Hello From Ontario Introductions Discuss Hello From Ontario in the Good Background Information forums; Welcome Pat, I had a pool dug out the year before we built the oven. I had a 5 foot ...

[Antonio D.]

Welcome Pat,
I had a pool dug out the year before we built the oven. I had a 5 foot deep hole dug and we dumped all the leftover concrete in with rebar. so it's pretty solid. It is a bit of an overkill but at the time it was cheap and easy.
I would suggest going with a footing below the frostline (about 4 feet).
block up to hearth level and fill block with concrete. Styrofoam insulate on both sides of the block that is below ground level. When you pour the concrete
pad put a sheet of styrofoam between the concrete and the ground. Build your hearth and oven according to the plans.

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

welcome pat and antonio,,,

glad to have you guys here,,, enjoy the site, when you finish the building there is plenty of info here on cooking too
Enjoy
Mark

[Pat B.]

Thanks guys!
Antonio, do you think I should go thicker than 6 inches on the footing?

[dmun]

I am especially interested in seeing what other northerners have done to build a secure foundation.

If I may be so bold, I'd suggest the Canadian method of shallow frost protected foundations, If you want more that the slab-on-crushed-rock method.

ESB: Frost-Protected Shallow Foundations

[Antonio D.]

Hi Pat,
6" is more than enough for a footing.
Where about in Ontario are you?

Tony

[Pat B.]

I live in Sudbury.
I will definitely have a look at the document posted by dmun.

[Les]

Originally Posted by Dmun

If I may be so bold, I'd suggest the Canadian method of shallow frost protected foundations, If you want more that the slab-on-crushed-rock method.
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David - this is an incredible find. It would have saved a lot of people a butt load of work. Makes a lot of sense on how it would work.

Les...

[Neil2]

I, for one, think the frost issue is over rated. A monolithic 5 inch slab slab sitting on well compacted or solid native ground is more than adequate. Unless you have extremely unusual soil conditions, settlement is more of a concern than frost heaving.

Has anyone ever heard of any stand alone "slab only" oven being affected by frost heaving ?.

[dmun]

Has anyone ever heard of any stand alone "slab only" oven being affected by frost heaving ?.

I've seen a butt-load of masonry barbeques cracked and tipped. The masonry barbeque
phase was what, in the 1950's? Now it may be that these weren't built on proper footings at all, they just laid rocks down and started mortaring them together, but they are, a lot of them, distressed 60 years down the road.

I think a layer of crushed rock under your slab, and proper slab reinforcement, are cheap insurance against masonry failure. More than that, unless you're dealing with code and inspectors, is overkill in my opinion.

[Neil2]

"More than that, unless you're dealing with code and inspectors, is overkill in my opinion."

I agree. In addition, I think that most building codes and local inspectors won't care too much about foundations for a stand alone oven. Their issues will be mostly related to fire safety.