Building a Pizza Oven yourself
In my last post where I showed you the before and after of the garden. I’ve had lots of questions about the Pizza Oven, here is the second post about The Bungalow Garden. We always knew before we started the garden, that we wanted to build a pizza oven in our back yard. Once the patio was complete it was time to mark out where the Pizza oven was going to be laid out and also where to dig. Needless to say when under taking this kind of work, contact your local authorities to check if its allowed to build an oven in your back yard. and some consider Pizza Ovens to be the same as Fire Pits. Making sure you build a good distance away from a main dwelling is also usually advised.
What you will need to build your own pizza oven
For the base:
- 14 x 80lb Bag of 5000PSI Concrete Mix
- 30 60lb Bag of Standard Concrete Mix* (Base Slab)
- 20 60lb Bag of Standard Concrete Mix* (Core Fill)
- 1 60 lb Bag of Portland Cement
- 1 4 Cubic Ft Bag of Vermiculite or Perlite
- 6 60lb Bag of Standard Mortar Mix*
- 1 1.5 Cubic Yd of Crushed 3/4” – 1” Gravel*
- 40 8” x 8” x 16” Block
- 5 8” x 8” x 8” Block
- 15 Rebar – 16” x ½”
- 4 Rebar – 24” x ½”
- 10 Rebar – 36” x ½”
- 9 Rebar – 44” x ½”
- 5 Rebar – 48” x ½”
- 5 Rebar – 60” x ½”
- 1 Package of Rebar Wire
- 1 2” x 24” x 8’ EPS Foam Sheeting (Styrofoam)
- 2 4’ x 8’ x 7/16” OSB (or Plywood)
- 2 2” x 4” x 8’ Stud (1.5” x 3.5” x 8’) (Use Straight Studs )
- 7 2” x 6” x 10’ Stud (1.5” x 5.5” x 10’) (Use Straight Studs)
- 3 2” x 2” x 24” Wood Stakes (6 per Bundle)
- 1 1lb. Box of 4D – 1.5” Nails (or similar size)
- 1 1lb. Box of 10D – 3” Nails (or similar size)
- 2 10oz General Purpose Adhesive (Liquid Nails)
- 1 9’ x 12’ Plastic Sheeting – 2 Mil
- 4 Rebar Covers (or old tennis balls)
- Wheelbarrow
- Circular Saw
- Shovel(s)
- Hand Tamper
- 5lb Mallet
- Rubber Gloves
- Hammer
- 5 Gallon Bucket(s)
- Caulking Gun
- Framing Square
- 4’ Level Masonry Trowel
- Respirator Safety Glasses
- Wire Cutter
- 4” Blade Utility Knife
- Tape Measure
- Construction Sponge
- Angle Grinder w/ Metal Cutting Blade (rebar)
- 1 Marker, Pencil or Stick of Chalk
Instructions for the base.
For the full instructions you can visit Brickwood Ovens, download their instructions and get building. They estimate the finished cost of a pizza oven to be around $950. We found when building ours that the 8% overage in certain materials meant we therefore, had quite a bit of materials left over. to reduce the price, for instance, buying the materials in bulk and then selling on the excess via Facebook Market place for instance can save you some money on this project. You can also build the materials up over time to spread out the cost, rather than purchasing in one hit. We sourced our materials from Home Depot. You can just see here our hand prints in the cement.
Working on the Oven top
Once the base was completed we began work on the top, the most important part for this was the form in which we built around. We bought a package deal from Brickwood Ovens that you can find here, it came with the oven Chimney, Pizza oven door, fire blanket, cooking tools and the form to build around.
- 1 Mattone Barile Foam Form
- 72 Standard Size Brick (Frame) 8 x 21/4 x 35/8
- 110 Tan Firebrick (Oven)
- 50 Tan Firebrick (Cooking Surface)
- 3 80lb Bag of Stucco or Mortar Mix
- 2 100lb Bag Silica Sand
- 2 50lb Bag Portland Cement
- 2 50lb Bag Hydrated Lime (Powder)
- 1 60lb Bag All Purpose Sand
- 2 50lb Bag Fire Clay
- 1 50sf Box of Ceramic Fiber Blanket
- 1 Roll of 2’ x 25’ Chicken Wire
- 1 Roll of Rebar Wire
- 1 2lb Bag All Purpose Flour
- 1 DuraTech 6” Exhaust Kit
- 1 Barile Series Oven Door
- Miter Saw Masonry Blade
- Wheelbarrow
- Masonry Trowel
- Caulking Gun
- Construction Sponge
- 4’ Level Tape Measure
- Rubber Mallet
- Rubber Gloves
- Wire Cutter Utility Blade
- 5 Gallon Bucket(s)
- Glasses & Respirator
Instructions for the top can be found here. Once the Pizza oven top is complete it is time to cut out the foam form, I imagined it just sliding out, but it doesn’t. After that, leave the oven for 5 days to dry out, so that it can cure. This was like torture as you just want to build that fire in your new oven! After the 5 days we worked on continuing to cure the oven by building fires inside over the course of 6 days, each day building a bigger fire inside but not cooking in it yet. These pre-cooking fires are essential for the oven to dry out, therefore, skipping this step can result in essentially a ruined pizza oven. We’ve had our oven 2 years now and we love it! To see how it looks now read our Garden post here.
