Our family loves their home made pizzas so some time ago I decided to make a pizza oven. The inspiration came from a magazine article in the
Shed Magazine, my next door neighbour got onto it straight away and built one so I have some motivation to do mine, and someone to ask advice if needed.
I decided to build it next to the deck at the back of the house, we had cleared some privets out of area some time ago and it was an obvious place to build it. However I decided to do a bit more, the pizza oven needs a base of about 1.4m by 1.4m and I had an area that was 2.2m long, so I decided to build the base 1.4m by 2.2m and have a pizza oven on one side and then a brick braai/BBQ on the other side.
That decided the first job was clearing the area for the footings. Unfortunately the area where to oven was to go had a number of privet and other stumps and the whole area was about 10cm deep in tree roots. Plastic and bark mulch had been laid down years before we moved in and was now a bed of roots. Digging was accomplished more with an axe than a spade but the footings were prepared. Probably spent too much time here but wanted to make sure the footings would be level.
The material for the base was ordered and delivered, but all the the front of the house and so began the task of carrying stuff round the back, 145 concrete blocks at 3 blocks per load... you can work it out, but it took all afternoon and still a few left. I then cut the steel reinforcing (rebar) for the footings and blocks.
Yesterday the weather was forecast to be fine so I hired a concrete mixer and set about pouring the footings, not too difficult a job, just hard work carrying numerous barrows of concrete from the mixer at the front of the house to the back, transferring into buckets to get down the steps and then into the footings. Put about 50mm of concrete in, then put in the rebar, and then finished pouring the concrete.
Once I had finished pouring the concrete, I waited for an hour (well a bit of tidying up, and a cup of tea produced by Alison) and then I laid the first course of blocks. Took a while to get them all level and square especially as I am trying to mortar them together but got there in the end.
Finally inserted the vertical rebar to go through the masonry blocks. It is going to be a challenge getting the blocks over the rebar, as the whole base will end up 2m high from the group in order to be at the right height next to the deck.
Firsts for the day: hiring a concrete mixer, mortaring and laying masonry blocks.
The slab has to cure for a few days so I can do some work on the front garden, it is looking truely tragic at the moment. I also need to start ordering the materials for the oven or there will be no building going on at all.
