On May 26, 3:00?pm, "Andy Phillips" wrote:
Hi,
I have a pizza oven made from refractory cement (seehttp://www.purimachos.demon.co.uk/pizza.htm). This works OK, but the walls
are not thick enough to retain much heat - therefore, having heated the
oven with a wood fire and raked it out, it's only possible to cook about two
pizzas before it's cooled down. I'd like to be able to cook at least four
pizzas and maybe some bread afterwards. I therefore need to thicken the wall
to increase the heat capacity - I thought by adding at least one course of
bricks around the sides and top of the oven, followed by an inch or so of
render. Question is, do I need to use special heat-proof bricks (eg
firebricks) and cement, or can I get away with normal house bricks and
mortar? I'm concerned that the mortar and render will crack - when in use,
the outer wall of the oven gets too hot to touch for more than an instant -
I would guess about 100-140C.
Any advice appreciated.
Andy

Andy, What a cute oven. I amde a adobe oven from the sunset adobe
oven plans, but mine is not true to the ploans but close. I use mine
quite a bit. It is permenent in the garden outside the house door.

But to your situation. I think I would wall up the stand with
playwood and fillit with sand. great theraml mass. Then I would
stretch some chicken wire or hardware cloth over the whole thing,
except place of the chimmney, and cover the hwole thing with 2-3
inches of concret, mud and straw mixture. Mine has more mud and
concrete in it. During hard winters you might get some cracks but
they can be filled with concrete eaily to remedy that. Mine
definately is not as cute as yours but man does it hold heat and I can
do pizzas, then a big beef roast and 10lb of potatos after. Check out
the sunset article as a place to start. I can email you a photo of
mne if you like. It is nothing fancy simply functional. I am
thinking of covering it with broken dishes and pttery next time I have
cracks to repair. PaM