I ended up getting the Murex Forno pizza oven kit, 900mm internal. Before Christmas they had a good special and got the kit shipped form NSW to SA for $1100 which seemed incredible value. YES, there are tradeoffs with this kit but nothing I don't think I can work with. I do love the fact the kit has cast arch bricks, 5 large bricks to make the inner and 5 for the outer arch makes a much easier build for a novice like me (or so I hope will be the case). I also love the circular cast chimney brick that the flue will eventually sit in.
The biggest tradeoff so far though has been lack of proper instructions. I keep just getting sent some scribbled notes and pictures of their own commercial builds at different stages of completion for reference, which gives me a little bit of an idea, along with all of the help I'm getting reading this forum.
I'm at the stage now where I've spent the last few weekends building the base – and today I poured the slab. Went with 130mm reinforced concrete for the bench top slab. My biggest question for next week is going to be how to insulate under the floor and the dome and landing area. The kit came with several 300x300mm x 70mm deep insulating bricks for under the floor (see photo). I don't know much more about them, and I can't seem to get any more info from the company. They just say they are what they use in their commercial builds recessed into the concrete BUT say to cut the blocks to just fit under the oven floor not the dome. Which seems weird to me, they said they lay their dome bricks onto the concrete slab – which I don't think (from what I've read) is the right thing to do.
So now I'm thinking of using the insulating blocks they have sent under the floor, recessed into a vermiculite concrete slab I'll put ontop of my reinforced concrete slab. I'm thinking a total slab height of 90mm for the vermiculite – which would give me 20mm under the insulated floor blocks to allow me to get them perfectly level, that will leave the outer dome with 90mm vermiculite concrete under it. If I mix vermiculite at 5:1 from what I've read that will have enough compressive strength. Is this correct?
I'm trying to not have to buy anything additional that'll be super expensive – vermiculite I can spring $40–45 on a bag but around $100+ for CalSil board might be stretching the budget a bit far. Would my solution in anyones opinion still be enough insulation?
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