Pizza Oven Started

Donna and I were able start the pizza oven this morning and made good progress. First step was to put down a fiberglass insulation blanket on the stand and then place the oven floor stones on the blanket. Here's a picture after we got this done.

The dome is made in 3 very heavy pieces so we used the tractor to move them over to the stand and then set them over the floor by hand.

There is a bit of a slope behind the pavilion but using the tractor worked well, this picture shows the last piece of the dome ready to be removed from the tractor bucket and set in place. Notice that I was able to use the stabilizer leg from the tractor backhoe to get the bucket level with the oven stand.

Here's a shot with all three of the dome pieces in place.

Next we put on one of the chimney pipe sections to make sure it would extend just up next to the edge of the roof- this way we don't have to make any cuts or changes to the metal roof of the pavilion.

Put a tarp over the dome in case we get rain.

Next steps will be to use special high heat refractory mortar to cover the joints and seams where the dome sections fit together. Then we'll attach the chimney pipe permanently.After that, we have about a 3" layer of fiberglass insulation that will cover the dome to keep the heat in. Eventually will add a stone arch at the door to the oven and cover the entire oven with a couple of layers of stucco.

We were really happy with the progress we made this morning!