Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

[jmhepworth]

Now that I'm cooking pizza (I should say trying -- we're not very good at it yet), I decided I better document the build process before I forget it all. I may build another one someday. And I can't think of a better place to document it than here. It will also give me a chance to thank all of those whom I copied. I'll try to note as I go who gave me which ideas, but I'm sure I won't get them all. And others may be able to learn from some of the dumb things I did.

Joe

[jmhepworth]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

Planning Process. I lurked on the site for a few months, then joined a year and a half ago, started the foundation last summer, and I'm still working on the enclosure. It doesn't look like that will be done before the snow comes.

My wife cooks great bread in the oven inside, so I wanted a WFO that we could use for bread as well as pizza. I thought about adding mass, but concluded that others have had plenty of success with the mass of half bricks. So we settled on a 42 inch oven with a 21 inch height. Of course those are inside diameters.

[jmhepworth]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

Foundation. Here on the Wasatch Front, my neighbor and concrete master told me we needed a footing 34 inches down to be below the frost line. So we dug footings 16 inches wide and 12 inches deep, followed by two courses of concrete block and 6 inches of slab. I'm sure that's all over-kill. But what's the point if you don't overdo it?

My neighbor concrete guy has a small backhoe that he tows on the back of his truck. His grandsons dug the foundation for me with that. That saved an enormous amount of work, because digging in the heavy clay out here on the flats east of the Great Salt Lake is not fun.

I need to figure out how to post pictures.

Joe

[jmhepworth]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

Footing. I'm trying to figure out how to post a picture. If this works, it should be a picture of the footing. The footing was 16 inches wide by 12 inches deep. I framed it on the inside with a 2x6. I wanted a frame to make it square and level. I should have used something bigger than 2x6 because the dirt was loose enough that it was hard to keep it from flowing under the form. And then it was hard to get the form out after it cured. We used six bag concrete from a U-haul place. If I understand it right, that means 6 bags of portland per cubic yard. 6 bag makes the concrete a bit stronger. We put 2 pieces of 1/2 inch rebar parallel to each other down each side of the footing with a 2 foot piece of rebar in each corner. Then we put a one foot piece of rebar to fit within one core of each concrete block.

[christo]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

Definately sounds like you're on the right track.

Getting the foundation and base was the hardest part for me.

There is a manage attachments button below the editing window - there you can attach pics (if they are not too big). Use the browse button to locate the files on your computer and upload.

I think jpg files have the largest size limit - so if you have a choice, use that format.

I just saw your pic in the photo area. You can link pics here, too




Christo

[jmhepworth]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

Slab. After the footing cured (I believe I gave it a couple of days), I dry laid two courses of concrete block. 5 on the sides and 4 1/2 on the ends. I filled the courses with the re-bar in them with Quickcrete that I mixed in a wheel barrow. To make it closer to the 6 bag mix in the footing, I hadded a shovel of portland to each bag of Quickcrete. After pouring in the concrete, I added a piece of rebar long enough to reach half way into the 5 1/2 inch slab. On the top course of the concrete block, I used the ones with the ends open and laid re-bar in the channel and tied it to the re-bar coming up from the footings, figuring that it would tie the slab to the foundation wall a bit better. Again, overkill. Then I framed the foundation slab with 2x6s and laid rebar to match the rebar coming up from the foundation.


We'll see if the picture works this time.

Joe

[jmhepworth]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

That conduit coming up out of the slab is for electricity. We plan to have lights shining down on the cooking area, as well as an outlet.

Joe

[jmhepworth]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

I can't find a picture of the slab. I had lost my job last summer and it looked like we might have to move, so my spiritual and financial advisor and wife of nearly 30 years suggested I stop with the slab until we knew where we were going to live. To pour the slab we again used 6 bag mix, and I let my concrete master friend pour it for me.

Joe

[jmhepworth]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

After the snow cleared, I dry laid the concrete block on the foundation slab. Rather than have a single large wood storage area, I put an opening on both ends and put a row of concrete block down the middle to separate the two storage areas and to provide a bit more support. We decided to cantilever a landing similar to Ken's. We used concrete board as the ceiling of the wood storage areas to avoid having to frame them with plywood. We cut the concrete board to fit just inside the cores of the concrete block, so it had a couple of inches of concrete block to support it. We also used 2x4 with another piece forming a T on top to support the middle of the concrete board. I did have to frame the cantilever.

I bought a new camera a earlier this year, so the pictures are all too big to upload. As soon as I figure out the right size to re-size them to on my Mac, I'll post some more. This one is kind of small, but it lets you see the stand and the hearth slab framing viewed from the front of the oven.

Joe

[TheOldFox]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

Cool nice start , all the best for the rest of the build...

[jmhepworth]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

Here's a picture of the back of the stand and the rebar for the cantilever. You can also see the back of the house, the deck, and the base for a paver patio. It also gives a view of the concrete board that we used for the ceiling of the wood storage area.

Joe

[jmhepworth]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

Hearth Slab. We next poured the hearth slab, again with 6 bag mix. We bought the concrete from a ready mix place and moved it with a trailer. Because my neighbor had finished his landscaping, we had to wheelbarrow the concrete in from the front and lifted it up with shovels. I had lots of help, so it went pretty fast. We're fortunate to live in a neighborhood where people help each other. When someone lays sod he can expect 25-30 people to show up to help just by sending a couple of emails. It's rather amazing.

Joe

[jmhepworth]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

Floor. I decided I liked the look of the floor inside the dome, so I made a template out of 1/8 inch hard board, pretty much following Dino's as built measurements. The firebrick was surprisingly easy to cut. I had just finished a paver patio, and the pavers were not as easy to cut. I laid the floor on straight sand (no fireclay). The primary reason for that was that I wanted to get it done and didn't want to wait to collect the fireclay from cutting some bricks. I had hoped to avoid the sand altogether by using FB Board as the insulation, but the board varied in thickness by as much as an eighth of an inch either way. So there was no way to avoid the sand. Once I got the bricks level, I laid the template on it and traced it with a pencil. I cut the bricks one at a time and replaced them. I didn't find any difficulty using just sand but I believe if I had it to do over again I would have used fireclay. I did save a five gallon bucket of the stuff for my next oven.

Joe

[jmhepworth]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

Inner Arch. Back when Ken was building his oven and had difficulty with the arch, he buttressed the sides with metal brackets. I started to wonder then about making the sides wider, and since I planned to build a gabled house over it, I decided to experiment. You can see from the pictures that I made the legs two bricks wide. I remember David saying something in a post about mitering the bricks to get more strength while leaving a reveal.

The pictures show the bricks dry laid without mortar along with the soldier course. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the soldiers are cut with an angle on the top edge. I used the string to figure out the angle. In retrospect, I should have made the angle steeper, to avoid using so much mortar between the soldier and the first course. I would have liked to have used very little mortar, rather than the 3/8 in or so I used on the outside.

Joe

[jmhepworth]

Re: Joe's Kaysville Utah Oven

After mortaring the sides of the inner arch and the soldier course (and allowing it to cure for a day or two), I added the inner arch. As you can see from one of the pictures, I needed to put the first brick from the first course in to complete the arch.

You can't really see the crack on the left of the keystone on the inner arch, but it bugged me. Once it cured I couldn't knock it loose, so I didn't worry about it. Interestingly, when I got the oven up to temperature, I did get some cracks, including one on the left of the keystone.

Joe