yesterday - I had the temps up to 700 degrees. Portions of the dome just started to turn white!

I wanted to post a few pictures of my front arch and vent area just to keep my thread up to date...

As you can see from the pictures of the front arch I decided not to cut tapers on these bricks. I cut tapers on every brick in this oven but decided I really need to get this done before the snow. I wasn't extremely pleased with my brick/mortar spacing of the front arch because I ended up with a mortar joint directly where the keystone should be. This arch won't be visible once I get my decorative arch in place and I don't believe this weakens the arch at all. A vent transition mortar/bricks bridge across thiss "keystone mortar joint" which should prevent it from cracking too.

My vent and vent transition came out pretty good. I thought I would need to go higher with the tapering of the bricks but this set-up draws really well! I need to mortar in my anchor plate and attach my chimney pipe. I ended up temporarily attaching a 12" pipe and a 36" inch pipe to the anchor plate just to see how this thing draws. Eventually there will be the 12" section mounted to the anchor plate then a 30 degree angled pipe then the 36" section and then another 30 degree angled pipe so the chimney pipe will be aligned with the center of my dome.

I started curing with a 100 watt light bulb for three or four days. It was amazing that this light bulb would keep the dome at around 90 degrees with a temporary door blocking the oven opening. I would cover the oven every night with plastic and in the morning would see mositure on the underside of the plastic. Then I started using an electric hot plate burner which kept the temperatures around 180 degrees for about four or five days until there was no moisture on the plastic. Then finally started my first fire!! I started off burning pizza boxes from inferior competitors . My wife is pregnant and craving pizza all the time so we have plenty of pizza boxes. I eventually moved onto small sticks and increased temperatures over the course of the week until I got to about 700 degrees. I couldn't let the fires go to waste so we took tomatoes and basil with EVOO from the garden and roasted them on a pan. They were pretty tasty but I'm not sure if I can give all the credit to the oven. How bad can garden tomatoes and basil really be even without a brick oven?? We also roasted some eggplant from the garden which came out really good too.

I'll be picking up my insulation tomorrow. I plan on using three inches of Fiberfrax DuraBlanket-S made by Unifrax. It's a ceramic woven blanket that can handle 2300 degrees Fahrenheit. The chemical composition is slightly different than the FB Blankets but I'm sure this will work fine. The FB Blankets just cost too much for me to ship from California to Connecticut - $40 per blanket. Once the blankets are in place I have a hipped-roof sheetmetal studded cement board enclosure built around everything. The space between the cement board and blankets will then be filled in with loose vermiculite. I don't plan on putting any cladding around the dome (under the blanket). The way I look at it is the hearth floor is just under 2.5" thick with plenty of insulation underneath it and the heat will be retained just fine here. The dome bricks are 4.5" thick so why do I need a cladding of one inch?? I hope it doesn't come back to bite me in the *ss but I don't think it will. Besides, my curing fires are just about done and if I add the cladding then I'll need to start the curing fires all over again.

Anyways...Sorry for rambling on so much but I haven't posted in quite some time and just wanted to get caught up.

~Bob

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Nice video Bob, congratulations on your 1st fire. How many have you had now? Are pizza temps coming this week?
Cheers, Dino

[Lousdepot]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

incredible brick work!! congrats

[DaveW]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Congrats Bob, your oven looks gorgeous!
Dave

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

I finally fired up the oven for the first time tonight. Just burning pizza boxes but will get to bigger fires soon!

YouTube - Wood Fired Pizza Oven - First Fire

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Fairview,
Thanks agin for the pictures and info on the flue. I went to a local Simpson DuraVent dealer today and priced out:

8" Anchor Plate
Two 12" long by 8" diameter straight sections
One 36" long by 8" diameter straight section
30 degree elbow kit (includes two elbows and a mounting bracket)
Mounting bracket to support and anchor pipe system to my concrete layer

The price was $863...ouch! I think I'm gonna' go for it though. I really want to vent out the middle of the hipped roof as shown in the attached picture.

