Advice please concrete block pavers for oven arch roof

[hunggaur]

Hi folks I have been having a good rad through the threads on here and am getting a little confused 

I want to build and arched pizza oven in the garden standing on a 4 ft high base. 

My idea was to build the base out of concrete blocks and then render it.

for the hearth I was going to use either fire bricks or blue clay pavers laid on a bed of sand.

for the main dome / arch I was going to use 50mm concrete block pavers laid on edge then place a concrete render over the top of the arch bonding and sealing everything together. 

will this work or am I barking up the wrong tree. 

Cheers for for all you advice and help

jon 

[oblertone]

The common view is that concrete pavers (?) will not stand the heat generated in a WFO which can reach + 500c and will break up into whatever you are cooking. Pressed red bricks without holes will however work just fine, try a reclamation yard for best prices and remember that you'll be cutting them in half, so damaged or half-bricks are ok and normally even cheaper.

[hunggaur]

Great thanks for the advice 

so any solid clay brick blue or read will do the job. 

You our say I have to cut them in half for the dome does this mean I am reducing the thickness down to 50mm 

if so I have some 10inch by 7 inch by 50mm solid  blue clay pavers I could split to give me a dome that is 50mm thick them cover this with cement/ render. 

having just seen another post I will lay a bed of perlite cement then cover the 50mm thick paver dome with vermiculite cement then a water proof render.

have I got this right or gone off at a tangent 

many thanks for for your advice 

cheers Jon 

[oblertone]

I'm old so I'll use imperial measurement: a standard house brick is 8" long, split in two you'll have two bricks 4" long with a good face and a rough face (where you split it). The dome is made using the good face inwards and the rougher end facing out, giving a dome 4" thick. This can then be smoothed over using the same homebrew* mortar used to build it.

My build which is on the link at the bottom of this post is an example of this type of dome construction: not a great example, but there are plentry of pictures.

* Homebrew is the name given to a mixture of 3 parts sand, one part lime, one part cement, one part clay by volume which a lot of oven builders use. The cement component will eventually burn out at the temperature of a WFO leaving the lime and clay to hold your dome together.

Your solid clay pavers may well suit being used as the floor of your oven rather than being chopped up.

Hope this helps.

[hunggaur]

That's great it's given a lot of thing to think about.

i will draw up some plans and post them when I decide what to do.

many many thanks

jon