Oven in existing brick outbuilding

[Wlodek]

Dear All,

As I have been worrying about a suitable place for the oven, my genius wife activated her lateral thinking and suggested that I simply build it into the garden store.

The store is a brick building with slate apex roof and is ideally located. It is quite wide, but internally it only has 140cm depth. I can break out through the wall to create a suitable landing and chimney just in the right place.

I attach a Google Sketch-it rough sketch, not showing the actual oven in the shed, only just to ask my question better.

I think I can fit in a slightly elliptic oven inside, the shed would provide a sheltered wood store. The oven would have brick walls filled with perlite and no roof except for the shed roof.

There would be no problem with the chimney going through the roof as it would be all outside.

What do you think?

W.

[DrakeRemoray]

Looks like a great idea! Some things to thing about:
Chimney would need to be 2' taller than any roof within 10' of it. Of course that is US building code...yours, I am sure, would be metric
You should take a good look a Dmun's build, as his is sticking into his workshop. Great work on the google sketch it!

Drake

[Wlodek]

Thanks Drake.

Both for encouragement and for the pointers both to Dmun's design and to the Building Regs. It is 2.3m here (7' 9"), I have just checked, and I can keep that distance, I'll just make the "shelf" stick out a bit more.

My work with Sketch-it is rather rough, OK for the very first attempt of someone who never used a CAD before, but that's it. There are some odd lines across, walls with zero thickness etc., but gives the idea. I'll work on this. I need to work out how to draw a dome now!

All the best,

W.

[Wlodek]

Possibly bad news. In order to stick to the 2.3m the oven "landing" has to be nearly 1m deep. Either that or I would need to modify the shed roof a bit to accommodate the oven dome sticking out through the wall.

Question: Is a 1m deep landing a bad thing? Apart from needing longer handles on tools (2m!)

Also, I am very grateful to Dmun for the Sketch-up pointer. Makes the design/planning process so much easier even at the basic level.

Cheers,

W.

[maver]

If you look closely at Dmum(David)'s work he modified his wall so that the dome protrudes, then build a brick wall partly outside his shed and the chimney through that new outside brick wall. When you say 1m landing, do you mean 1m outside the dome or first a vent space and then another 1m in front of that? Would angling the flu (up to 30 degrees) for part of the chimney run solve your problem? If you use stainless flu pipe you have some options regarding chimney angle.

[Wlodek]

Thanks for this M.,

Sorry about being vague. 1m from dome opening to the edge of the landing, including the vent space. Sort of like in the attached cross-section jpg. Looks silly ... The garage is adjacent to the shed on the right and is quite high.

Also, silly me, can't find David's photos you mention. Just looking through his posts would take ages. Could you point me towards some, please?

I suspect that sloping flue might look odd in this setup, unless it is sloping inside some "square" brickwork. Which is an idea. I'll try to sketch this and report.

Thanks a lot,

W.

[dmun]

Wow. I'd second maver's suggestion that a taller chimney might be a better solution that building it that far out.

Here's a pic of what I did:



From this page (dmun's 36" geodesic oven):
I built my dome halfway in the "shed". This involved more demolition that you are proposing, but the news is that the first brick you bust out is the hardest.

I'd be concerned by how far the chimney is from the dome. It might work fine, but you'd be in uncharted waters.

I'm glad you're finding a use for sketch-up. It's very powerful from what little i've used it. CAD programs are like languages. Everyone thinks theirs is the best, and no one can understand anyone else's.

[Wlodek]

D'uh! I have looked at your geodesic dome (in awe), but its main feature distracted me from what I was looking for ...

Thanks. The good thing with the demolition here is that it is only a small lean-to apex shed, so even in the worst case the damage will be limited. Also, the roof construction is very light, so I won't need pillars.

I am trying to work-out and visualise (with Sketch-up) how much I have to stick the dome out to comply with Building Regs. It will be also useful because the back of the shed won't be cut-off and I can dry my wood there (and have a good warm den too).

Best wishes,

W.

[DrakeRemoray]

You could not have such a large landing, I think it would be impossible to load and operate the oven...

[Wlodek]

Right,

Played with Google Sketch-up and it looks feasible. Oven is half hidden in the shed but with no shed roof changes, just the wall. This now complies with Building Regs (I believe).

Minuses I can see:

• the cooking surface is low, but then I wanted it to be visible from sitting position - the oven is in a covered sitting area - a useful sort of fireplace, where you can see tasty things not just embers.
• the passage between the oven and the raised flower-bed/planter is narrow - can be sorted out
• anything else?

In the attached you have a "finished" version, with shed wall taken out for clarity and the sides of the insulating enclosure not included inside the shed - they will be there and filled with perlite too. You will also see the "naked oven" version, for interest. I have downloaded a sensible pizza oven component model from Google Sketch-up site and edited it quite a bit.

Does this look sensible now?

Best wishes,

W.