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Post by safetythird on May 10, 2020 12:59:20 GMT
Hi all, I'm Jay, live on a little farm down in North Devon and have spent the past few years renovating a house and building a small glamping business. This summer is a write off for us due to the virus so it's giving me the opportunity to get on with, amongst other things around the farm, the oven I planned 7 years ago when we moved here. There's been a space for it on the patio since we did that part of the renovation 5 years back now. The corner is infilled with rubble and gravel that's been there settling for years. I just need to dig some gravel out and throw some concrete in to create a level base to start from. I have several old storage heaters that we took out of the house and which have been stored in the barn. I'm currently figuring out if I have enough bricks to do the base but also cut and use for the dome as well. Looking through the forum, I don't think I've seen anyone use storage heater bricks for the dome before and wondering if that's a good idea or not. I need to draw everything out to scale but I'm probably looking at a 36" inside diameter for the dome, I think I can squeeze that into the space available. Somewhere in the back of the barn there's a 1m length of 7"ID twin wall flue so that's the chimney sorted. I've also got a pile of regular bricks to use for entrance and possibly found the base of the flue.
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Post by oblertone on May 11, 2020 10:40:16 GMT
Welcome from West Devon, as to your queries; heater blocks are fine for the floor but don't offer much advantage in building the dome as they need too many cuts. Most brick domes use solid (no frog) building bricks chopped in half and used with the 'factory' end facing inwards, this gives you a dome of about 4" thick which is about optimal. Hold them in place using Homebrew which is Sand/Cement/Clay/Lime in the ration 3-1-1-1 by volume, it's a cheap and easily workable mix perfect for ovens that rarely top 550c. Don't be taken in by refractory cement as it's expensive and unnecessary. My build (link below) used just this method and it works just fine.
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Post by safetythird on May 12, 2020 15:34:43 GMT
Thanks Oblertone, I'll have a read through your build. I've posted a photo of some clay bricks I have that don't have a frog but do have holes through them, not sure if those are useable.
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Post by oblertone on May 12, 2020 15:52:15 GMT
Avoid holes as well as frogs if you can, solids are often found at reclamation yards and don't dismiss damaged ones as you're going to split them anyway.
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