Well i quess im building an oven!

[FIREANDFLAMES]

Hello all my name is lance and i found this site a few days ago and im gonna build an oven! I have been a cook(chef) for about 11 years and have used two different ovens during this time. As all here will agree the food coming out of them is second to none.I also have building experience and friends with all kinds of skills, and huge set of.........hands. Well on with my question, i just wanted to run by my insulation plan on my barrel oven design. I want to;

1. place heavy duty foil over the brick
2. place ceramic fire blanket over the foil
3. place chicken wire or such over blanket
4. a thick layer 8-10 cm of perilite/verculite (spelling?)
5. stucco scratch coat
6. stucco finish

Is this god, bad, ugly........discuss.

[Xabia Jim]

Welcome Lance, sounds like another baker. Is this for at home or work? It will nice to have another chef on board.

That sounds okay but I throw in some questions. How do you keep from compressing the blanket? Is there some kind of spacer used? I have not used the blanket so others will provide better advice. Do you put anything over the blanket to separate the wet stucco from the blanket.

And how about chicken wire in the stucco coat? It's cheap enough. do others use that?

I'll be watching the responses as I'm thinking about a portable/mobile oven design.

[Xabia Jim]

I just noticed Edson....my brother is in Edmonton...which way are you?

[FIREANDFLAMES]

Hey i am 2 hrs west of edmonton. As for the questions it for my back yard, yes the ceramic blanket will be somewhat flattened, and chicken or diamond mesh will be used. I watched the process of the pizza oven being installed at the rest. i worked at but it was one of those four peice italy made ones and the inside looks like the refractory we have at my current job (power engineer). Well im gonna start diggin on the weekend, i cant imagine ill get very deep right now but every little bit counts!

[talisker63]

Your plan is almost identical to my barrel. But I placed the blanket on the brick and then the foil on the blanket. I wanted to keep the moisture from the vermiculite render layer off the blanket.
The tricky part was getting the chicken wire on without too many holes getting poked in the foil.

Oh yeah don't try and put the foil on with a windy day like I did - doh!

[FIREANDFLAMES]

Hey thats a better idea i will put the blanket first! I will start my picture diary today starting with site location......! So the insulation plan is ok? Cool.

[FIREANDFLAMES]

I was walking by one of the wood burners at the mill i work at and saw a whole stack of fire brick that has not been moved for years (i can tell by the dust build up) so i checked the operating temps for the wood burners and average temp is 822 degrees C. Do you guys think i could use some of these bricks for the oven? The fire brick i am buying from a brick dealer said the ones im buying were good up to 1000C, so i could build up the back wall with the ones from work? What do you think.......

[dmun]

Wood fired ovens rarely get above 1000 degrees F (540c). Used bricks are fine for most applications.

I don't get the foil layer at all. Aluminum foil disintegrates in contact with portland cement. Even if you found a foil that would last, why would you want it? In domestic insulation it's used as a vapor barier. Ovens get damp, and damp ovens take longer to heat up.

I used one layer of foil between my inner (refractory) arch and my outside decorative arch, to maintain a slip plane. I knew the foil would rot out, but I mostly didn't want those two parts mortared together.

Everything else sounds good.

[FIREANDFLAMES]

Well then i will take some home with me. So you are saying just foil the brick then insulate with blanket so those two layers dont stick to each other when i coat it with perilite so there is some give with thermal expantion. By the way why do i get logged off automatically after like ten minutes?

[Dutchoven]

Fireandflames
Have you downloaded the FB Pompeii oven plans? If not do so, it is a great resource and really will spell out how best to tackle this project...find it at the FB store...download is free or you can be a good guy and pay a little bit to help support a great charitable cause!...either way we will certainly continue to help!
Best
Dutch