Ahoy from North Yorkshire

[bighairyal]

Ahoy from the soggy North - I have to say, this is quite a fascinating forum

I'm in the market for a DIY clay oven. I have a brick base already built - but photos will not follow until it has been carefully rendered, as although sturdy and fit for purpose, it is an aesthetic embarrassment...... I can work with wood all day long and maintain cheerfulness, but bricks and mortar make me a miserable boy. That said, the rendering will probably be just as frustrating

A final word - I've been googling the subject of DIY wood fired ovens for many weeks now and it was some time before I discovered you. Is there anyway to get you more visible?

[Fat Bob]

When I built there was even less info available - it's quite good to be in a small group of the super elite - you wouldn't want every Tom, Dick and Harry to have a WFO!

[cannyfradock]

Hello Al.....welcome to the new forum.

Our old forum.......... woodovenukforum.forumup.co.uk/index.php?mforum=woodovenukforum used to pop up on the first page of most WFO related searches. Unfortunately our old forum provider flooded our forum with nasty ads so we moved here. (The old forum will always be on-line for reference). We haven't as yet registered our new forum with search engines such as google etc. If this forum becomes as popular as the old one perhaps there will be no need as once you register a site to the search engines, you tend to get all the bots and spammers with it......we're keeping an eye on how our site progresses.

When you start your clay oven build can you create your own thread here.. ukwoodfiredovenforum.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=ceovens .....as yet we haven't any builds yet....but that will soon change and you will get a lot of support from many people there.

Terry

[bighairyal]

Cheers Terry! I was a (very recent) member of the old board, but did nothing more than drunkenly post something about rapid setting concrete on a barrel oven thread.

I shall loosely be following the following (and rather splendid) plan:

woodovenukforum.forumup.co.uk/about1061-woodovenukforum.html

The main difference shall be an approximate 50% reduction in engineering quality and attention to detail, mostly dictated by lack of time - I work offshore 4 weeks on, 2 weeks off, and live in a wet part of the country - so my build windows are few and far between.

My first reduction in quality involves using some spare decking boards on top of my brick base in place of the concrete plinth most use as a base for the oven itself. They are sturdier than most decking boards (38mm deep) and I shall be using 2 or 3 layers of them for added strength. A judiciously thick layer of insulation will also be used to help prevent the boards getting too hot!

If I'm honest, when next I build a WFO, I shall build the entire base/frame out of sleepers. I cannot abide bricks and bricklaying.

Happily though, we have clay as thick and dense as clotted cream fudge not far below our soil surface - so I should not struggle for materials.

[rivergirl]

Hi and welcome !! I built my clay oven about 18 months ago ( well worth the effort) there are some videos on you tube as well, good luck and let us know how you get on !

[turkey]

welcome aboard, sounds like a very interesting build!,
don't be shy of uploading in progress pics, its amazing how brickwork looks ok in pics, mine almost looks normal, but up close its Frankensteins monster.