Hearth Design Philosophy

[Dino_Pizza]

Your Welcome, Kyle: Glad it's helpful.
BTW: welcome to the forum. Enjoy the planning stag. I found it as much fun as building. Don't hesitate to ask any questions as you're going thru the various posts.

Also, in looking at my floor plan of what I did and cooking with it, the only thing I would do different is that my oven landing between the 2 arches where I show a 15" dimension, I would have liked it 1-2" shorter. If it was 2" shorter, and with my tall and angled flu-box transition above it, it still would have drawn air/smoke really well and people with shorter arms could access more of the oven.

Also, as you can see by my drawing 4-1/2 by 5 concrete cmu (Concrete Masonry Unit, 16" block) could be smaller if you did an igloo type dome and not need extra few inches for framing the 'house' over it. I also like the ovens others build with the concrete base at an angle (45deg) for slightly smaller footprint.

So many great ideas on this forum. Too bad we usually can build only 1 .

-Dino

[Kyle Dillehay]

Those are great suggestions! I really like the smaller footprint idea. The less concrete to mix the better for my back!
It is so hard to decide on a design there are so many creative possibilities.

[smallholder123]

thanks so much i came upon your post just in time i start the base next week and having seen your plans for spliting the storage has made me rethink ,i want two openings so the wood can be loaded at the back and have time to dry as some of the wood will no doubt be a little wet and can be unloaded at the front a lot dryer kind of rotating your wood stock thanks again

[Amac]

Hi
Another newbie here - and what a great site - today I finished the hearth slab. Iused a 4.5" vermiculite cement mix 5'x5' approx on top of a 4" concrete slab, but I surrounded it by 6" of concrete (about 12" at the front) so that I would not be building on the vermiculite which has a kind of spongy feel and seems a bit fragile. The (36") oven will of course rest on the vermiculite
No stand since my garden is sloped which means no convenient wood storage, and also the oven floor will be a little lower than I would have preferred. I have tried posting on other threads but for some reason my posts are vanishing into thin air so this is somewhat of a test. I will post a photo later if this works
Aidan