Hoping to choose & begin soon in Chch NZ. Thoughts required.

[uk_exile]

We decided we wanted a pizza oven after seeing a demo at a building expo but their commercially built oven was too expensive ($4-8k just for the oven). Then found The Shed magazine articles and began planning how to build our own. Even managed to score some house bricks free from the recent earthquakes. However more recently discovered this website & that The Shed design using standard house bricks isn’t likely to be long lasting, and doesn’t have insulated base etc. Given the time and expense we’d like something that will last and work really well so we’ll now looking to two options
1) Building a Pompeii, or
2) Using a precast kit
Precast would be something like Ovens - Welcome to the website of Hard Yards, manufacturers of Wood Fired Pizza Ovens, Ornamental Outdoor Furniture, and Wood & Gas Fired Braziers - Hard Yards, manufacturers of Wood Fired Pizza Ovens, Outdoor Furniture & Fire Pit Tables). The almost complete kit is tempting at $1850 inc GST as it’s quite likely cheaper than building a Pompeii with fire bricks being $5 each.
Any kiwi’s on this forum used the Hardyards kit ? Or similar ? Canterbury Clay Pavers have something very similar but not a complete kit. Dome & arch is $711.11 + GST & they estimated $1500ish for everything.
I contacted the NZ dealer for Do It Yourself - DIY Woodfired Pizza Oven Kits - Mediterranean Woodfired Ovens but that kit is $2900 inc GST
The other NZ one I’ve found is Pizza Oven Kitset List and Price at $2990 inc GST

Have tried contacting Forno Bravo NZ too but no success. Do they still exist ? Perhaps it just time of year, Summer holidays ?

The Pompeii could last decades or more but not sure about the cast domes. Any expereicnes with them long term ?

As far as design style goes we’re wanting contemporary. Most on here seem to be very traditional olde world, exposed brick, stone, curves etc. Ours will be housed in steel framed Hardie board box and lightly rendered. Straight edged to give contemporary look. Being near coast the easterly breeze is cool most evenings so we’ll be creating a protective courtyard using block walls. Maximum 2m high as above this needs building consent from city council. Wanted a partial roof too but that would need a resource consent requiring approval from all neighbours, etc hence decision to just have a fabric shade sail over it.

I’ve attached 2 photos of where it will go (1 prior to recent window & door replacement) and two sketches of our current ideas.

I can for see this project taking at least 12mths to complete…………and costing somewhere in range of the first commercial oven we saw……..

[uk_exile]

Another question, concrete block walls 2m high, do I need to mortar each block together, reinforcing steel and fill, or can I just dry stack, reinforce and fill ? Will be rendered.

Bearing in mind we've had almost 4000 earth quakes in city since Sept 4th
Canterbury Quake Live

Does mortar between each make cracks less likely ?

[Lburou]

Originally Posted by uk_exile

Another question, concrete block walls 2m high, do I need to mortar each block together, reinforcing steel and fill, or can I just dry stack, reinforce and fill ? Will be rendered.

Bearing in mind we've had almost 4000 earth quakes in city since Sept 4th
Canterbury Quake Live

Does mortar between each make cracks less likely ?

Good looking back yard you have there. The windows made a big improvement in looks.

I'm sure dmun will chime in here, but what you need in those walls is steel reinforcement and a good footing. Then, fill enough cavities (with steel in them) to make it stable no matter what.

Somebody will chime in here real soon with a prescription for your wall construction. What size are your quakes?

[uk_exile]

Thanks re comment about our existing outdoors area. We were going for standalone pizza oven but have decided while doing it that it's about time the whole area got a makeover since we've changed the look of the house so much in the last two years. The house had been looking quite dated (built 1970) and I'd become fed up burning off old paint, sanding, priming, undercoating and top coating the wooden windows neglected by previuos owners. So we replaced the old arched wooden windows and french doors with double glazed aluminum windows and bifold doors. The bifolds make a huge difference. Very pleased with them. It's great being able to open up the whole dining room wall rather than just the two french doors in centre. The roof wasn't in great condtion either (old decromastic steel tiles where most stone chip had fallen off, badly faded and had been recoated sometime in past) so it was replaced with new Gerard tiles. Gutters replaced and colorsteel fascia added. Strangley an elderly neighbour wanted us to keep the old arched windows !!!! House has gone from 1970's to 2000s and from retro much closer to the contemporary style we prefer :-)

I knew I'd need decent foundations and plenty of steel reinforcing plus filling. My question related to need to mortar, or the labour saving method of just stacking all the blocks directly together (avoiding mortar).

Lived most of life (except 6yrs in UK) and only ever felt 3 small non damaging earthquakes. That was until Sept 4th 2010 when a previously unknown fault line appeared close to city with 7.1 magnitude quake, knocking down many buildings and causing large amounts of liquidfaction in some suburbs. I'm very lucky to be in suburb with good soil and only have very very minor interior plaster cracks. No lives lost though, mostly due to occuring at 4:30 in morning and our generally good building standards. In comparison the less 7.0 magnitude Haiti quake killed 250000+ people.
To further answer you question re size most aftershocks now magnitude 3 to 4 so the type you don't feel unless stationary.
Quake Years has some great graphs of what's happening.
Canterbury Quake Live
Canterbury Quake Live

[uk_exile]

I had a chat with a friendly structural engineer and he said definitely mortar between each block while laying them. Said the mortar does add a small amount of strength (but negible in overall context) but it's main reason is to prevent movement while filling and would be very difficult to get a vertical wall without mortar due to block tolerances

[Lburou]

Originally Posted by uk_exile

I had a chat with a friendly structural engineer and he said definitely mortar between each block while laying them. Said the mortar does add a small amount of strength (but negible in overall context) but it's main reason is to prevent movement while filling and would be very difficult to get a vertical wall without mortar due to block tolerances

I'd be interested to hear what his recommendation for steel reinforcment was.....?

[uk_exile]

For foundation sizing, reinforcing in foundation & wall he simply recommended grabbing leaflet from local supplier or from their websites. Also suggested getting precast concrete slabs made off site and craned in might be a viable option for me rather than making walls with blocks.

[uk_exile]

These links might be of interest to many

Precast outdoor fires
http://www.firth.co.nz/media/101678/...ochure_web.pdf

Fences, foundations, blocks reinforcing etc
http://www.firth.co.nz/media/69837/F...20Oct%2009.pdf

Block specs
http://www.firth.co.nz/media/69313/H...0Sept%2009.pdf

[Lburou]

Originally Posted by uk_exile

For foundation sizing, reinforcing in foundation & wall he simply recommended grabbing leaflet from local supplier or from their websites. Also suggested getting precast concrete slabs made off site and craned in might be a viable option for me rather than making walls with blocks.

Sounds expensive to me, compared to doing it yourself.

[uk_exile]

He thought it may not be more expensive as I'd need to buy blocks, reinforcing rod & the materails for concrete fill all at full price whereas a precast contractor would get much better material deals, could use cheaper reinforcing mesh rather than rods & be able to easily use their factory formwork is keep to standard sizes. Being small panels could use delivery truck Hiab rather than mobile crane to place them too. Save me heaps of time. I'll definitely get a quote.