Wood Fired Oven Build

[Bob in St. Louis]

Cool, I think I got that, but of course more pics will help.

Ok...here's another... Did you weld the rebar together, or ...????

 

[speers90]

For further clarification, here is a pic of one of the "cavities" of the dry stacked block fortress. You can see the vertical rebar running to the 6" pad that I poured about 8 days ago. Then it is tied to the vertical grid of rebar that is raised so it will be at just about the center of the "hearth" pour.

Red denotes a filled cavity, green denotes an empty cavity. Each front cavity will get filled along with all the corner cavities and then every other along the perimeter. It basically ends up being every cavity except 6 on my layout. It's probably overkill but it also doesn't cost much to do so why not! The empty cavities are some what filled with the cuts and I will stuff them with concrete mix bags so that concrete doesn't fill them. I will let concrete fill the top few inchese of these cavities as well just to make the entire mass locked together.

Here is a pic of the temp support underneath the concrete board. It was just pouring down rain here a little while ago that's why you see water on the concrete board.

 

[speers90]

Cool, I think I got that, but of course more pics will help.

Ok...here's another... Did you weld the rebar together, or ...????

Wire tie's

 

[Gulf]

Looks great! Ryan,

Cool, I think I got that, but of course more pics will help.

Ok...here's another... Did you weld the rebar together, or ...????

Not directed for me, Ryan set it straight, with his answer. But welding rebar, and heating rebar to make bends changes the metalurgy of the soft steel. Soft steel is engineered to expand and contract at about the same rate as concrete would with normal temperature changes. Heating, tempers the steel, and changes that ratio :smile:

 

[Bob in St. Louis]

I didn't know that about heating/welding rebar. Given my tendancies to overengineer, I would have welded them thinking it was stronger than the wire ties. Thanks for the clarification!

Speers, thanks for the pics, that's perfect!
So the vertical rebar just goes *to* the pad....it's not drilled down into it?

Thanks again for the time spent to answer the questions. Sorry if I'm being a pain.

 

[Carbon]

I've run out of wire ties before and I've used whatever I had laying around, like plastic zip ties.

 

[BKish25]

I'm jealous since I don't have the space to install one on my property. Did you get a plan for the oven or are you designing it yourself from scratch?

 

[Yendor]

I should be around this weekend Ryan, hit me up if you need some help. I do have a 40+ mile bike ride promised to the wife, but beyond that I should be available.

 

[Carbon]

So the vertical rebar just goes *to* the pad....it's not drilled down into it?

Here's my take on this. It depends on your locale whether you do this or not. I recently built a 10 ft long concrete counter top BBQ station, over drystacked blocks. Vertical rebars at the corners were pinned into the ground slab. This will prevent shifting in case of a major earthquake here.

 

[Bob in St. Louis]

I wasn't thinking about earthquakes (because those aren't a concern here ...)but I was thiking about frost heave. Which....now that I think about it.... isn't a concern there. haha
But where he's at, I would have assumed he'd want that sucker tied into the pad and footing both, for sure. But hey...I'm the one askng questions, so I don't know.

 

[speers90]

I'm jealous since I don't have the space to install one on my property. Did you get a plan for the oven or are you designing it yourself from scratch?

No official plan but a fair amount or research about wood fired ovens. There are some critical ratios for opening width and height compared to oven width and height to end up with a properly fuctioning oven.

For example, height of door opening should be about 63% of internal dome height. My dome will be 21" internal so I plan to make my opening 13.25"

 

[Carbon]

In Ryan's case, even if the rebars were not drilled into the ground slab, that entire base isn't going anywhere unless a Mac truck crashes into it.

 

[speers90]

I wasn't thinking about earthquakes (because those aren't a concern here ...)but I was thiking about frost heave. Which....now that I think about it.... isn't a concern there. haha
But where he's at, I would have assumed he'd want that sucker tied into the pad and footing both, for sure. But hey...I'm the one askng questions, so I don't know.

Not really concerned about frost heave in this particular instance. But I can line the edge of the slab to 2' below grade with rigid foam.

 

[speers90]

I should be around this weekend Ryan, hit me up if you need some help. I do have a 40+ mile bike ride promised to the wife, but beyond that I should be available.

Saturday will be hit or miss, but I will be home all day on Sunday bbq'ing for the neighborhood and pouring concrete!

 

[SmittyJonz]

So is this a a Pizza Oven or Oven or Wood Fired BBQ (smoke gets to food)? Looks like a lot of work - interested in finished pics and live action pics. :thumb:

 

[Uncle JJ]

I love these threads.

 

[Yendor]

Saturday will be hit or miss, but I will be home all day on Sunday bbq'ing for the neighborhood and pouring concrete!

Hopefully it doesn't rain either day and I can get my ride in on Saturday and get over to load concrete on Sunday.

 

[speers90]

So is this a a Pizza Oven or Oven or Wood Fired BBQ (smoke gets to food)? Looks like a lot of work - interested in finished pics and live action pics. :thumb:

It is a wood fired oven, but will be used most frequently for pizzas.

 

[Gulf]

Building a well insulated WFO, primarily for pizzas, is great! But, I learn other uses for mine, just about every week. If you build an insulated door to help contain the heat, lots of possibilities are just about limitless.

You can cook pizza on Friday night, bake bread on Saturday morning, cook a roast for Saturday's lunch or dinner, and a brisket for Sunday. All of this can be done on just one firing. You can't beat the efficiency of a WFO.

You can also, use it to make lump charcoal. After cooking your pizza, stoke the oven with the hardwood (and size) of your choice. Once, she is at full blaze, put the insulated door in place to starve the oven for O2. Leave the door in place for a couple of days, unless you want to remove your eyebrows :scared:.

You can also use the retained heat from the oven to dry the wood for your next WFO fire. Or, you can dry and preheat your smoking wood for your smoker.

I have experimented with a lot of food in my WFO. I haven’t been disappointed, yet :mrgreen:.

 

[Bob in St. Louis]

Gulf....wow man, that's about the best argument for building a WFO that I've ever heard. I've seen a few build threads here, and each of them gets me a step closer to building my own. Your post adds another "tick mark" to the list of reasons that I *must* have one at my house.

Great thread!

Ok.....one last question about the frost heave.
I like the Mack truck analogy, but.....since some of us live in areas where the ground freezes and tends to move "immovable" structures that lack proper footing, I'd like to have some clarification on the question about 'pegging' the rebar down into the bottom pad, and having a footer. Since the bottom concrete pad is essentially "floating" on the top of the ground, wouldn't "time and temperature" have it's way with the entire structure? Meaning that in a few years, the whole mass might have a couple degree tilt to it?

Thank again fellas!
Bob