DIY Pompeye oven

Do you want to add a little rustic charm to your home’s heating system upgrade? The homemade Pompeye oven is the only place to look. This creative and effective heating solution is ideal for stylishly heating and insulating your home because it blends old world craftsmanship with contemporary features.

The Pompeye oven, modeled after traditional European designs, provides a more affordable and environmentally responsible option for heating systems than traditional ones. Using basic materials like clay, bricks, and fireproof mortar, anyone with a basic understanding of do-it-yourself construction can build this oven. Due to its small size, it can be used in both indoor and outdoor settings, giving your house a variety of heating options.

The Pompeye oven’s remarkable thermal efficiency is one of its main benefits. It can effectively warm your living area while using the least amount of energy by utilizing radiant heat. Its design also permits prolonged heat retention, guaranteeing constant warmth all day and night.

In addition to being a stylish focal point for your home, the Pompeye oven heats food. Its rustic appearance lends charm to any space, making it comfortable and welcoming for you and your family to enjoy. This oven will undoubtedly draw attention whether it is placed in your kitchen, living room, or outdoor patio.

It is more crucial than ever to find sustainable heating solutions because of the rising cost of energy and the growing concerns about its effects on the environment. You can stay warm and cozy while lowering your carbon footprint by heating and insulating your home with the help of the do-it-yourself Pompeye oven. It is a useful and eco-friendly solution. Embrace the do-it-yourself movement and experience the pleasures of home heating with the classic Pompeye oven.

Materials Needed:	1. Clay 2. Sand 3. Straw 4. Firebricks 5. Metal Grate 6. Metal Drum or Bucket
Steps:	1. Mix clay, sand, and straw to form a sturdy mixture. 2. Build a base layer with the mixture to form the oven"s floor. 3. Shape the mixture into a dome, leaving an opening for the door. 4. Let it dry completely. 5. Place firebricks inside for insulation. 6. Insert a metal grate for cooking surface. 7. Secure a metal drum or bucket over the dome as a cover. 8. Start your fire and cook!

In this article, we delve into the DIY Pompeii oven, a fantastic addition to any home for baking pizzas and more. Building your own Pompeii oven can be a rewarding project, offering not just delicious food but also a cozy gathering spot in your backyard. With the right materials, some patience, and a bit of skill, you can create a beautiful and functional oven that adds charm and warmth to your outdoor space. Whether you"re a seasoned DIY enthusiast or a beginner looking for a fun challenge, this project is sure to spark your creativity and bring joy to your cooking adventures. So, roll up your sleeves and get ready to embark on a journey to build your very own Pompeii oven!

A little story

These days, pizza is a highly well-liked food in many nations, and some even consider it a delicacy. Interestingly, though, it used to be the most reasonably priced food available to low-income Italians. Nonetheless, this dish’s excellent satisfaction, ease of preparation, and wide range of recipes based on the filling used made it popular all over the world. As a result, it is currently challenging to locate a nation without pizza.

However, those who traveled to Italy and sampled the dish’s traditional preparation typically observed that it differs greatly from pizza made, for example, in Russia. It’s the method that a skilled Italian pizzaiolo uses, not the ingredients that are used in the cooking process. The Pompeyskaya wood stove is the only appliance used to bake authentic pizza, and it only uses oak firewood. The classic flavor of this open pie cannot be replicated with any of the contemporary kitchen gadgets that appear to have been designed with this in mind.

Only the Pompeiy stove and oak wood are used to make authentic Italian pizza. There is a significant difference between what is suggested in the majority of current pizzerias!

If everyone in the family loves pizza, it makes sense to construct a Pompeye furnace on their property so they can always have the flavor of authentic Italian food whenever they want.

These days, there are businesses that sell pre-made kits for building brick furnaces on firewood and installing them in courtyards. If you are the type that prefers to work alone, you can attempt furnace art after studying drawings and recommendations. In addition, the design lacks numerous cameras and intricate channels, unlike heating furnaces that are installed in homes.

What is Pompeyska stove

The principle of operation of the pompeye furnace

Many centuries have passed since the creation of this design. This hemisphere is exclusively utilized for cooking and features an arched hearth. There are no heating features available.

A stove fixed into a metal foundation.

The street, terraces, veranda, or gazebo are the locations where the furnace is installed. It can be erected on a metal structure or a capital base composed of bricks or blocks. In the traditional version, the lower portion of the furnace serves as a niche for drying firewood rather than being used for making pizza.

