Residential Pizza Oven

[system]

Hi,
I am in the process of building a pizza oven at my home. I have the footer already, I am going to start building soon. I got a few books and checked out websites for instructions. My question is does anyone know if the brick hearth slab needs to have the airflow below the slab? is that important for the quality of the pizza? We were thinking that we could use block instead of the poured slab underneath the brick hearth??? if anyone has any coments or experience with building a home oven please tell me your comments before i start building. Thanks!

By the way it is going to be 64x72 with counters on each side and it is going to be brick and stone.

 

[NicksPizza]

What you want to research is “mass ovens”. My reading suggests that you can, indeed, use block under the deck, but will be less happy with the perfrormance. It really depends on your overal deck lamination and construction. The density/mass of the hearth and walls will be what controls the heat and insulates the whole oven . . . if it is similar to roman baths in distributing heat with a fire below, then you’ll want air flow around the whole baking chamber. If the fire is inside the oven, heating it up, then either brushed to the side or cleaned out to bake, then the mass density is the key element.

 

[system]

Thanks Nick!
I think I will just stick to the slab with air flow.