Had our first real burn today. Lit the fire at about 9.45 modified the chimney and by 12.00 we had a floor temperature of 370c and a dome temp of 460c every thing was working really well. Pam and Colin, Rik and Caroline came around to help with the proceeding and help eat the pizza.We had a great day and enjoyed some tasty pizzas.

Added a top to the chimney. It looked OK but didn't let the fire draw properly so I took it of and will have to modify it.

A couple of coats of paint and a extra block on the chimney and it starting to look like a real pizza oven.

The FIRST pizza! It tasted sooo good! Hopefully next time the floor will be hot enough.

Wow! A serious fire and a seriously wet pizza oven! After about four hours of fire the dome was getting up to 430c, but the floor was still cold and steaming. About 8.00pm we were getting hungry, so we put a pizza stone in the oven on a rack and it heated up to 260c in no time.

It was only by chance that I found that you could get three quarter concrete blocks as they were delivered to Hocking & Rose by accident. They happened to be almost the exact size that I needed for the chimney. Anne had the idea of the concrete blocks and as you can see, it was perfect!

It has been a while since I have done any work on the oven and I missed taking a photo of the oven with the insulation and chicken wire over it. You can see I have laid the entrance floor and rendered the dome, what a job! They said to make it 50mm thick. Four hours later the render was starting to fall off in a few places. It was finally finished at 8.00pm with extra blisters. It looks a bit rough, but Anne said it was rustic and it looks OK.

You need to have a test firing at this stage any good fire bug will tell you that.I need to do some serious rending at this stage to add to the thermal mass and to stop any leaks.

The chimney arch is now built.

Tried to clean up inside the dome .Some days it would be a advantage to be tiny.

The plug is out and the dome did not fall in but ther a few dags hanging down that need to be cleaned up.

The dome is finished apart from some rendering. You can see the bricks holding up the form, which was holding up the dome until the keystone went in, in this photo. The form comes out tomorrow, fingers crossed it all stays up!

Fitting the Keystone

The keystone is locked in. Let's hope the dome holds when the form holding the dome up comes out!

Row eleven is laided and the Key stone is cut waiting to be fitted . I am sick of cutting bricks .

Rows nine and ten are done .A lot of cutting for row ten .

Ninth row . Started to lay the bricks without a form got four bricks layed and they fell in so then I built a form to support the bricks. Weather is looking like rain should I keep working or finish for the day.

Andy and Jen were up for a visit and with andy encouragement I was able to finish the seventh row and almost finish the eight row .

I now realise I have to cut every brick to keep the gaps between bricks to a minimun.Plus the angle on the bricks is getting steeper. Not sure how many more rows I will be able to lay without building a internal form.

Sunday afternoon after a shower it took 1.5 hours to lay 5 bricks .Lots of cutting where the dome meets the arch.

Managed to lay a few rows on saturday and somemore on sunday.It is starting to look like a Pizza Oven.

The door arch is done ,and the dome is under way

The first row of bricks is layed .

The start of the dome

Finally a day when its not raining.I went and hired a brick saw and cut the 120 fire bricks in half.Laid the insulating bricks and cut the floor tiles to shape and started to lay the first row of bricks for the dome.Dose not sound like much but a good days work.

The finish job looks good .

We poured the concrete today. Matt and Brendan and Debbie helped every thing went well except I was a bit short on concrete so I had to finish off with seven bags of concrete mix.

A closer look. Anne was'nt sure if I used enough steel butI think 12 mm deformed bar at 150 centers should be plenty strong enough.

The formwork is done I used up lot of timber I got off the council clean up plus all the bits I have been saving that might be usefull one day.Its is going to be interesting wheeling a barrow full of concrete up the ramp.

Today I went to collect some old galavanised iron from Roy on the way home I saw some new iron out for the council clean up so I ended up with twice as much as I needed plus enough to make a metal shelf for spare fire wood.I cut it to size and now we are ready to start installing the formwork.

It has finally stopped raining and I was able to get out and lay the last few bricks up to floor level.I also inserted a steel post as extra support for the concrete floor.

The brick work for the side table is up to the correct height. The front wall and corners for the oven slab are also up to the correct height. It's been hard, hot work up to this point. Now it won't stop raining and I cannot get the last few bricks laid so I can move on to the next stage.

The brick laying has started and is finally above ground all round.

I should have taken more time with the footings, it would have made the first couple of rows easier.

My aching back would have liked that better.

The concrete is poured with the help of Tony my next door neighbour.

The footings are dug, the steel is in place, the sun is shining and we are ready for concrete.