Just got 3 tons of bricks...

[phoenixzorn]

I'm not quite sure how much is really usable as structural bricks or hearth bricks, but I have a trailer full of used, some full, some half, mostly broken bricks. The best part is, they were free... 100% free... so I'm not complaining that most of them are broken... a bit more mortaring work for me is all.

There's only two problems...

1. My wife is entirely sick of me starting new projects, and not finishing old ones, and she thinks it's going to happen again with the oven. Little does she know how motivated I am to build a brick oven. She won't help me decide where to build it, and she surely won't be helping me build it... It's kinda like "The Little Red Hen".... I might just have to tell her she doesn't get to taste of the fruits of my labor. =)

2. I have NO idea where I should put this thing... and while it only took an hour to load up the trailer... I know it's going to take me far longer to unload it.

A. I have a very long, but narrow back yard... 390-odd feet from the back door to the back of the property, but only 88 feet wide. Directly behind the back door is a concrete-paver patio that was here when we moved in. It would make a perfect starter for the oven, but we have aspirations of building an addition on our house, and that is where it's going to go.... I'd get started on it now, but we don't have money to pay our taxes, let alone start building an addition on our house.

B. A bit further back, we have a garden that we built, surrounded by 3 very large pine trees. The trees are far enough apart that I wouldn't worry about them catching fire even if the oven wasn't insulated... the lowest boughs are about 15-20 feet up, so even the chimney wouldn't be too tall. There is already a pile of bricks in that area, and it would look more "in-place" there than on the patio...

C. To the right of the garden is our fire pit table, on a lannon stone "patio", and to the right of that is the pond. Directly behind the garden is the big fire pit, 8 feet in diameter, that I just made a couple weeks ago. It is about 125 feet from the back of the house, which my wife thinks is too far away to build the oven on or next to... I think it would be cool to have a big bonfire in the pit and be cooking Pizzas right next to it, but apparently she doesn't share my enthusiasm.

So where should I be building this thing, and how should I go about removing the bricks from the trailer and sorting them into different piles - full, half, broken?

If I don't intend to use the hearth base as wood storage, does anyone have plans or pictures of progress for a solid base made out of gravel or broken bricks? I know I can just throw them all in a pile and pour cement over it, but that kinda defeats the purpose of having a nice looking backyard oven. I want to build a solid stand, about 4' x 4' x 4', and put a 39-42" oven on it.

How fast it goes from building an oven in a restaurant to building one in your back yard.... the restaurant idea has evolved and devolved too much in the last couple days to be viable anymore, but there is a new plan.... and it starts in my back yard.