Oven Rises From the Ground-Toluca Lake CA Brick Oven Photos Discuss Oven Rises From the Ground-Toluca Lake CA in the Good Background Information forums; Having poured over this site for months and taking the first tentative steps over the last few weeks I figured ...

[Knoxley]

Having poured over this site for months and taking the first tentative steps over the last few weeks I figured I would post my progress thus far. Just finished pouring the foundation this morning and am excited with the progress thus far.

Having surveyed the backyard for locations, I felt having it accessible to the back patio without actually taking up any space on the patio would be best. Here are the first few exploratory steps trying to figure out what I was going up against. If you look really carefully, you will see the outdoor fireplace in the back corner of the picture. You will also see my first prototype that I built out of bricks and tin foil. The pizzas were great but it took hours to heat up and would cool down far too quickly. Thus the new project.



Happy with the location I set to digging up the bricks and breaking through the small brick and concrete retaining wall. You will notice that there was another support wall under the retaining wall. I decided to build directly on top of this since it was still stable and level. I bolted rebar into this existing slab so that the new foundation would anchor to it.



This is my original concrete form. It didn't work out too well. Way too flimsy and would have required mountains of concrete to fill.



Unfortunately, I was too quick and set up the new form, plastic sheeting and rebar mesh to take any pics. All I am left with is the final pour pic. Doesn't seem to want to go anywhere.



Next week am planning on laying out the first few courses of concrete block dry stack.

Stay tuned.

[Jed]

Knoxley,

Welcome to the forum, and great job with the pictures. It sure helps to see how the oven will fit into the patio space. And it looks like you will have a great party space when the oven is complete!

Keep up the good work.

JED

[fxpose]

Right on! Here's to another L.A. build. I'm not far from you. I just got done pouring my stand.
Good luck on your build!

[Knoxley]

Thanks for the encouragement. May need to start an LA Pizza oven club.

Here is a pic of the prototype oven I built when the bug first bit. It worked perfectly once it got up to temp, but would cool down almost right away. This fireplace will go back to being a fireplace once the new oven is complete. The difficulty will be in deciding which to burn the firewood in.

[fxpose]

Any progress on the Toluca Lake oven?

[Knoxley]

Oven continues its rise from the ground. This is actually an older picture. The concrete base is finished with most of the voids filled with concrete and rebar. This Saturday I am planning on doing the hearth pour if the forms go up quickly.

Inspector comes by to check out the work site. Making sure everything is to code. He approves.

[Knoxley]

Progress is flying right along. Just finished pouring the hearth.

A good view of the entire yard and how the oven fits in with all of the madness. My biggest concern are roots tearing the thing up. Since the foundation goes down quite deep and magnolia only roots down 12-18 inches I think I may have dodged that bullet.



Framed up the hearth in a couple of hours. Not as much rebar as some but the hearth is supported by several pieces of heavy duty angle iron and concrete board.



Post pour, puppy noses around to make sure everything is ship shape. Actually, he has a rat friend that has taken up residence in the brick/wood pile there to the right.

[WoodchuckDad]

That's really coming along. Having the tree there for shade will be great....but what about the heat from the chimney?

[fxpose]

Hey, that's a nice cozy location for your oven. What size oven are you building?

The morning weather has been so pleasant in L.A. lately that I've been working on my build at the crack of dawn each morning before heading into work.

George

[Dino_Pizza]

I agree: very nice setting for a wfo. I counted 6 cmu's and almost panicked until I saw the front picture. Your oven is just 4 bricks tall in the front. Is there going to be a brick patio or something poured up to the height of the brick that goes across the storage opening in front?

I bet your puppy is happy with all that work going on outdoors!

You've got a nice looking build going on, don't hesitate to ask any questions.

-Dino