Apologies for the ridiculously long break from posting on the blog. I wish I had some sort of amazing excuse, like I have been trekking through the rain forests of Borneo or have been away swimming every river in South America, but alas, I have not! Life has just run away with me, and by life I mean the day job. What can I say apart from sorry to anyone who was expecting this blog to be full of up-to-date, exciting articles relating to the world of clay ovens, pizzas and such like. Well anyway, I’m back (hooray I hear no one shout!).
It’s been a very wet and miserable winter here in southern UK. We have had floods and super high winds which resulted in a 24 hour power cut here at home on Christmas Eve (which was actually quite nice). It’s hardly been clay oven weather. You’ll see that I did some major repairs on my oven last May. I covered the oven up ready for winter in late September this year and I have not had a look since the onset of the dreadful weather. If I’m honest, I’m too scared to uncover it. I noticed a small hole in the top of the tarp, which covers it, this week. I fear the worst. I’ll have a look this weekend (weather pending!) but I know that I should have built a really good roof for it this year, as intended. I just never got around to doing it.
There are some fantastic and elaborate roof designs you can choose from, with many examples on the web (and some here on my site). I was thinking of doing something really simple – like the traditional example shown in the image below. Obviously, one would need to cover the sides during the worse of the winter months but a tarp over the top would do.
Traditional oven and simple roof.
I’d probably extend my chimney out through the top of the roof structure using a commercially available stainless steel chimney pipe.
Here’s a few examples from the Your Ovens section of my blog :
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- An update from Chris (see above). A roof , chimney and door added. Love it!
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- What a neat little oven this is from Tony in Plymouth, UK. Great work.
Whatever you choose to do, don’t leave the oven out to the elements, especially if you live in a place where it rains regularly. Learn from my mistakes – this is what happens.
Don’t try this at home!
If you have any examples you’d like to share, please do so either link to a photo on the comments section (below) or drop me an email and I’ll upload the photos to the blog.
It’s nice to be back!
Speak soon
Simon
The Clay Oven 