Did you see my PDF file attached below?

Best Regards,
Bob

[Fairview WFO]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Bob, yes I wanted my chimney to go up in the back so it would be inline with my back corner when it gets above the roof. You don't have to go that far back though, depends on what your after. Just draw a side elevation or piece together some test sticks to determine your height. Mine started at the top of the vent and angled back at 30 degrees until about 11'. I started mine with a flat plate connector and used 3 - 3' sections and a 30 degree bend kit. You can check FornoBravo's store to price it out. They are not very heavy, maybe 5-7# per section? Dont forget 2" clearance to all combustables. Good luck!

[fxpose]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

I used 45 degree elbows and the chimney drafts well.

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

The other thing to consider is the cost...this setup will set you back almost a grand!

Whoa! $1000??
It looks like your vent ran past the center of the oven and to the back. How tall is the top of the 2nd bend where the straight portion starts from the top of your dome? I plan on using the double walled pipe. Is it heavy? It looks like you supported it against the blocks. I planned on using sheetmeatal supports that are anchored to my structural concrete layer but I wasn't sure how heavy thissystem is.

Your oven looks great!

Thanks for all the info and pix!

Best Regards,
Bob

[Fairview WFO]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Bob, you are correct in that two 30 degree bends are all that's allowed by code. Below is a pic of what that looks like from my construction. It does get rather tall if your trying to get the chimney to the back of the structure. I have a 36" dia oven with a 6" flue and have no issues drafting with this angle. I imagine you could go 60 degrees and have no drafting problems if you had enough chimney height in total, but that wouldn't be code. I filled the entire cavity around mine with perlite or vermiculite, so you should be ok as that stuff can handle the heat, and when using a class A chimeny pipe you don't get much heat transfer to the outer pipe anyway. If you are using a single wall, well that's going to get hot and is not per code, if your worried about that. The other thing to consider is the cost...this setup will set you back almost a grand!

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

I am finishing my oven and having second thoughts about using a clay flue coming out the front of the oven. I decided I like the hipped style roof but if the flue came straight up it wouldn't look right. I decided to layout a stainless flue that has a 30 degree bend to it. I believe 30 degrees is the maximum bend allowed by code for residential building codes (wood stoves). Someone told me it's because an angle steeper than that would be too difficult to get a cleaning brush through. I think it must be code like that for draft purposes too - which is my concern with the venting system shown below.


Any advice on using a 30 degree bend? Will this draft properly? I can probably go less than 30 degrees but then the structure gets taller.
I also decided to call it quits on my "mason career". I was originally planning on a sheetmetal framed cement board enclosure with a stone veneer finish but decided to higher a "real mason" instead. He came out and gave me a quote to build a complete stone structure, with the hipped roof shown in the image below, around the entire pizza oven. He'll leave me plenty of room between the dome and the stone enclosure to get 2" of ceramic blanket and 4" of loose vermiculite at the soldier course. The loose vermiculite thickness will obviously increase as it approaches the top of the dome. I'm not sure if loose vermiculite is acceptable around the stainless flue. Any advice on that?

Thanks,
Bob

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Truthfully, I was a little wary of applying the ROT to my oven, since it only called for an 8x8 and my stack is only 3 foot tall. My instinct was a 13x13, but in practice, I have not had a wisp of smoke out of the front arch and it sucks like a well, golfballs and hose type of mind picture.

FYI round or square will always perfom better than rectangles.

Is that because the corners of the rectangular opening develop "eddy currents"? I wonder why the square wouldn't behave similar to the rectangle.

[Tscarborough]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Truthfully, I was a little wary of applying the ROT to my oven, since it only called for an 8x8 and my stack is only 3 foot tall. My instinct was a 13x13, but in practice, I have not had a wisp of smoke out of the front arch and it sucks like a well, golfballs and hose type of mind picture.

FYI round or square will always perfom better than rectangles.