The Pompeysk furnace was constructed using capital bricks.

Regarding the Pompeye furnace’s appearance—it’sentirelyconstructed of stone and has a fireplace-like appearance.

The upper portion of the building, which is actually where cooking is done, resembles the Russian furnace’s hearth but is different from it in terms of both design and method of operation. A high temperature is created inside the furnace chamber, which reaches 320 degrees 30 minutes after the firebox is started, because the chimney is situated directly above the entrance and is isolated from the furnace chamber. Cooking is accelerated significantly by this. The "classic" pizza claims to be prepared in just two to three minutes.

Because the furnace chamber is shaped like a dome, heated air from the fire rises and warms the arch before flowing smoothly into the chimney.

An approximate diagram showing the Pompeye furnace’s operating principle.

Pizza cooked in one of these furnaces is heated evenly. Heat is emitted from the dome, the base (which serves), and the warmed circulating air flows.

The furnace chamber can be heated using charcoal or firewood. The leftover heat in the chamber after the fuel burns out and the pizza bakes is retained for a long period and can be utilized to cook potatoes or sear meat, for example.

Some owners of furnaces supply paste-covered metal lids to keep the heat in the room longer. They could have a thermometer installed to display the chamber’s air temperature.

Design features of the Italian furnace

You need to become more acquainted with the furnace’s structure in order to convey the amount of work. To illustrate this, a drawing scheme of one of its dimensional options is provided along with the materials that are used to construct each structural component.

The Pompeye furnace’s schematic (side view).

1. Reinforced concrete foundation. Its deepening depends on the composition of the soil at the site of the construction of the furnace. Since the design of this furnace does not differ in particular massiveness, usually the thickness of the foundation plate is from 150 to 300 mm.
2. The walls of the lower part of the furnace, which are most often built from hollow expanded clay-concrete or concrete blocks. Voids in the blocks are filled with the heat -insulating composition – perlite, vermiculite or expanded clay mixture.
3. The walls are binded usually by reinforced concrete overlap.
4. On top of the ceiling, a laying of insulation material is made – a mixture of cement and vermiculite, 50 ÷ 100 mm thick.
5. Then, waterproofing material foil upwards is laid up.
6. The next layer is a sand-clay pillow with a thickness of 50 mm.
7. Three of the above layers should be located between the lower part of the walls forming the set.
8. Next, there is a bottom of the furnace chamber (under), it is laid out of chamotis brick.
9. An air duct is equipped in the back wall.
10. The set consists of four layers – a ball brick, insulation material, a reinforcing mesh and a mixture of cement and vermiculite.
11. An arch is laid out on the facade side – the entrance of the hearth.
12. A hole is equipped in the upper part of the arch to install a chimney.
13. If the arched hole is planned to be made open, then the input height should be no more than 60% or slightly less than the height of the dome. Otherwise, the proper heat cannot be obtained, as there will be large heat losses.
14. In this case, the door is installed on the arched hole, it can be removable or arched into the side walls of the arch.
15. The chimney is installed on top of the hole located above the arch.

Although the furnace’s dimensions are flexible, the proportions should generally stay within the ranges shown in the scheme.

There are two varieties of Neapolitan or Tuscany domes for the furnace:

Tuscan-shaped stove featuring a vaulted ceiling.

• Tuscan version of the furnace chamber is made in the form of a hemisphere. It is easier to cope with his masonry than with the Neapolitan vault. Such cameras are suitable not only for cooking pizza, but also for baking bread, as well as cooking in cast -iron pots, so they are considered universal.

Italian furnace in Neapolitan style.

• Neapolitan vault – lower and gentle. Such stoves are more often used only for cooking pizza.

This table displays the parameters of the heating and temperature distribution within the Pompeye furnace, taking into account the 80 mm thickness of the combustion chamber base and the arch walls.

The area of heating of the furnace	Heating time and temperature (° C) from the beginning of the furnace firebox.
30 minutes	45 minutes	60 minutes	90 minutes
The outer surface of the arch	150	260	370	370
The inner surface of the arch	315	370	370	370
The surface is served	315	370	370	370
The bottom is served	150	260	370	370

Materials and tools for building a Pompeye furnace

If you have made the decision to construct your own Italian furnace, you must prepare ahead of time by gathering the supplies and equipment you will need.

