Pizza ovens and water are not friends. It is very important for the longevity of your pizza oven that water ingress is minimised by construction techniques and materials. This is where our kit sets excel. They are designed for the kiwi environment.
Masonry products love to suck up water. The capillary ability of concrete (ability to move water through itself) is quite remarkable so a crack or unprotected materials exposed to the elements can result in water soaking across the oven.
The diagram below illustrates water ingress into a pizza oven. The different layers readily absorb rain water.
When the oven is heated, this trapped water can boil producing steam which cannot escape quickly enough and so cracks the masonry. (see cracking section).
Without proper construction planning, a damp oven will need to be slowly dried before each use to allow time for moisture to escape. This is painstaking and can stand in your way of using the oven. You want an oven that's ready to go when you are!
Now lets looks at the various things we can do about water ingress...
Click here to enlarge illustration
When considering a floor construction technique we strongly recommend that the firebricks on the hearth are not exposed to the outside elements. Despite being dense and heavy, they are very porous and readily soak up water. If your base bricks are damp then your oven will be slow to heat and pizza bases will turn out soggy. The fire bricks must be dry to wick moisture out of the dough to give it that delicious crunch!
The advantage of forming an oven over a hexagon shaped cardboard mould is that we can trim our floor bricks to size with straight cuts, then encapsulate them within the oven. That way your oven is ready to go when you are!
Click here for an oven construction summary video.
