Pizza Oven From Old Backyard Materials (no Costs!)

I was refurbishing my garden, so I had to take out every tile and brick. Halfway through, I remembered that I had once seen on Youtube that someone had made a pizza oven from a few patio tiles and some bricks. He had bought these materials at the hardware store, so they were still nice and tight, but why couldn't it be done with a little waste from your own garden? I made this because it seemed fun to me and because I was curious. Only later did I realize that this could be an Instructable. So sorry for the less good pictures, but here's a recipe for a free pizza oven.

Almost no materials needed! Since the materials com from your backyard, I don't know what size of your tiles and bricks are. For my project I used this:

• 2 60x90x8cm concrete tiles
• 40 patio bricks, size about 7x20x8 cm

Make sure you have a leveled and steady underground. Be aware that the fire to heat the oven is made on this underground, so don't build this on your new patio. That might give some discussion with your better half...

I've started with the pattern like in the picture above. If you have other sized bricks, no problem. Just make sure it's big enough to put a big tile on top and also to put a pizza in.

At the back of the second layer the brick has to be a little backwards. The opening you will create with this behind the first tile ensures that the heat passes through the oven. This will also make the top of your pizza tasty! Depending on the size of your brick, you might want to support the brick that sticks out, at least when you are still building. When you have finished your oven, the weight of the top tile will keep the bricks in place.

The third layer can also be added.

Now let's speed up a bit. The rest.

You can place the first tile there. This is the tile on which the pizza will be baked, so a very important tile! Lay the tile so that it rests on the sides and that the air passage on the back remains unobstructed. Fill the back with stones so that you can put the fourth layer on top.

The fourth layer is identical to the 3rd layer. And in my design the fifth layer too. So the fifth layer can go right on top!

The second tile is placed on top of the fifth layer. This also has to close the air passage, so it can go a little further to the back.

I've played a bit with the positioning of the bricks to get the top tile as leveled as possible. You have to avoid cracks as much as possible, because it will cost you heat which should have gone to your pizza!

Now you have a Pizza Oven!

Man make fire!

The time has come to test the bastard. Warming up will cost some time. I've started a fire and waited for 75 minutes before the temperature was good and the tile was also warm enough.In the comments, people were warning for a possible steam explosion. Make sure to increase the temperature gradually and always be careful! I've used a pizza stone to lay on top of the tile. That's not necessary, but I didn't feel like making the tile completely sand-free, but I didn't feel like pizza with sand either. So this was the lazy version: a pizza stone. As you can see on the second picture, I've put some extra bricks in front of the fire. I hoped more heat would go through the air passage in the back. Not sure if it helped, but sometimes you just have to believe.

I've made 4 pizza's in the oven, one for each family member. They actually all turned out well, to my own surprise!

So, is this the best pizza oven ever? Absolutely not! Because this are actually used materials and not brand new materials from the hardware store, you have to deal with cracks where heat will escape. So i'ts a bit inefficient.

But was it fun to build, without any costs with some leftovers from your backyard? Absolutely! And it was a real pleasant suprise that the pizza's all came out well!

This was a project just for fun and unplanned. So there might be a lot of room for improvement. If you plan to build a pizza oven like this, use your creativity. If it turns out well, please let me know!!