Re: Costs and sources in Melbourne

Posted by Rado (144.138.69.166)

In Reply to: Costs and sources in Melbourne posted by Andrew

Andrew,
If you look around for better material prices, this oven can be built for $700 to $800 or even less. E.g. Trading Post and weekend advertisement papers, for fraction of price people sell or giveaway great left over material from other building projects (phone early because traders pick it up fast.) Otherwise if the material is purchased in yards, but no an extra special decorative stuff, the cost will reach ~$1350. In Melbourne 'Darley Refractories Pty. Ltd.' is the place to buy firebricks with bag of fireclay for mortar or bucket of ready mixed mortar. Best to have it all delivered because each fire brick weights 4-1/2Kg when soaked with water, at the time of order say not to charge you for pallet if you don't need it for some reason, they'll come to pick it up later. Here in Brisbane I pay $1.95 per firebrick (but some places will ask $3.50 and more for the same brick.) I buy all refractory material from large manufacturer 'ClayPave Pty. Ltd.' try to contact them about theirs resellers in your area or for the freight which they have great too claypave.com
In the cd there is one folder called 'Equivalent material and sources', so read about heat insulations to save big money! The CDrom has extra 40+ photo sequence on building smaller/simpler version of this oven, same quality and same internal cooking space size but minus the outside deco building brick walls. (MTo cd has also extra folder on building smaller cersion on that design.) Using stones collected locally in the nature gives great visual character too, few pictures of ovens built out of stones are in as well. People from USA, Canada, New Zealand, U.K. mention ovens can be built just the same way over there, just look for best prices.
You can make the Besser block walls with the oven on top at first, it goes quite fast, then let it sit to dry from water for 7-10 days, then apply few small drying fires and you can start to cook in it as is. And while already cooking the outer deco part can be finished slowly if you choose. Enjoy the hard-yakka. r

Re: Costs and sources in Melbourne