Pouring of a Hearth and installing of the Oven

The last two weekends have been great. While I have been working on the oven project my wife and 2 year old son are taking their turns watching, asking questions and advising me on what to do next.

My next step was to pour a 4 inch thick slab of concrete (hearth) that has 1/2" rebar laid throughout. After thinking about the structural integrity of the hearth I decided to add a single row of cinder blocks coming from one corner into the middle of the hearth. Even though mathematically it is not necessary, my gut told me that I will sleep better knowing it is there to support the main weight of the oven dome. I also decided to pour "inside the existing" walls instead of on top. In order to accomplish this I cut 3" chunks out of the top layer of the cinder blocks. That gave me the room I needed to build the rebar checker board. Underneath I built a frame of 2x4's and put a level of plywood on top. The added cinder blocks in the corner were cut to be level with the plywood.

At one point on that Saturday I had all the power tools I own out of my shed and was using them all. Talk about a man/geek moment!!!

The actual mixing of the concrete and pouring of the hearth was the final step for the day and went smooth and without a hitch. Took the least amount of time and after letting it settle for a bit I used a left over 2x6 to flatten the area and smooth out the top. As you can see in the picture, yours truly was able to build a foundation, walls and hearth that is perfectly level. It made the next step so much easier.

As I mentioned before I plan things out in my head and on paper ad nausea before I ever utter a word to friends and family. So by the time I do talk about it I have long made up my mind and know what I want. Makes things easy when you are alone on an island and nobody give a sh.. about what you do. When you are ripping out plants that your wife planted and replace them with a cinder block and concrete structure that doesn't work. You need to communicate first and make your desires known the the powers at be and they will decide if you get to do this in the first place. I have to say, my wife is great (aren't you honey :) ) She can be easily convinced of the "need" for a 1000 lbs wood burning oven in the back yard. All it has to do is work properly when she wants it to and look nice with the rest of the current back yard layout. The time it takes to build was also a major concern, which leads me to the oven itself.

I researched a lot of different versions and spent countless evenings online researching the best way to do this project economically in both time and cost. I found a website: http://www.fornobravo.com/ that is probably the answer to every mans dream when it comes to wood burning pizza ovens. Not only do they have a forum for advise but also the tools, plans and ovens you would want in your back yard. I had decided on a pre-fabricated version that would be delivered and put on top of my current build.

Easy, one day, done!

Weeeeeellllll not so fast, when it came to ordering the oven I actually chatted with their rep at length and he offered this little bit of info: "you need to provide your own fork lift, unload the oven from the truck and install the thing yourself." WHAT???? You are kidding, where do I get a forklift from? Even if I can drive the thing, I don't know how to install/slide the 1500 lbs oven from the palette onto the hearth. So I hung up with the company rep and needed to regroup. What I mean by that is that I didn't sleep for 2 nights, kept thinking about it and then discussed it with my wife.

To make a long story short, I didn't buy a finished, pre-built oven after all. I built it myself. The same company supplies you with a pre-fab dome and a 50 page instruction manual as to how to build your own oven from scratch. So I ordered the dome and the floor and all the other pieces separately and started on the construction of the oven itself. It took 8 hours to build the structure and put the first layer of High-heat mortar on. While the mortar dried I started cutting the red brick entry arch to the oven and laid it all out. After that it was back to home depot to get more materials for all the finish work. More on that on my next entry.

Up go the walls!

I am a week behind. The past two weekends I have been able to get a lot of work done. The walls are standing and my son is using the current state of my outdoor kitchen as a garage for his bike and toy car.
The original layout and my design came together very nicely. Besides the Oven I decided on only one BBQ spot. No Side burner or heating drawers. It would look too crowded and take away from the actual reason why I am building this thing in the first place, my pizza oven.

Now to the actual build and the things I learned. Dry stacking cinder blocks is great. It allows you to really move along and pull those walls up in no time. My cement floor even (enough) for an easy stacking of blocks. I drilled 20 holes in the cement for the vertical rebar. With the help of a Hammer Drill it was an exercise that only took minutes.

Mistakes became immediately apparent. First, I ordered way too many cinder blocks and not nearly enough cement mix to fill them. Second, in an effort to tie the blocks together I included horizontal rebar after the first layer and before the last. To that end I had bought pre-cut open face cinder blocks. I wanted to only fill the holes where there was vertical rebar. Well, cement is wet and goes into all the nooks and crannies it can find, hence it moved into the non-rebar places and gave me a Roy Sheider moment: "We are going to need a bigger boat" only that I drove back to home depot for more bags of cement. 46 bags to be exact. Holy cow - I poured 46 - 60lbs bags of cement mix into the cinder blocks. This thing is not going to go anywhere, ever!

The one tool I didn't have was a big enough masonry saw. I had hired a helper and his brother let me borrow his. Lucky break, because that little thing I had would have slowed me down considerably. All in all it took me a day and a half to put up the walls and enclosures for the oven. The surprise of the weekend was that I spent a considerable amount more on cement than I did on the cinder blocks. That didn't even occur to me before I started. Well that's a layman for you :)

I loved standing next to the walls at the end of the day and feel the heat coming off the curing cement. Gave me a sense of accomplishment. Not bad for an old dude who pushes paper for a living.

Rocks, Cement and "The Rammer"

Well, a week has gone by and I can report progress. After finishing the frame for the foundation and the putting 1000 lbs of gravel into it I realized that I dug a little deep and needed another 1000 lbs of gravel to reduce the need for too much cement. So back to Home Depot and more bags of the lovely stuff.

And then my 12 year old alter ego came out and thought it a good idea to rent a power tool called the Rammer. I had seen it in one of my many stops at Home Depot. For those of you who don't know what it looks like, picture a gas motor attached to a large spring that has a flat piece of steel on the bottom. From afar it looks like an upside down nail with a motor on top. It weighs a ton and was a bitch to transport in my car. (just ask the wifey, she had to help me schlep the thing)
You turn the motor on, wait for it to warm up and turn the throttle. That thing starts jumping like a bull in heat. And I mean jumping. Clearly not what I needed to pat down the gravel in my little back yard project, but after a while I got the hang of it and after about 30 minutes the floor evened out and it did the trick.

On Tuesday my friend Frank showed up with his knowledge of how to wire for electricity and lay a gas line without creating an explosion. It helps to know people who know stuff. Yesterday, he and a helper came by with 36 -90lbs bags of concrete mix and spent 6 hours mixing up tons of this stuff to pour the foundation. All I had to do is water the surface at the end of the day and enjoy the pretty flat finish.

In the meantime I went back to home depot and ordered 3 pallets of cinder blocks for delivery tomorrow. I also purchased more rebar and cross-bars to tie the whole thing together. I borrowed a hammer drill from another friend (thanks Ron) to sink the rebar vertically into the fresh concrete foundation. The next two days are being spent with me trying to build the counter for the whole project. Since I lost all of May to waiting and planning I have an ambitious June schedule. On Sunday night I would like to be done with the wall construction so I can prep for the "floating cement ceiling" which I will attempt to do next weekend.