Watch step by step as we build this custom island as part of a custom backyard design. Thepizza oven we designed for this particular home owner was an insert manufactured on a cart that is removable for use as a built in insert ofr an outdoor kitchen. Most pizza ovens are not like this. This is a wood-burning oven with an area defined by the cart structure for storing wood below the fire box. The inner liners of the pizza oven insert are lined with natural stone to hold heat inside the oven.
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Just an empty corner of the screened-in backyard. Ths is our space. We are on the far side of the pool here furtherest away from the house. A wood burning pizza oven is designed t use a single fire to heat the oven and hold the heat for several days. The insulated cast iron, natural stone, stainless steel and the architecture of the chimney allow the heat to store in the oven while the fire burns and burns down. The fire is placed in the lower chamber of the pizza oven in this design and the heat from below keeps the stone liners hot. As with any pizza oven a single fire may go out after a few hours but the cook-box will be hot for three or four days. |
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Using a heavy gauge steel frame engineered to resist moisture and weather and treated with a coating we manufacture a cage is the shape of the completed grill island. The pizza oven is very heavy and this design of built in pizza oven spreads that weight to 4 legs which must be resting on an area capable of supporting all the weight of these thick cast iron and stone lined walls. |
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The completed cage pitches along the bottom to match the floor so the counter top is always perfectly level no matter how steep the pitch of the deck was built. The cage is covered with a concrete board that is totally impervious to moisture, flames and extremes of hot and cold. The walls are completely covered and then coated with a mixture similar to a joint compound to ensure settling over time will not show cracks at the corners. |
Built in Lynx gas grill in custom outdoor kitchen with bar height seating and serving area against a wall.
Most built in custom pizza ovens are not built this way. Most pizza oven inserts designed to be built into an outdoor kitchen structure look more like a stone dome with a half-circls opening on one side. This stone dome is built into a masonry enclosure and covered with vermiculite or some other insulating enclosure because extreme temperatures will cause masonry enclosures to expand and contract and even break. This backyard design already had a floor poured and sculpted as the homeowner desired. Without the ability to pour a slab with steel rebar attaching the slab grounding through the mosonry walls we would have needed to cut into their brand new concrete deck. This was not an option so we built a bage with the cast iron and stone insert.
The customer told me the finished product is much better than she envisioned in her imagination and the pizza oven cooks incredibly well.