You will require the following supplies to install the furnace on a concrete foundation:

• Brick or hollow blocks for building the lower part of the furnace with a niche located in it.
• Chamotum brick for the construction of the furnace itself – the dome and.
• Cement, gravel-sand mixture, chamotte clay, sand, vermiculite or ready-made mixtures for the manufacture of solutions.
• Reinforcing mesh or wire to strengthen the dome.
• Insulation with a thickness of 5 ÷ 10 mm.
• Chimney pipe.
• Wooden stakes used in laying the dome.
• Boards and beams for formwork and subpoenes.
• Plywood 3 mm thick for the dome template.
• Waterproofing material for flooring on top of the foundation and under the floor slab.
• Facing material – broken tiles for stove finishing, large pebbles or decorative plaster.
• The countertop laid in front of the entrance to the furnace chamber.

Details on how to knead the stove stove proportion solution might be of interest to you.

The parameters of the chosen furnace model will determine the size and quantity of the materials.

Tools for furnace masonry.

Furthermore, when working, you will need the specialized instruments that stovers use, which are as follows:

• Bulgarian for pruning bricks;
• rubber hammer;
• building level;
• rule;
• construction square;
• spatula and trowel;
• plumb line;
• containers for solution and water;
• If finished dry building mixtures are used – a construction mixer or a special nozzle on an electric drill.

You might be curious to know which furnace brick works best for building furnaces and fireplaces.

Building the Pompeye furnace on its own

In this section, we’ll talk about the possibility of building a Pompey furnace model with a Tuscan dome, which would enable baking bread in addition to pizza preparation.

One can construct a Pompeyan furnace on their own.

Although the master in this instance created the arch without the need for templates, working with such a business approach requires many years of experience. Plywood or hard cardboard templates are typically used when erecting hemispheres. After serving their purpose in forming the required form, these auxiliary elements burn out during the furnace’s initial test.

Templates for the Pompeii stove vault’s hemisphere arrangement.

The image offers choices for pre-made templates:

• From plywood. It is cut into stripes, which are fastened together at the highest point of the vault, and also fixed to the lower plywood element-exposure at the base of the hemisphere;
• From corrugated cardboard. Numerous triangles with a rounded hypotenuse (sectors) are cut from this material. The height of one of the legs should correspond to the height of the vault, and the other – the radius of the stove feed. These elements are fastened to each other equal to the height of the vault and are installed in the center of the servings;
• From a piece of OSB. One part in the form of the sector is cut out of it. A reinforcing rod is installed in the center of the tax, which will perform the function of the axis, a template is picked up articiously to it. As the rows of brick is laid out, this template turns to the right place.

You can select the option that best suits the circumstances and is most convenient out of these.

Sketch of a countertop with a Pompeye furnace in service.

The dimensions of the countertops and servants under the furnace are shown in this drawing. Yet, inches are used as measurement units. However, switching to the metric system is simple. Just open the calculator app on your device and use the formula that an inch is equal to 25.4 mm.

An additional dimensional representation of the arch that can serve as a foundation for constructing a Pompeye furnace.

It makes sense to make the professional names of the parties to the brick clear in order to correctly understand the laying of the furnace, which will be presented in the table, as the name, "speak the same language." The description will make use of these terms.

The parties to the brick’s adopted names.

Now, let’s move on to a step-by-step analysis of the practical issues.

Creating a stove foundation

The Pompeye furnace should have a strong and stable foundation even though its size and mass are similar to one another. The aforementioned illustrations demonstrate that this is occasionally restricted to the construction of a welded steel structure. However, it is preferable to build a stove as a foundation if the stove is designed in a stationary version.

Since the quality of the base will determine the strength of the furnace structure as a whole, the location must be carefully chosen and the foundation work must be completed with utmost care.

Marking the site of the future building’s intended location is the first step in this process. Next, the turf is cleared to create a platform the size of the future foundation. As you remove the turf, dig the pit at the same time.

The soil’s quality determines how deep to set the foundation. You won’t need to dig the base if the soil is as dry and dense as it is in this instance. In the given example, the foundation master determined that removing the topsoil layer to a depth of 100 × 120 mm is sufficient.

Before pouring the foundation, the following tasks must be completed: marking, pit excavation, and formwork installation.

In order to pour the foundation on the ready-made site, a formwork made of boards with a sufficient thickness of 20 × 25 mm is placed there. The parties in this example measure 1650 × 1650 mm, while the height of the formwork is 180 ÷ 200 mm. However, you are free to decide on the size, for example, by expanding the furnace’s front or sides.

