James' Brick Oven Page

The oven that started it all...

This is the story of our oven. It all started when I had pizza in an oven like this in Germany. I was hooked and so started the quest to find a way to make a brick oven of my own. This oven was built using concrete blocks and refractory cement. The dome in the oven was made by shaping a mound of sand, pouring the concrete on top of the sand, letting it set and then removing the sand. This particular unit has the oven on the left and a Bar-B-Que on the right.

Welcome to my brick oven website.

This website is dedicated to all those people who have ever even dreamed of buildingtheir own brick oven. It can be done and there is help available. You will find that this oven is built basically to the plans available from Alan Scott of Oven Crafters. His book (written with Daniel Wing) is the basic brick oven builders bible. That book along with the brick oven group on Yahoo, web sites like this one and a few other resources will help you build your very own brick oven. Enjoy the site, email me if you would like some more information.

Attention Firefox Users: Some people have reported trouble seeing page 2 and forward.  Try using another browser to see the rest of the website.  I hope to have this fixed soon.

The Work Begins...

My oven started with site preparation including the removal of an old crab apple tree. Removing the stump proved to be a bigger task than I had anticiated. The roots grew every which way and every time I thought I had cut through the last one I found yet another. Finally the ground was ready and the base slab was poured. It is 5.5 inches thick and sits on 1.5 inches of styrofoam. Below that is another few inches of sand and gravel. The concrete is reinforced with rebar.

Oven placement...

In order comply with setback regulations I had to make room for the slab by cutting some of my existing patio away - a difficult job but it turned out fine in the end. After the slab comes came the block walls.