Pizza Oven Build – Part 1

I’ve spent hours upon hours researching wood burning pizza ovens, how they work, and how to build them… and now it’s finally my turn to make my own! I actually wrote a blog about this in June last year so that shows how much thought has gone into this, so have a read!

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Part 1 – The Base

Pizza ovens are heavy things  so once you’ve decided on the scale of you’re oven it’s time to build the base. I’ve not got a 100% definite plan of how things are going to turn out but I know I need a solid concrete base and so that’s where part one takes me.

1. Decide the location of the pizza oven.
2. Dig out the earth to a suitable depth.
3. Insert a wooden frame and make sure it’s level.
4. Add rubble/gravel and pound down.
5. Add concrete and rebar (metal rods for strength).

There are plenty of guides on how to do this so I won’t go in that much detail but there are two helpful tips I can give you.

You will need to dig out a lot of soil… and it has to go somewhere.

I took out about four heaped wheelbarrow loads and luckily I was able to put the soil in my raised beds…. and the chickens got lots in their run too. Have a plan where it’s going to go!

You will need a lot more concrete than you think you do!

I ended up having to buy 13 bags of 25kg concrete mix which works out as 325kg or 716 lbs or 51 stone! Combine the rubble etc added and you’ve got yourself a solid base!

This cost me around £65 with pre-mix bags bought from Homebase (2 miles down the road.) You can make concrete cheaper if you buy the ingredients (sand, ballast, cement) separately but I decided it was worth the few extra quid to only have to travel a short distance with all that in the trunk and even then it was still took 2 trips.

What next?

Next up I will be bricklaying and building the wall! I will also add that if you don’t need to build a base and already have a patio then consider using that as your base as it’ll save you a lot of effort!