A "pillow" of sand drifts off to sleep at the bottom of the pit. Its thickness should be about 50 mm after tamping. This provides effective defense against the downward capillary suction of moisture. On top of the sand, 70 × 80 mm of middle fraction crushed stone or gravel is poured; this material must also be well compacted.

Waterproofing material (200 μm) can be used as a high-density polyethylene film to cover the resulting base. It is advised to lift the film up against the formwork walls and use a stapler to secure it to the boards. This barrier creates ideal conditions for concrete to mature by keeping water from evaporating from the poured solution, rather than shielding the plate from soil moisture. The future structure will always become less strong if the water-to-cement ratio is broken.

A future foundation slab’s connected reinforcing cage and a layer of waterproofing film

The waterproofing film is covered with reinforcing mesh, which can be either pre-made or attached to 6 x 8 mm diameter reinforcing rods. As seen in the picture, the master reinforced reinforcement with more rods along the regional zone surrounding the perimeter. Raising the grid above the waterproofing layer will place it roughly in the middle of the foundation slab’s thickness. The base should be 150 ÷ 170 mm above the soil’s surface.

An optional but still very helpful procedure is to install embedded vertical rods right away, which link the block masonry and foundation.

It makes sense to add vertical embedded elements right away after installing horizontal reinforcement, so that they are raised 300 × 350 mm above the foundation’s surface and connected to the lower frame. The structure that will be built on the completed foundation should have these vertical rods positioned in its corners. If the walls of the furnace’s lower chamber are made of hollow concrete blocks, then this kind of vertical reinforcement is required. The blocks are placed on the rod, which acts as a sturdy ligament connecting the structure to the foundation.

After pouring concrete into the formwork, align the surface.

Concrete solution is poured into the formwork following the completion of the reinforcing frame installation. You can restrict yourself to the concrete M200 stroke strength as large loads on the stove are not recommended.

Using the built-in online calculator, determine how many ingredients are needed to knead the concrete for filling the foundation plate:

Calculator for calculating materials for the preparation of concrete for the foundation slab

The formwork is filled with ready-to-use concrete. It is important to take precautions to make sure that it is compacted as much as possible to eliminate air pockets, particularly in the area close to the formwork’s edges and reinforcing bars. The use of a specialized deep vibrator or vibration is the best choice. In the event that such equipment is not available, filled concrete should at the very least be thoroughly "bayoned" with a shovel and a reinforcing rod should be cut.

The construction rule is used to align the filled concrete’s surface. The wooden formwork walls will have lights installed for alignment purposes. The foundation’s surface ought to be as level as feasible and arranged in a horizontal plane. The construction level has control over this.

The flooded should solidify and become stronger. That will require a minimum of three weeks. The native should be well moisturized for the first week after which it should be covered with plastic wrap. It is recommended that the coverage be completed no sooner than ten days later. Additionally, it is advised to begin additional work in three, or even better, four weeks. It will then be certain to be prepared to support the weights.

Pizza prices for Pompey stoves

firewood for pizza

For individuals who want to improve their home cooking experience, building their own Pompeii oven can be a fulfilling project. This traditional wood-fired oven offers a distinctive and genuine way to cook delicious meals, whether it’s baking pizzas or roasting meats. In your backyard, you can make your own DIY Pompeii oven with the correct supplies, equipment, and advice.

The effectiveness of a Pompeii oven’s heat retention is one of its main advantages. These ovens, which are made of sturdy materials like refractory cement and firebricks, can reach high temperatures and sustain them for long periods of time while using little fuel. This makes it perfect for get-togethers and parties since you can cook several dishes at once without having to constantly tend to the fire.

Additionally, you can modify a Pompeii oven to suit your unique requirements and tastes by building one. It’s up to you to decide how big or small of an oven you want for entertaining or using for yourself. Both size and design can be changed. Furthermore, you can customize the oven’s appearance by selecting various finishes and accent pieces that go well with your outdoor area.

The affordability of DIY Pompeii ovens in comparison to buying pre-made ones is another benefit. Even though building your own can save a lot of money, it does require time and effort. Commercial wood-fired ovens can be costly. With careful material selection and meticulous assembly, you can build an oven of comparable quality for a much lower price.

In conclusion, constructing your own Pompeii oven can be a useful and rewarding project. It not only provides a distinctive cooking experience, but it also lets you express your artistic and creative side. You can have years of enjoyment cooking delectable meals in your very own handmade wood-fired oven if you put in the necessary preparation, tolerance, and commitment.

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