Before you start the dome......

Nows the time to review your plan before you start, look at:
positioning on the slab
internal floor dimensions and the size of floor tiles/bricks you are using.
door positioning
door size in relation to pizza width
baking pan/tray widths to door width
chimmney position
amount of depth at front for resting items from oven
and so much more, visualise the end result, do some brick layouts to help.



You can see here I can tell where the oven is going, the depth, door width, my ash drop and the amount of space at the front of the oven door. Its REALLY good to just do this and look at it. by me doing this I can see I can come forward a bricks width maybe and have a slightly larger/deeper oven. I can utilise the front "drop" to the chimney as this extension.

More on that as I progress.

Hebel Thermo Layer

Once the concrete slab was dry I laid another course of bricks which is the last, this will contain the Hebel layer.
As you can see below I simply cut the hebel to fit with an angle grinder, you could do it with a saw but this was quicker although VERY dusty so wear your mask, glasses, gloves AND ear gear, I would also suggest wearing a hat as my hair was full of dust at the end.

I glued the hebel together for extra strenght, its a special mix for hebel. the hebel is the same hieght as a brick so that left me with a small gap to the top brick because of the brick mortar height, this I filled with a thin layer of sand to make it perfectly level. below you can just see the ash dump hole, it looks small compared to ones I have seen but it wouldn't take much effort to make it bigger in the future as it is positioned at the oven door. At this stage i'm thinking Ash is Ash and small !

Next week we can start the dome.

Top Slab Laid

Before the top slab is laid I have cut a hole through the corragated iron for my ash dump.


I then place a off cut of rain downpipe into the hole so when i pour the concrete the hole remains.

I place the reo and reo-props before laying the concrete.

All done, I let it set for a couple of hours and wiggled the downpipe a few times, Th enext week it was very easy to pull out. Another idea is to line it with plastic wrap, the wrap will be easy to peel off the cement.

top slab gravel

Run with me on this post...

I have poured in a mix of gravel and soil to fill the grooves of the corro to make a flat surface, the reason is I am putting in (cutting out) an "ash drop" so i need to layout the oven bricks to see where to cut through the corro BEFORE laying the concrete, what i will be doing is creating a hole/slot at the oven entry so I need to know now where that entry point will be.


For this I have done a mock layout of bricks and my dome template.

i won't explain these images now as it will be explained once i have done it.

I'll be leaving the gravel there as the concrete will absorb into it anyway thus creating concrete !

top slab support

Now I have put the corrogated iron on top, this was off cuts from a building site thus the angle you see, i just overlapped them and filled the gaps with leftover mortar, i also mortared atround the sides, this way when I pour in the concrete next week it won't seep down any gaps at the edges.

This is solid as a rock, with the L-shape design and the extra reo i put in its not going anywhere !


Here's my daughter standing on top, one of those moments never to be repeated as it will soon be a pizza oven.

10th level

Now that i have done the 9th level and put in the reo i have finished the 10th level which will basically be the surround for the top concrete slab, what i didn't photograph here,sorry, was that i put mortar along the inside bricksso that when i place the corrogated iron down the mortar will fill all the gaps making the back area vermin proof.

the next posts will further explain this.

This level is also the one that i use the lintels on to create the bridge of bricks for the underneath wood storage area and the "ash drop".

I found that the bricks didn't like th elintel, i think becuase IF i was to do another level of bricks it would be all ok BUT as i am using this 1 level of bricks as the "level" to lay the top slab at this stage i can't do the next layer of bricks until the slab is laid.

What i learnt from this is that I started at the back of the structure and ahd it all level but thenonce i got to the lintels it through it all out !!!!, if i was to do it again i would START at the lintel and lay bricks on that and then level the layer from that height.

Preparing for the top concrete slab

So i have now gone up 9 levels of bricks and although i have put in inside supports for the corrigated iron to pour the top concrete slab onto I feel i still need some more support in certain areas.

You can see here all i have done is angle grind some dints in the bricks and run reo rods across it. they are JUST behind the brick where the lintels will go, the cross section of my 2 underneath openings, the big hole at the back and the small gap on the right.

Here is a close up of the groves i created to slot the reo in, i also secured them with a bit of "liquid nails" just so they don't move, the weight once the slab is poured will also secure them.