Pour / Casting the Oven Floor

[asudavew]

Originally Posted by JamesLynn

It's a small small world. Today I ventured out to a local refactory supplier to pick up some supplies. The person assisting me was extremely helpful and knowledgable about WFO's. During our discussions the subject turn to the topic of casting an oven floor. He mentioned he had replied to the same question that morning. It turns out I was talking to "Johnny the oven man" himself! What are the chances of running into the person who responded to your question on the same day?

Now that's funny! And quite odd. Are you sure that you aren't stalking johnny?



Don't forget pictures of your build! We like pics!


Dave

[james]

How cool is that. We're pizza oven central -- you can't get away from us.
James

[andrew doeven]

Hi there James, I'm about to use a styrofoam insulation base [as in heavy duty cool room panel 4 inches thick ] and pour a concrete slab on top 3 '' thick ,then 3 '' of fire brick and then a beautiful fire slab on top of that. what do you think Cheers andrew. The oven will be 36'' x 48'' as in igloo dome. cheers again

[dmun]

If you're putting the brick floor down anyway, why cover it up with ugly refractory? As another poster said, you're not making pancakes on the floor.

And offhand, it sounds like you have too much thermal mass on top of your insulation, even without the refractory slab on top.

[RTflorida]

Andrew, I think you are going to need an endless supply of free wood. You are putting your insulation under 6" of slab/firebrick and a fire slab (not familiar with this), I'm guessing at least a 7"-8" thick mass to heat up each time - a huge mass for a non-commercial bread oven....Very difficult to reach and maintain pizza temps, although it would work well for extended bread bakes.
Your insulation needs to be under the cooking surface if you want to do pizza well...As a compromise (decent pizza and multiple bread bakes) you could probably go with up to 4" of mass, then the insulation. This would still require several hours to heat up.
I would seriously consider building from the Pompeii oven plans available here (free at the Forno Bravo store). This is a great compromise for multipurpose use.

I'm also questioning you insulation choice...anything styrofoam is not suitable for the high temps associated with a wood fired oven...it will melt. Again, check out the available plans and read, read, read, the many informative threads on this site...there is a wealth of information here that has been proven to work.

RT