Coteswold/Bath Stone Clad Oven - Quick and Easy?! Wiltshire

[tomasz]

Hi All,

(I will post pictures of this over the weekend.....)

I live in Wiltshire in a 18C stone house. I have an area in the garden I am preparing for a cooking area/WFO. It is in between a part ruined outhouse and a shed. Both in stone with a stone wall behind. I have dug it out and have lots of big stones which I planned on using to build the pizza oven with. I have been doing research and discovered that this wouldn't work because it is limestone (I think). With other on-going projects I don't have the time or money to go all out and buy loads of materials or spend lots of time mixing clay so my latest idea is to buy one of those cheapo terracotta ovens but insulate underneath and around the outside and clad it in the stone so it is in keeping with the area.

Do you think this would work or would adding the extra insulation cause it to crack under the heat? Any other ideas would be most welcome. I would love just to build it out of some of the big stones and if this would work for a while then I would still consider doing this. I don't plan on using it loads so even if I got 20 cooks from it that would probably be fine.

Thanks in advance and I will make sure I follow through with a build thread.

[tomasz]

Some images of the space and stones. Sorry they are in the wrong orientation!

[wnay]

If you fill the void between the oven and the stone with vermiculite I'm sure it will be fine. It's about £20 for a 60L bag I think, Amazon was cheap and they also stock it at Jewsons.

[devontiger]

One like this Tom.

[tomasz]

I ended up finding someone fairly local to me making them. Put it in a temporary location and fired it up last night with a couple of extra layers of quarry tiles. Def need to work on my pizza handling skills and I do think I need to insulate the outside as I don't think it was hot enough so I think may make up a vermiculite mix then build around stones as described. Might also make a door.

What do you think? I will try again at the weekend with a bigger fire.

[tomasz]

Also does anyone have an opinion on a flue. The internal diameter on this is very small. I wonder whether I need to open it up and add a proper chimney.