West Yorkshire dry stone build

[pistolpete]

Nice day time shot with the wood store stocked up



Am I meant to have even more drying out fires, up to about 6 now since I closed the dome off and tonight will be number 2 with the outer render on. Was hoping for a pizza tomorrow.

Have noticed that my chumney is not drawing as much smoke up as it should. Any ideas? Am I expecting too much. Its about 50/50 with half going up the chimney and half out the front. Pondered making the hole at the base of the chimney bigger as its only 1 brick in size.

Been let down by the pizza peel I have on order, won't be here for the weekend so going to have to improvise something...

Pete

[tonyb]

At some point you are going to have to risk it, whether 8 is enough or not is a bit like asking the proverbial ball of string question. I did about a week's worth of fires before firing up fully (fiercely!), I got a few surface cracks in the render but nothing structural, at least as far as I can tell and that was over 2 years ago. No one can guarantee whether its ready.

Don't expect too much with your first pizza, there is still a lot of water in the structure which will gradually evaporate over a few full firings. My first pizza cooking session was a disaster, I didn't realise how much heat these things need to get up to full temperature. A sure sign of readiness is when the soot is burnt off the ceiling. However, don't worry if it doesn't turn out right this time, you'll soon be a master pizza baker enjoying the best tasting pizza in the area.

Wrt the chimney, your flue is relatively quite short so not very effective, same as most of our wfo flues. Increasing the vent size will help but not necessarily materially, flue heights probably need to be 3m+ to be effective. Any improvement is better than none, and you will probably find that as the wfo temp increases and you have less smoke that the flue will get, or at least appear to get more efficient. One thing I did to try and help was to make a sort of half door for the front using the template I used for the arch and just hung it on the arch as a sort of smoke deflector it did help but I don't bother with it now.

Good luck.

[cannyfradock]

Pete

I always like to add my twopenneth worth but I wouldn't be able to add any more than Tony B's comment. Take into account his comment..."you will probably find that as the wfo temp increases and you have less smoke...." .....The more you use the oven, the more water it will release from the bricks and mortar, the more massed heat your oven will hold.....and the more efficient your chimney will become.

Terry