The latest excuse to hide more concrete into the structure is a wood fired oven. I got the plans from Forno Bravo after seeing a few of these in blogs.
A few weeks back we poured an extension to the back patio slab with a knockout for the oven. I got a pallet of blocks, and a few bags of masonry cement and I was ready to roll.
I had a bit too much fall in the slab so I had to taper the blocks to get the first row level. Doug helped me get the first row set and level, and I did the rest from there. The plans call for dry stacking the blocks, but since the first row had to be cut it was a lot easier to get it level with the aid of some mortar, and hey, why stop there.
I drilled some holes in the slab and put some #4 rebars upright through the walls, these will be bent over into the bridge slab to tie the walls and the slab together. The plans also indicated that the fourth row of blocks should span the doorway, but that seemed like too much of a stoop, so I will just span that with the concrete floor.
Next up, I will build a form with some 2×4’s and plywood to make a lid over this structure somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-5″ thick, and then a layer of 2″ insulation goes on top of that. Then it is time to start building the dome out of firebricks.
This may be a bit much in an era when a lot of people are too lazy to even drive out to pick up a pizza, but I’d like to reserve judgement on that until I’ve tried my first homemade wood fired pie.
