jbutterfield

Jim-Thanks for the comments! It is really nice to get non-judgemental advice from someone that has a ton of experience. Maybe next time mine will turn out better, we can always hope to improve.

The chimney is outside the dome so I do not close it off. If I bake bread then I heat up the oven, take the remaining coals out, put the loaf in (when cool enough), and put a board in the doorway to the oven. Retains the heat for the baking process. You can also use a handheld sprayer to add a mist of water for a wet heat. I really like your oven.

I agree, best way to know who is at the party is to host the party.

Great job, I really like it. Check out Fornobravo.com as there are tons of examples to give you ideas. Everything from a brick base to a 2 in square steel support. Good luck.

Cost was about $2000-$3000. Most of the materials are cheap. Fire bricks and refractory cement are not.

I have used the oven for baking bread and cooking things other then pizza and find that the performance is just fine. That being said, I have not tried baking multiple loaves of bread or a large amount of meats based on retained heat. Maybe in the next house I own, I will change up the design. By the way, thanks for putting the designs on the web. It was a huge help when I designed my oven and I think the overall results were improved due to those plans.

I think that insulation and oven wall thickness is a definite variable in the oven heating time. Thinner walls and more insulation would allow the oven to heat and cool faster. My walls are 4 inch thick brick, so there is a lot of mass that needs to be heated. It does stay hot for a long time though.

I have three thermocouples in the oven. Top, side, and bottom. They are cool and I used them for the first three or four times I fired up the oven. Now I judge the heat based on how the inside of the dome looks.

60 pounds, although the farthest shots were with 50 pounds. Too much is not always a good thing.