Building an oven for $

[smuth10]

I have someone that wants me to build an oven for them. They have the money, but not the time or skills.

Has anyone ever built an oven for someone else?
What price range did you give them?
Any other considerations you had or problems you ran into would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

[pwcoppard]

Re: Building an oven for $

Well, i don't know if this helps, but when i was building my oven the local brick supplier told that it would have cost $20,000 for someone to do it for me, including labour and materials.

And if you figure it is about 5 - 6 weeks work, it works out to about $75 an hour - assuming $5,000 of materials.

[Modthyrth]

Re: Building an oven for $

I got a quote of $17k for a brick oven--could bring that down to $12k or $13k if I went with a prefab dome. But that didn't include any finishing work, not even stucco (and certainly not the stone veneer I used), and none of the additional masonry like the granite work surface, or the wall surround for the grill. Just for a basic, unfinished but workable oven.

[smuth10]

Re: Building an oven for $

I was thinking between 15k and 20k depending on the fixin's, so that helps. Were those prices for a 36" or 42" oven?

Some of my other concerns are the city and any possible permits\fees. The city where this person lives is a little stuffy and may be an issue. If I could get enough business I may just be able to keep from going back to the desk.

Thanks for your help,

[Modthyrth]

Re: Building an oven for $

I didn't specify and they didn't ask when I got the quote. The labor and materials difference between the two is pretty negligible compared to the entire cost and time of the project, though.

[pwcoppard]

Re: Building an oven for $

Permits is a funny story for me.

When I built my oven, I didn't look into permits. I removed an old garden shed that had a concrete pad underneath, and then centered the stand on the pad. My wife convinced me to move the stand right to the side of the pad, a bit closer to the house. Grumbling, I took down the stand and rebuilt it.

A few weeks later, while I was curing the finished oven, I finally got around to wondering about the building code. There really is nothing published here in Calgary that applies to outdoor ovens, the closest was outdoor fireplaces. It stated that they needed to be 2 meters (about 80 inches) from the nearest flammable thing.

So I measured the from the opening of the entrance to the neighbor's wood fence. 79 inches. But the fence was leaning over because of their wood stacked on the other side. One big push on the fence later, and I am 81 inches away, and conforming to code.

Good thing I listened to my wife and moved the stand. (And that is a lesson I seem to need to continually relearn.)

To your earlier question, a 42" oven.

[Les]

Re: Building an oven for $

Good thing I listened to my wife and moved the stand. (And that is a lesson I seem to need to continually relearn.)

I don't know how long you have been married but after 26 + years, I have found that my wife is ALWAYS right.

Back to topic. My neighbor told me he charges 10 to 15 K for a barbecue island. An oven like ours has to warrant every bit of that if not more.

Les...

[pwcoppard]

Re: Building an oven for $

Les, 19+ years. Still in a bit of denial.

[mfiore]

Re: Building an oven for $

IThe city where this person lives is a little stuffy and may be an issue.

Sounds like an city just a little North of you on Woodward Ave! Good luck!

[splatgirl]

Re: Building an oven for $

Holy crap, that much $$? really? What I do day to day is much more skill-specific and much more technical and exacting than masonry, and I can't pay myself anywhere NEAR $75 an hour. I guess I need to get into the oven building business, and I guess I'm reminded of why I built my own house. I was thinking it's really about a 2-3 week project if you can work on it full time, meaning I'd be pretty darn happy with ~5K plus materials.

[mluttropp]

Re: Building an oven for $

If you are not a licensed contractor you may want to look into what happens if you construct a wfo for someone without a license. In general it may not be an issue but you want to be aware of the rules before you start. In California some key points to consider would be:

1. You must do your work on an hourly basis and be paid at the end of the day. If you give a bid for the job and the person does not pay you, you have very few rights in California as an unlicensed contractor. Not sure about Michigan.
2. Insurance. What happens if God forbid you hurt yourself or you damage your customer’s property? If you do not have the proper insurance this it could get ugly for everyone very quickly.
3. Check with your local building permit office to make sure that you build the oven in compliance with local codes. You do not want your customer to assume you have permits when you don’t and then have them demand you redo the oven.

If you are serious about doing this for a living and you don’t have a contractors license you may want to consider getting one, it really is not all that difficult.

[smuth10]

Re: Building an oven for $

That would be correct Mike, but fortunately for me, people in this area and in Bloomfield Hills are not too effected by the economy.

I used to be a finished carpenter, so I have a dba I could use and I would have to renew my insurance. If this is something that is possible, I definitely would not go forward without a license and insurance. Too may crazies out there. I would love to do this for a living, but I don't know how realistic that is. Don't know how long my body would put up that kind of abuse and I am not for certain there are enough people out there that are willing to spend that kind of money to have these built. Baby steps. For right now, I will start slowly and see where it goes. I do know that I would rather be BS'ing on this list with you guys about my daily job, than sitting at a desk in front of a PC any day.

Thanks for everyone's input...

[PerryPizza]

Re: Building an oven for $

For what it's worth my oven cost less than ?400 in materials (fire bricks, vermiculite, concrete, mortar, rockwool insulation, sand/ gravel, angle iron, +1 diamond blade for my wet saw) but I didn't need to build a foundation as that was already there..... I would reckon on ?600 - ?800 if I didn't improvise and recycle leftovers (or had enough money not to worry about leftover material).

Having said that it took over 3 months (not every day) of hard work to complete.

I'd have to charge a lot of money to build one which I wasn't going to benefit from on a regular basis!